Deep is the Night: Dark Fire

by Denise A. Agnew

  Fuck. That is the ultimate word. She repeated it in her mind, savoring the deliciousness and the way it made her cream just thinking the word.

  Fuck.

  Fuck me.

  Not yet, sweetheart. You’re not ready for that.

  Not ready?

  Erin jerked back, tearing out of his arms and stumbling into the couch. She sat down hard on cushions, her breath rasping in and out like bellows. Erin knew she shouldn’t be surprised that Lachlan delved into her mind again.

  Or had he?

  Maybe she’d lost her mind and that explained her willingness to have sex with him without blinking an eye. It clarified why she thought he could read her thoughts. What woman could resist golden-fired brown eyes, heated touches, and a sizzling combustion that swelled higher and hotter than she’d ever known before?

  Shamed again by lack of control, she shivered from cold. The room felt freezing without his arms around her.

  She gazed at him in amazement and chagrin. “Why did you do that?” Erin flapped her hands in a dismissing gesture. “Why did you back off?”

  “Because you didn’t want it.”

  “You are…” She sputtered. “You are the world’s biggest tease. You kiss me, then fondle me, and put your…your cock between my legs, then you say I’m not ready?”

  Words spilled from Erin that didn’t even sound like her. She never used words like cock, but this man made her so angry she wanted to scream. When she stood and poked her finger in his chest, he watched with a patience she found laissez-faire in the extreme, especially for a man who’d been as hard as a rail-spike a moment ago. She glanced down and saw that rail spike still described his state. He looked so wonderfully hard and able to satisfy. Another rush of liquid spilled from her, and that dampness between her legs made her want to squirm.

  With a quiet huskiness in his deep voice, he reached down and took her right hand. “Your body was ready, but your mind wasn’t. You wouldn’t have enjoyed it. We must take this one step at a time.”

  She wanted to scream. Not enjoy it? Right.

  “And I only want you,” he said, “when your body and mind are both willing. When you and I have sex, it’ll be one of the greatest things that happened to us both. But it won’t work unless it’s mutually exciting.”

  Amazed by his sudden patience and willingness to wait for her, she stood there in shock, her mouth slightly open. “You sound like one of those television talk show psychiatrists.”

  She didn’t mean it as an insult, but he frowned and she knew he’d taken it that way.

  “I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “I know.”

  Lachlan moved around her and sat on the couch. When she followed, he touched her hair, caressing the back of her head with a gesture so comforting and cherishing, tears came to her eyes. Confusion reigned in her system.

  “I was…ready.” Her voice, so soft she could hardly hear it herself, sounded a little petulant. Right away she wanted to take back the tone, if not the words.

  “You weren’t. I could sense a small part of you that thinks making love with me would be wrong.” His gaze returned to hers for a small second. “You’re afraid of many things, Erin, including getting close to a man. I understand that. We’re virtual strangers.” He slid his palm over her back, rubbing with a gentle gesture that spoke of comfort and not copulation. “We’ve connected, but you aren’t certain it’s what you want. I won’t take you until you’re completely comfortable with the idea.”

  Words of wisdom. Erin inhaled to calm the continued pounding of her heart and regain her breath. She’d turned wild and feral in his arms, but she still couldn’t give him that final sexual commitment.

  Screw the man. He was right.

  She slipped her hands through her hair, flustered and wanting answers to the uncertainty. “You could have just taken me up on the offer and had sex with me anyway. Many men would have.”

  With tenderness in his eyes that removed much of her discomfort, he said, “I’m not like most men, lass. Far from it.” He stood again and held a hand out to her. “Shall we go to the dinner party?”

  “Excuse me a moment.”

  She went to her bedroom and put on a new pair of panties. No way would she go to Gilda’s house with the scent of sexual excitement lingering around her.

  Several minutes later, as they cruised in his rented gold Lexus, she waited for him to speak. Silence this deep and profound sometimes bothered her. Her last boyfriend back in Arizona started the silent treatment not long before he dumped her. Amazing how the mind could make connections where there shouldn’t be any.

  Or was there? Would Lachlan also separate himself if they had sex?

  “Did the janitor discover where the noises were coming from in the library?” Lachlan asked, breaking her out of morose thoughts.

  “No, but Fred said I shouldn’t worry.” She explained about the so-called ghosts. “At this point, I’d almost like to believe it. I could stop worrying about the building being unstable.”

  As they pulled up to Gilda and Tom’s two story Victorian reproduction home, he smiled. “He’s right. It’s ghosts.”

  She sniffed. “Sure. And I’m Gandhi.”

  He turned off the car and unbuckled his seatbelt, and turned toward her. “Are you always such a wee, stubborn lass?” He added extra burr to his voice, and the rolling, husky sound thrilled her in a way she didn’t want to think about. She’d have to watch out or she would start salivating like Jessie did the other night. “Or are you afraid of something else in the library?”

  Just afraid of you.

  Don’t be afraid of me. I’d protect you with my life. Lachlan’s voice came into her head again.

  “Oh…my…God,” she whispered.

  Lachlan reached for the driver’s door handle. “What’s wrong?”

  “You just—” She clamped her mouth shut.

  What if the voice in her head was a delusion? She didn’t want him to think she’d popped her cork.

  His frown stayed fixed. “Yes?”

  Erin shook her head. “Nothing. I’ll get the wine.”

  Chapter 8

  Erin reached back for the bottle and then slipped from the car. As she walked toward the house, she felt an icy sensation on the back of her neck. As if someone breathed on it and stirred the fine hairs. She paused as the shadowy sensation slid right over the top of her—cloaking and smothering. She gasped.

  She stopped in her tracks and Lachlan bumped into her. “God, what is that?”

  His arms came around her waist, and he held her back against him. “What do you hear?”

  “It’s not what I hear, it’s…” Realizing that she’d started to confess she saw formless darkness around them, she clamped her lips shut and closed her eyes. “Nothing.”

  His hands slipped from her waist and he turned her around. She held the wine bottle between them like a shield. “I know it wasn’t ‘nothing’, Erin. Will you explain later?”

  Shivering, she hunched into her long wool cloak and tugged her scarf closer about her neck. Erin moved out from under his touch, despite the heat and strength of his body. “Yes.”

  She upped the pace of her stride, eager to enter the house and chase away half-imagined sensations and worries.

  They rang the doorbell, and Tom answered right away.

  As Tom let them into the foyer, he said, “Saw you drive up.” Tom hugged her with his short, slightly plump body. “Welcome. It’s been awhile since you had dinner with us, Erin.” Without waiting for her to comment, he turned to Lachlan and they shook hands. “Why don’t you bring her around more often?”

  Erin’s eyebrows went up. “We just met the other day.”

  Tom winked and shoved his hand through his sandy, short blond hair. “What have you done with her sense of humor, Lachlan? Her frown is hanging down around her ankles right about now.”

  Lachlan played along, giving his friend a good-humore
d grin. “I think she left it back at the library.”

  She glared at him with mock fierceness, half serious. “My sense of humor is perfectly intact, thank you.”

  Lachlan slid his arm around her shoulders, but whether to placate her or warn her to keep her lips shut, she couldn’t say. “She’s a right prickly one, at that. I dinna think the wee lass knows what she’s about. The library is old and musty anyway. Has to affect a body’s ability to stay cheerful.”

  She sniffed.

  Right, bud. That’s where we almost did the deed right between the stacks. It’s pretty difficult not to think about the library without remembering that wild encounter.

  She thought she heard soft laughter in her head, deep and masculine.

  Tom grunted. “Ugh. That library is about as comfortable as a porcupine quill up the ass. No wonder she’s looking as thrilled as a dead fish.”

  Lachlan’s hardy laugh superceded Erin’s gasp of mock outrage.

  “Ever the king of colloquialisms,” Lachlan said when he stopped chuckling.

  Erin waved her hand in a shooing motion. “Get outta here, Tom. That library is a fine institution.”

  Tom shrugged as he put their coats in a hall closet. “That place is creepy beyond belief. I hope you’re not planning on doing any more late night kid parties there. I doubt the adults would bring the children and if they don’t want to be out at night with some weirdo running around attacking people. “

  Erin gave him a conciliatory smile. “No one has evening events planned until Christmas. Besides, the head librarian is the one who decides that, not me.”

  Tom grunted. “I know, but you and Gilda shouldn’t be working late at night in that big mausoleum anyway.”

  “I promise we’ll try our best to be the exception, not the rule.”

  As Tom led the way toward the big living and dining area, Erin glanced around. Mediterranean and Spanish influences graced the closed floor plan of the Victorian house, giving it a snug aspect. Finely decorated, but with understated colors of blue and green, the house felt comfortable, lived in and yet elegant.

  Maybe someday she’d have a home like this with her husband.

  Husband. Marriage wasn’t inevitable for her. Some day she might step into matrimony, but at this juncture, she didn’t expect a husband or a home like this one.

  Gilda found paradise with the man she loved. Erin couldn’t blame Tom for being worried about his wife. She also knew that, although Pine Forest had its ghostly image to uphold, the recent attacks on women made the entire situation grimmer. Tom didn’t often grouse about anything, and that made his concern all the more realistic. He didn’t scare and he didn’t suffer fools; his warm personality always made her feel right at home.

  By the enthusiasm he showed for Lachlan, Erin could tell Tom respected the Scot great deal. While Lachlan seemed to have this dark and mysterious side, the relaxation in his eyes showed how much he trusted and liked Tom.

  Part of Erin wanted to use Tom’s opinion of Lachlan as a measuring stick. What if they were wrong, though? Lachlan could have fooled them. Then she had to wonder when she’d become such a cynic.

  Gilda walked into the living room, her fluffy blue sweater and long denim skirt made for cold winter nights. “There you guys are. I was rummaging around in the basement for the Halloween candelabra. I almost forgot it.”

  Tom rolled his gaze to the ceiling and sighed. “She insisted on having it lit and on the dinner table.”

  Gilda beamed, her smile indulgent and mysterious. “So get in there and light it before I peel your head.”

  Lachlan’s eyebrows shot up. “Peel your head?”

  Gilda wiggled her eyebrows. “My favorite high school teacher in Savannah always used to say that when she thought someone wasn’t doing what they were supposed to. You think I have an accent, you should have heard Miss Glover.”

  After everyone had drinks in hand, Erin followed Gilda into the kitchen. Once inside the cozy, oven-warmed atmosphere of the kitchen, Erin felt safe from the strange shadow that lurked outside the house. Maybe the shadow wasn’t the same as the one she’d sensed in the library, but Erin had about run out of scientific excuses for the edgy darkness. Maybe, if she could summon the courage, she’d ask Gilda if she knew about the shadowy presences.

  God, Erin. You always said there are no such things as ghosts. Are you finally letting this nutty town turn you into a superstitious twit that attributes every inexplicable event to the supernatural? The litany of condemnations from her psyche continued.

  Erin inhaled and allowed the scent of Gilda’s marinara sauce to soothe her senses and her growling stomach.

  “So?” Gilda asked as she stirred penne pasta into a stockpot.

  “So what?”

  “It seems like you and Lachlan are getting along well.” Gilda’s pleased smile said it all. “He really likes you.”

  “You put him up to this, didn’t you?” Indignation meant her voice went higher than she intended. “I mean, put him up to being my escort.”

  “Shhhhh.” Gilda placed a pot holder encased finger to own mouth. “I did not put him up to this. He’d mentioned the other night that he’d like to ask you out.”

  “Really?” Erin’s voice squeaked and she swallowed in embarrassment.

  “Really.”

  Erin sliced French bread in preparation to make it garlic bread, her motion with the knife automatic. “Well, I don’t think it’ll work.”

  Gilda stopped stirring. “Why not?”

  Words burst from her before she could think much about how they’d sound. “He’s from Scotland.”

  “You don’t like men from Scotland?” With a puzzled frown, Gilda put the glass top back on the stockpot so the bubble and spatter of the fragrant sauce wouldn’t muck up the stove and counter. “Half the women I know would give their right arm to meet a man from Scotland.”

  Erin grinned. “Ridiculous. Why?”

  Gilda turned toward her and answered Erin’s smile with one of her own. “Because they have it in their head that every Scottish man on the planet has the lovely brogue and sexy presence of a man like Lachlan.”

  Erin almost snorted. “As if. I’ve never seen a man as sexy—” Erin choked off her words with a cough. “I mean, men as handsome as Lachlan are a rarity anywhere. He’s extraordinary looking. And being a Scotsman has nothing to do with that.”

  Gilda held up one hand. “Hey, you don’t have to convince me. I think some women have the idea that every man in Scotland wears a kilt and has the sex appeal of a Liam Neeson in Rob Roy or Mel Gibson in Braveheart.”

  Glad to see that at least Gilda had common sense, Erin nodded. “Simply not true, as we all know. Otherwise there would be wholesale emigration of American women to Scotland.”

  Gilda laughed. “Okay, since Lachlan is extraordinary, why are you keeping him at arms length? We already vouched for him, and he’s nice as any man could be.”

  “I realize that, but he’ll be going back to his own country soon. Why start something I can’t finish?”

  Gilda chuckled softly. “Honey, you can’t guarantee you’ll finish any relationship, whether they’re American or Scot or from Timbuktu. There’s nothing certain.”

  “There you go, then. You answered your own question. I don’t need to get involved with anyone now or in the distant future.” Erin put the bread on a cookie sheet and spread butter on each piece. “Especially not a man who could up in leave in a few days.”

  Gilda looked a cross between exasperated and amused. She went to the refrigerator and searched for salad makings. “So, you want to set yourself up to be unhappy.” She put the bag of pre-made salad on the gray-toned countertop. “I don’t understand why people do that.”

  Growing a bit tired of Gilda’s interference, she sprinkled garlic powder onto the bread and took it toward the oven. “And I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I’m not trying to be unhappy.”

  With a sigh of total resignation, Gilda ope
ned the oven door for Erin. Erin slid the bread into the oven. “You’re setting yourself up for failure in relationships. You’re saying that if you could be hurt, which we all can, that any relationship between a man and woman is a mistake. Pretty all inclusive, don’t you think?”

  Erin stared into the lighted wall oven, her eyes focusing on the bread. “Maybe.” Although she knew her answer came across limp as a spent dick, she pressed onward with her point. “Think about the divorce rate. So many people aren’t willing to try. They give up long before the party is over. And still others are truly irreconcilable.”

  Gilda peered at her friend with an intensity that saw right through the veneer. “And what does that have to do with getting to know Lachlan?”

  “He’s unpredictable.”

  Gilda’s nose wrinkled up, confusion clear on her face. “Unpredictable how?”

  Erin put her pot holders on the counter. “If you’re like me you want consistency and security. You can’t get those with a man who might take a hike. If I was going to make it with a guy, it would be someone I know is here for the long haul.”

  “Make it with?” Gilda smiled. “You’re jumping straight from dating to bed?”

  A flush filled Erin’s face. “No. No, of course not.”

  Gilda started rinsing tomatoes for the salad, then stopped. She looked at Erin with a knowing expression. “Wait a minute. I see that pink in your face. You’re embarrassed about something.”

  Damn it. How does she know?

  “I’m not,” Erin said.

  “You are.”

  “I’m not.”

  Gilda laughed softly. “Okay, have it your way. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were already half in love with Lachlan. I saw the looks you’ve been giving him.”

  “You’ve seen us together for less than an hour, and you think we’ve got something going?”

  “There’s certainly something going on between you. The heat is palpable.”

  Denial seemed the proper escape route. “It’s all in your imagination, Gilda.”