She heard feminine gasps behind her.
“So there he is,” one of the women exclaimed. “Not only did he refuse to answer any of our questions, he wouldn’t even show himself until you got here.”
The world receded around her and narrowed down to nothing but Cian. The expression in his whisky gaze was stark.
“Och, Jessica,” he said, his butter-rum voice rough and low. He was silent a moment, drinking her in. “I’m not much of a man when I can’t even protect my woman. The bloody glass reclaimed me and I couldn’t get to you!”
My woman, he’d called her. She could see in his eyes and hear in his voice that the day of worrying had been hell on him too. She was sorry it had been; and she was glad. Glad it hadn’t been just her going crazy. Glad because it meant his feelings matched hers. “Yes, you are,” she told him fiercely. “You’re more man than any I’ve ever known. You’re more man than any other man could ever hope to be. You’ve saved my life twice! I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. Besides, you couldn’t possibly anticipate that your stupid descendant would steal you. Who could have seen that coming?”
Behind her, someone cleared his throat. She thought it might be Drustan, but he and Dageus were so alike that it was hard to be sure. Then she knew it was Dageus because, with a note of wry amusement in his voice, he said, “His stupid descendant wishes to know how you release him, lass.”
She pressed her other palm to the glass. Cian aligned his to hers. They stared hungrily at each other. After being afraid she’d lost him, she needed to touch him, ached to feel his body against hers, to taste his kisses. To feels his hands claiming her. His woman, he’d called her, and she was pretty sure those weren’t words a ninth-century Highlander ever used lightly.
“Is it okay if I tell him?” she asked Cian.
He shrugged. “Aye, I suppose so.”
She said over her shoulder, “There’s a summoning spell—Lialth bree che bree, Cian MacKeltar, drachme se-sidh—but it won’t work right now because—”
Even as she was about to explain that not enough time had elapsed since that morning when he’d last been out, the runes carved into the ornate frame began to blaze with a brilliant inner light and the parameters of the library felt suddenly skewed. Her jaw dropped.
Cian looked just as startled as she. Then his dark eyes blazed with exultation. “Mayhap because the last two times were so short, lass,” he exclaimed hoarsely. “Who cares the why of it?”
He pushed forward, reaching for her. One moment Jessi had her palms pressed to cool glass, the next it was full black and icy, and then the warm strength of his hands was closing around hers. He separated from the mirror, peeling away from the silvery rippling pool, walking her backwards, his gilt-whisky eyes glittering with passion and lust not-to-be-denied.
She shivered with anticipation.
Distantly, she heard Chloe and Gwen’s startled exclamations, then heard nothing more when he ducked his head and slanted his mouth hungrily over hers. She melted into him, against the hot steel of his big body, threading her fingers into his braids, parting her lips, yielding utterly to him.
Abruptly, he dragged his mouth from hers. “Is this castle warded, kinsmen?” he grated over her shoulder.
One of the twins answered, “Well, aye—”
“Think you two puny Druids can hold this keep for a single night?” Cian cut him off.
“We two puny Druids,” one of the twins spat, “could hold—”
“—this keep for a blethering eternity if we so wished,” the other twin finished.
“Good. Go do it. Get the bloody hell out of here.”
He slanted his mouth over Jessica’s again.
Behind the passionately entwined couple, Drustan’s eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared. “Of all the arrogant—”
“Remember the day I trapped you in the garderobe and you finally remembered who I was, my love?” Gwen interrupted softly.
Drustan swallowed the rest of his words. Did he ever! He’d been nigh crazed with desire for her. Naught in the world could have stopped him from making love to her then and there. In fact, they’d doffed every scrap of clothing the two of them had worn, right there in the great hall, and to this day, he was uncertain if they’d had an audience. And to this day, he still didn’t care.
Which was exactly how it appeared Cian and Jessica were feeling. In fact, there went the man’s shirt soaring over her head, to land on a lamp. The delicate stained-glass shade wobbled a precarious moment, then settled.
Drustan had no desire to see any more of his ancestor than he was currently seeing.
Except, he thought, scrutinizing the man’s sculpted upper torso, blethering hell, what are those tattoos? Had another Keltar fallen from grace? If so, how far? He had wee bairn sleeping abovestairs, a wife and clan to protect, and he’d like to know what to expect. Who and what was this man and what was he doing here? And why did he have an Unseelie Hallow? He wanted explanations, by God, he deserved explanations. This was his castle, his world. He was the senior Keltar male, after all! Or . . . er, och, he had been the senior Keltar male until a few moments ago!
His scowl deepened. If his ninth-century ancestor thought he was going to usurp lairdly duties of the clan based on birth order, he was sadly mistaken.
He regarded him irritably, but despite his displeasure, his expression softened.
Cian and Jessica were kissing like the world might come crashing to an end at any moment.
And Drustan knew exactly how that felt. Each time he kissed his wife, each time he held their precious twins in his arms, it seemed the world couldn’t possibly grant him time enough to love, even if it spun out to eternity.
He didn’t need to try deep-listening to his ancestor to know the woman Cian was kissing was his mate.
Some things required no explanations.
The matching of a Keltar with his woman was one of them.
He heard the metal groan of a zipper. His or hers, he didn’t know. Nor was he about to stand about and find out.
His questions would have to wait.
Pivoting, he ushered the lot of them from the library.
21
The moment Jessi heard the snick of the library door as it closed behind the MacKeltars, her body tensed and her pulse began to race nervously.
They were alone, Cian was free of the mirror, and she was touching him. She couldn’t have asked for more, yet all of a sudden she felt weirded out about it.
With the instincts of a natural-born predator, Cian sensed the change in her body. He broke the kiss and drew back, gazing down at her. His sexy mouth was kiss-slicked and half-opened on the hard, fast breathing of lust, and his dark, hooded eyes glinted dangerously.
She moved back a few steps and stood staring up at him, panting as raggedly as he.
He reached out and lightly brushed her jaw with the back of his knuckles. When he spoke his voice was rough, hot, and low. “Is aught amiss, woman?”
She shook her head.
“I doona think I would handle it well if you played games with me, Jessica.”
Swallowing audibly, she shook her head again.
“What, then?” he demanded.
She shrugged helplessly. She had no words. She couldn’t explain. She wanted him right now more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life and, at the same time, she felt as if she’d suddenly found herself perched on the edge of a precipice, and had no idea what she was doing there. Was goaded by some bone-deep, desperate imperative to back away, to seek safer ground.
She didn’t understand it. She was no coward. She was certainly no cock-tease. She wanted him. And not just for sex, but much more, which was the way she’d always believed it should and would be when she finally slept with a man. Here he was, the man she desired, and he desired her too. Twice before she’d been ready to plunge right in and have sex with him. So what in the world was wrong with her now?
Cian scrutinized Jessica. Now would have been a fine time to be able to deep-read
his woman, but he couldn’t, so he turned his focus to her body instead of her mind.
Her jade eyes were stormy. Defiance shaped her stance. Her chin was uptilted, her delicate nostrils flared, her feet planted shoulder-width apart, like a little warrior.
Yet counterpoint to the blatantly telegraphed denial was—not merely invitation—but sheer feminine taunt. Look at me. Her spine was arched, her ass out-thrust, her heavy breasts proudly raised and displayed to their finest.
Her nipples were hard, poking through her snug white sweater.
And she’d just wet her lips again. Tossed her head in a challenging come-hither.
Don’t touch me/Come and get me, every ounce of her was saying.
Cian closed the distance between them, ducked his head, and inhaled sharply. She stepped back again, but not before he’d gotten what he’d been after. He smiled, pleased by her dichotomy. He fathomed it well.
She smelled of an exquisite combination of fear, defiance, and desperate sexual hunger. ’Twas a scent he’d waited all his life to smell, a desire that had intensified painfully in him over these past days.
He’d wager, even as learned as she was, she didn’t fully understand what she was feeling.
But he did. Perfectly.
It was all he’d dared hope for.
Jessica St. James had accepted him as her man, and for more than just this night. If she hadn’t, she’d not have smelled of this unique combination. A woman seeking only a night’s pleasure smelled of desire, little more. Certainly not fear and defiance, unless the man was doing something he shouldn’t be, things the woman didn’t want, and such a bastard should be put down. Women were precious, to be cared for, not despoiled and abused.
But a woman recognizing her mate smelled of those things because such recognition heralded significant life change. In his century, the woman would have recognized that babes were coming, that she was leaving her girlhood and her clan behind, bonding to a new clan, cleaving to her husband and his people, embarking upon the impassioned tear- and joy-filled route of her mother before her.
A strong, independent, modern woman like Jessica St. James would instinctively resist such change, in proportions equal to her desire for it. She was a woman accustomed to being in control. With him, her control would be threatened.
He intended to threaten the hell out of it.
It was time he made her his. Time he made it clear that, although she might one day lie with another man, none would ever be him, none would ever be good enough, none would ever make her feel the way he had this night. The way he would make her feel the next and the next and the next. He would sear his mark into her in ways she would never be able to forget. When one day she took another man to her bed, he would be on that mattress between them, a great, big, dark Highlander using up too much space, a barrier around her heart, forever alive in her memory.
When he reached for her and pulled her back into his arms, he got more of her womanly dichotomy, but ’twas a dichotomy a man could work with, verily, a wise man would savor.
For as she came into his arms, she turned her back to him as if to deny him, yet at the same time backed right up to him, thrusting her sweet ass against his hard, hot cock. She wanted what he wanted: claiming first, loving later.
With a soft moan, she quested back with her bottom. The sound ripped into his groin, stringing his testicles tight. Dropping his head forward, he cupped her jaw, slanted her face around, and kissed her, deep and long, pumping his hard shaft against her lush behind.
He walked her forward, one hand at her waist keeping her pressed back to him, the other on her chin. He nipped at her kiss-glossed, lush lips, tasting her with slow, firm sucking pulls. He trailed more kisses over the delicate shape of her ear, down the edge of her jaw, over her neck. He continued walking her forward until he walked them into something, not caring what piece of furniture it might be, so long as he found one.
Something to lay her down on would be good.
Ah, his descendant’s desk—better still! Groping blindly, he shoved everything off it, heedless of the crashing, tinkling sounds of objects hitting the floor. Filling his hands with her lush breasts, he bent her forward, over the ornately carved, cool wood. She gasped, bracing her palms on the high-glossed desk.
He needed to be inside her. Nothing less than final, incontrovertible proof that she’d chosen him for her man would sate him now. Reluctantly relinquishing those heavy breasts that jiggled so perfectly, so womanly, with his every thrust, he slipped his hands down to her jeans. “I’m going to take you now, lass.”
She jerked and arched her delicate spine, glancing over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were as wild as he knew his must be. “Yes,” she said raggedly. “Please, Cian.”
Please, Cian. He could listen to her say those words for the rest of eternity! Die a happy man, hearing her beg carnal pleasure from him. Die trying to give it to her, any way she wanted it.
“Are you wet for me, Jessica?” He knew she was. He could smell her woman’s heat. But he wanted her to say it. Wanted to hear her talk about how he made her feel, how she felt about him.
“I always am around you.” She sounded both marveling and miffed by the admission.
“Does that fash you, lass?”
“I’ve never felt, ooh!”—she gasped when he ground himself in a slow circle against her as he slowly undid the top button of her jeans—“this way before. I’m always turned on, and I can’t seem to turn it off.”
“It makes you feel out of control.”
“Yes.” She sounded fully miffed and not at all marveling now.
“You’re supposed to be out of control for your man, lass. That’s the way of passion. Think you passion is tidy? Neat?” He laughed. “Hardly. Not in my bed.”
“What about the man?” she demanded. “Is he out of control for the woman?”
He grunted. A man could never completely lose control with his woman. At least not a man his size with a woman her size. Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t out of control in his thoughts, in his gut. He was. Just looking at her made something in him that had always been wild to begin with, even wilder. “I’m always hard for you. I got hard the moment I saw you that first night. And, nay, lass, I can’t turn it off, either. But unlike you, I doona try to. I give into the heat. The need. The pain of the hunger. I savor wanting you, lusting for you, thinking about all the things I’m going to do to you.” He cupped a cheek of her jean-clad ass in each big palm, squeezed. His voice deepened to a sexy, hot purr: “I relish every last thought of taking you, of knowing you as completely and intimately as a man can know his woman. And I’m going to know every inch of you, lass. You want that, doona you, Jessica?”
“Yes,” she moaned.
“By the time I’m done with you, you’ll never be able to forget me. I’m going to burn myself into you so deep that you’ll bear the imprint of me beneath your skin for the rest of your life. Tell me you want me to, Jessica.” Forgive me now for sins you doona even know I’m committing.
“I want you t—oooh!” Her reply turned into a gasp when he thrust strongly against her.
He smiled with dark satisfaction. There was too much clothing between them. He needed to feel her slick and wet and tight, closing on him. Popping the remaining two buttons of her jeans, he shoved them down over her hips, baring her luscious little ass.
He sucked in a ragged breath, pushed her jeans to her ankles, but no farther, leaving her feet caught in them.
“You want to feel me inside you, lass?”
“Yes!”
“Slow and easy, or hard and fast? What would you have of me, Jessica?”
“Yes,” she wailed.
He laughed, a deep rumble of masculine triumph. A man dreamed of an unconditional “aye” from such an exquisite woman.
Lifting her hips, he repositioned her the way he wanted her. Nudging her feet back, he pushed her thighs apart until her knees bent to accommodate the angle, and stepped between them. Catching her
jeans behind his boots, he kicked back, drawing them taut at her ankles, pinning her helplessly in her jeans, trapping her between his big body and the desk.
With her legs spread on either side of his thighs, he could keep them wide apart, her ass up-thrust, her soft folds exposed. In her prone stance, she could only take what he was about to give her. Not control it a bit. And if she tried to, all he’d have to do was kick back with a boot to still her.
Later he might give her all the control she wanted—though it would chafe him to the very core of his manhood, he’d consider letting her tie him nine ways to Imbolc if it pleased her—but right now any control he yielded her would weaken his, and his was as threadbare as the original pair of trews he’d been wearing the day he’d been imprisoned.
They’d fallen to rags half an aeon ago.
Jessi gasped when Cian stepped between her legs. She was so wet and ready for him! She couldn’t have moved her lower body if her life had depended on it, and she’d never been so painfully turned-on in her life as she was, helplessly spread for him like this.
He was behind her, her great, big, intensely sexual Highlander, and for a moment, she was reminded of the first time she’d seen him in the professor’s office, a shadowy intimidating presence in the mirror. And the thought occurred to her then that from that very moment, this very moment had been somehow preordained. Inescapable. That no matter which way she’d tried to go, it all would have ended up with her bent over a desk, breathlessly waiting for him to take her, to make her feel this wildly alive. There was a word on the tip of her tongue, something about events lining up in improbable ways. It wasn’t “synergy,” it wasn’t “coincidence” or “providence.” It might begin with an S, she thought. . . .
Then his big hands were rucking up her sweater, lifting her shoulders, tugging it over her head, freeing her aching breasts, and she thought about words no more. He cupped and kneaded, pinching and tugging her nipples to hard peaks before stretching her hands above her head and pressing her firmly forward, flush to the desk, pillowing her breasts on it. Her nipples burned against the cool wood.
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