The pleasure was devastating, it crested and broke into a thousand shimmering pieces inside her. Her whole body shuddered and—had she been able to make a noise—she might well have done what she feared, and screamed.
But he took all that sound, his hot tongue devouring, thrusting deep, stealing her breath. He knew exactly how to touch her to keep the pleasure coming, his hand relentless between her legs, not letting up for a second and, as her first orgasm started to ease, it sort of stuttered and became a second one that sent her right back into a meltdown.
He kissed her while the aftershocks trembled through her, demanding kisses at first, tapering to soft, slow kisses as her tremors eased. She clung to him, unable to move. And though she’d just had a simply stupendous double climax, she ached, hot and wet. She’d been sated and yet—in no way sated—perhaps only finally, fully awakened.
Irrevocably awakened.
Oh, God, what have I done? He’s addictive!
They stayed like that for a long moment, forehead to forehead, both breathing unevenly. Then, with a lingering caress, he withdrew his hand.
He was motionless a few moments, then she heard a sharp intake of breath and a pained groan when he reached down and adjusted himself.
She fisted her hands and squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think about that part of him he’d just touched. That part she’d caught a glimpse of when he’d dropped his towel, just enough to feed her insatiable curiosity.
No wonder Katherine had said she was dying without him.
There was no way she could let such a thing happen again. If she permitted even one more kiss today, she’d be in his bed. He was too sexy; she was already far too infatuated with him, and once in his bed, her defenses would come crashing down and she’d lose herself.
Why not just toss your heart out the airplane window, Zanders? a small inner voice snapped. You’d have about as much promise of a safe landing.
Dageus MacKeltar was more man than she could handle. She was a little-leaguer, clutching a ratty, secondhand mitt, trying to play ball with the pros. Just one good ground ball would knock her on her ass. And the game would move on without her.
Neither of them said a word, just sat in the dim shadows of the plane, trying to regain control.
Chloe was suddenly afraid that she might never get it back around him.
She was dozing again, and Dageus was paging through the third Book of Manannán.
Or trying to.
He was concentrating as well as any man in acute sexual agony could be expected to.
Not at all.
He kept seeing Chloe’s flushed face: her lips swollen from his kisses, the skin around her mouth chafed from whisker burn, her eyes sleepy-sexy with desire as she reached her woman’s peak and shuddered against him. Twice. Clung to him—as if she’d needed him. He’d held her heavy breasts in his hands. He’d touched her between her thighs.
He’d needed her so desperately that he’d nearly cast a Druid spell to fog the minds of the passengers, and pushed as far as she would go. Had contemplated taking her to the bathroom with him. Only her maiden state had stopped him. He’d not spill Chloe’s virgin blood like some barbarian, in a two-by-two room with cardboard walls.
She’d have gone farther, had he pressed. Might have permitted his hand inside her trews, but had he gone that far, there would have been no stopping. So he’d kept his hand safely outside her trews and settled for releasing one of them.
He’d never felt such lust before. Though tooping took the edge off, it was wont to leave him strangely wanting. Touching Chloe made him think there might be some eventual satisfaction he’d never before achieved.
In the meantime, he was rock-hard and in pain.
Still, he brooded, he supposed it was a fair trade-off, for though he was in an agony of sexual need, their intimacy had mellowed the fury within him. Where earlier in the penthouse he’d been afraid of what he might do, her kisses had given him back a measure of control. Not much, but enough to work with.
In the past, he’d always needed to complete the sexual act to gain respite, but not with Chloe. Merely kissing her, touching her, bringing her pleasure had calmed him, had cleared his mind a bit. He made no pretense to understand the how or why of it. It had worked.
He would accept that—that Chloe would tie him in knots, but preserve some measure of his sanity. What a boon her kisses would be on Scottish soil.
Och, the woman had something he needed. His instincts had been right when they’d said “mine.”
And that started a whole new train of possessive thoughts. Thoughts he could do naught about at the moment, so he took slow deep breaths and forced his thoughts to the pressing issues at hand.
What was to come anon would require all his wits and will. Once he was in Scotland, he knew the changes would speed up again. Changes he had to find a way to stop.
And to do so, he had to face his brother.
Drustan, ’tis me, Dageus, and I’m sorry I lied, but I’m dark and I need to use the library.
Aye, that would go over well.
Drustan, I failed. I broke my oath and you should kill me.
Nay, not that, not yet.
Och, brother, help me.
Would he?
Bletherin’ hell, you should have let him die! his da had shouted when, back in the sixteenth century, Dageus had summoned the courage to confide what he’d done.
How? How could I do that? Dageus had shouted back.
In saving him you destroyed yourself! Now I’ve lost both my sons—one to the future, the other to the black arts!
No’ yet, he’d protested.
But the look in his da’s eyes … it had said he’d believed there was no hope. Horrified, Dageus had fled through the stones, determined to find a way to save himself.
And now he’d come full circle, back to asking his clan for aid. He hated it. He’d not asked for help, not once in his life. ’Twas not his way.
Exhaling sharply, he accepted the scotch he’d requested from the flight attendant, and downed it in a single swallow. As the heat exploded inside him, the tightness in his chest first intensified, then eased. What could he say? How to begin? With Gwen, mayhap? She could work her feminine miracles with his brother. God knew, she’d been a miracle for Drustan.
He pondered various ways to approach him, but it was more than he could stand thinking on, so he forced his attention back to the text, needing something tangible to work with.
An hour later, just before landing, he paused, hand poised above his notebook. He’d finally found something worthwhile. The only mention he’d yet discovered about the fateful war that had occurred after the Tuatha Dé Danaan had left. Naught but a brief paragraph, it spoke of thirteen outcast Druids (so that was how many were inside him!) and of some heinous punishment they’d suffered. Though it did not elaborate further, beneath it was a notation that referred to the fifth Book of Manannán, as he’d suspected.
And if memory served him, the fifth volume was in the Keltar library.
Chloe mumbled softly in her sleep, drawing his gaze again. Reminding him that someone had tried to kill her—because of him.
He glanced at her bandaged hand and fierce protectiveness flooded him. He would let nothing harm her ever again.
He needed answers, and he needed them fast.
• 11 •
For the second time in as many days, Chloe had the strange and immensely irritating experience of walking down a crowded street with Dageus MacKeltar. The first time had been in Manhattan yesterday, and the same thing had happened there.
Men got out of his way.
Not because he was impolite or barged rudely down the sidewalk. On the contrary, he moved with the sleek grace of a tiger. Sure-footed, perhaps a bit predatory. And men instinctively circumvented him, going out of their way to give him wide berth.
The women, now they were a different matter. They were the irritating part. They’d reacted the same way in New York, but yesterd
ay it hadn’t bothered her as much. They moved aside, but barely, as if unable to resist brushing up against him, their heads turning twice, three times. One woman had shamelessly pressed her breasts against his arm in passing. On several occasions, Chloe cast an indignant glance over her shoulder, only to catch several of them ogling his behind. She might be small but—blast it all—she wasn’t invisible, walking along at his side, with his arm around her, his hand resting on her shoulder!
Not that he noticed the rubbernecking going on. He seemed oblivious to his effect on women. Probably so used to it that he no longer paid it any heed.
She longed for such oblivion, because watching so many women eye him hungrily was putting her in a bad mood. She cast more than a few pissed-off looks behind them.
The intense intimacy on the plane had stirred dangerously mushy feelings in her.
Face it, Zanders, you aren’t the kind of girl who can be physically intimate with a man without getting emotionally involved. You’re just not wired that way.
No kidding, she thought grumpily. She was having territorial feelings. Feelings she couldn’t afford, for he’d certainly not evidenced any territorial feelings about her. Fortunately, as she watched women stare at him, irritation was making short work of softer emotions. She savored the anger, preferring it to waffling in uncertain emotions. Anger was refreshingly tangible.
The moment they’d stepped off the plane in Inverness he’d grown cool again. Preoccupied. Businesslike. Collecting their luggage, striding briskly to the rental car agency. She’d had to repeat three times her request that he stop in Inverness for a coffee she desperately needed after traveling for fifteen hours. She wasn’t about to meet his family in the throes of caffeine withdrawal.
After so thoroughly losing control of herself on the plane, his detachment hurt. He’d kissed her into a stupor, given her her first-ever climax, then withdrawn in every possible way. She should have known, she brooded. What did you expect, Zanders? A declaration of intimacy just because you let him touch you intimately?
Damn it, she knew better than that. The two did not necessarily go together where men were concerned.
When they entered Gilly’s Coffee House, she stood beside him at the counter as he ordered, peeking at his profile. She wondered what he was thinking about, what had changed his mood so completely. The man ran hot and cold. That’s a good comparison, she thought, he’ll either scald me or freeze me; either way it’ll hurt.
Well, she wasn’t about to make the first move. If he wanted to go all reserved and professional, she could too. After all, he hadn’t said “Come with me to Scotland and let’s get to know each other.” He’d said, “Come with me to Scotland to help me translate texts. Oh, and I’ll try to seduce you too.”
How many times had Katherine called him? Had all nine of those messages been from her? That thought jarred her thoroughly back to reality She’d hate being that kind of woman. Pining after a man she couldn’t have.
She folded her arms across her chest. Stared straight ahead at the menu behind the counter.
“I always want you, Chloe-lass,” he murmured suddenly in a low voice, for her ears only. “There’s no’ a moment that I doona.”
Chloe scowled. What was he—a mind reader? Damn him anyway! Arching a brow, she tipped her head back, narrowed her eyes and gave him a chilly look. “Who said I was thinking anything even remotely like that? Do you just think I sit around with nothing better to do than think about you?”
“Nay, of course not. I merely thought to assure you that though my mind may seem far away, should you wish my attentions, you’ve only to say so.”
“I’m fine. I just want some coffee.”
“Mayhap you’d prefer to spend this eve with me at an inn, rather than going straight to my brother’s,” he suggested with a seductive smile.
Chloe scowl deepened.
“One eve is no’ enough?” he teased, though his eyes were distant. “Greedy lass, would you be wishing a week?”
“Get over yourself, MacKeltar,” she muttered. “Though the women out there”—she flung a hand toward the street—“seem to think so, I hate to break it to you, but the world does not revolve around you.”
Dageus’s nostrils flared and he inhaled sharply as he recognized her emotion. Jealousy. She’d been watching other women look at him (aye, he noticed, in a peripheral fashion) and it chafed her. That her desire for him was intense enough to make her feel jealousy, made him feel wildly possessive. His seduction was working. She was growing attached to him. Abruptly, he pulled her in front of him at the counter, and wrapped both arms around her waist. He held her while their order was filled, hungry for the feel of her wee body against his. She was stiff at first, but slowly the tension quit her small, lushly curved form.
When she leaned forward to take her latte and scone, he pressed against her from behind, deliberately brushing his hard arousal against her bottom, letting her know exactly how much she was always on his mind.
He smiled when she nearly dropped her coffee.
“I’d have bought you another,” he said with a shrug, when she glanced sharply over her shoulder at him, blushing as furiously as she was scowling. Like as not, he’d buy her the café if she indicated the slightest desire for it.
“You’re incorrigible,” she hissed. “Just so you know, what happened on the plane is not going to happen again,” she informed him, before turning and stalking off toward the rental car.
His eyes flared dangerously. Did the lass think to share such intimacies with him and then rescind them?
Och, nay, Dageus MacKeltar didn’t go backward. She would find that out soon enough.
As they neared their destination, Dageus grew increasingly subdued. After lengthy deliberation, he’d decided it best to simply appear on Drustan’s doorstep unannounced, hope Gwen answered the door, then hope for the best.
He glanced over at Chloe, acknowledging that he’d not have made this trip today alone. Even with her beside him, he’d considered turning around half a dozen times. Alone, he’d have tried the museums first, have put it off indefinitely, telling himself all manner of lies when the simple truth was that he didn’t want to face Drustan. But somehow, with her at his side, it didn’t seem nigh as impossible.
Her earlier irritation seemed to have passed or, as wee as she was, there simply wasn’t enough room in her to contain irritation and excited curiosity. She was sipping her coffee, staring out the window, pointing, and asking endless questions. What was that ruin? When did summer begin? When did the heather bloom? Were there really pine martens, and could she see one? Could they be petted? Did they bite? Could they go to the museums while they were there? How about Glengarry? How much farther?
He’d been answering absently, but she was so enamored by the vista that she hadn’t seemed to notice his inattention. He had no doubt that she would fall in love with his country. Her enthusiasm made him remember a time—what seemed a lifetime ago—when he, too, had viewed the world with wonder.
He forced his gaze away from her, and his thoughts back to the upcoming confrontation.
He hadn’t seen Drustan—awake, that was—in four years, one month and twelve days. Since the eve that Drustan had been placed in an enchanted sleep, to slumber for five centuries. They’d spent that final day together, trying to wedge a lifetime into it.
Twin brothers and best friends since they’d drawn breath, a mere three minutes apart, they’d said farewell that night. Forever. Drustan had gone to sleep in the tower, the tower that Dageus had to walk past a dozen times a day. At first, he’d bid his brother a sardonic “good morrow” each morn, but that had swift grown too painful.
Before Drustan had gone into the tower, they’d labored together over plans for a new castle that was to be Drustan and Gwen’s home in the future. After Drustan had gone to sleep, Dageus had immersed himself in overseeing the construction of it, directing hundreds of workers, making certain all was perfect, working alongside the men.
The castle had begun to consume him. Impossible for a man to labor daily for three long years and not lose a part of himself to not merely the act of creating, but the creation. The empty, waiting rooms were the promise of family and love. The promise of a future he’d never been able to envision for himself.
When Drustan had died, he’d gone and stood outside the castle for hours uncounted, staring at its dark and silent silhouette in the gloaming.
He’d imagined Gwen in the future, waiting. And Drustan never arriving. She would live alone. Nell had told him Gwen was pregnant, though Gwen herself had not yet realized it, which meant Gwen would raise their babes alone.
He imagined no candles ever flickering beyond those windows. No children ever padding up and down those stairs.
All the empty places inside him had finally been filled—not with good things, but with anguish, fury, and defiance. He’d shaken his fist at the heavens, he’d raged and cursed. He’d questioned all he’d been raised to believe.
And by the misty, crimson-streaked dawn, he’d known but one thing: The castle he’d built would be filled with his brother and his family.
Aught else was simply unacceptable. And if the legends were true, if the cost was his own chance at life, he’d deemed it worthwhile. He’d little left to lose.
“Hey, are you okay?” Chloe asked.
Dageus started, realizing he must have been stopped at the stop sign for several minutes. He shook his head, scattering the grim memories. “Aye.” He paused, weighing his next words. “Lass, I haven’t seen Drustan in some time.”
He had no idea how Drustan would react. He wondered if he would know, merely by looking at him, that he was dark. The bond of twins betwixt them was strong. Aye, I used the stones, but the legends were wrong. There was no dark force in the in-between. I’m fine. ’Tis but that this century is a marvel and I’ve been exploring a wee. I’ll come home anon. ’Twas the lie he’d been telling his brother since the day he’d made the mistake of calling him, unable to resist hearing Drustan’s voice, so he could assure himself that he was alive and well in the twenty-first century.
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