“Very good. Are you comfortable then?”
“Yes, quite.”
He gave her a heart–stopping smile and the tale began. “A long time ago there was a beautiful young girl named Janet who lived in Scotland. She was a striking lass, her hair shone gold in the sunlight just like yours.”
His fingers ran down one of the strands of hair that framed her face.
“And her cheeks were kissed with the fairest pink, just like yours.”
He glanced her cheek with his knuckles. Just for fun, she released an audible sigh.
“And in her eyes was the bright blush of love.”
“Not like mine?” she asked faintly. Her insides began to yield to the sound of his soft brogue. The horses light clip–clop through the night did nothing to aid her resistance.
“Ah, Beth, just like yours.”
Now her sigh was real. “So who did the beautiful maiden rescue?”
The tips of his fingers rested against the back of her neck. His light brown eyebrows drew together, his head cocked slightly, and his smile told her he was getting to that.
“One day, Janet was walking the woods of Carterhaugh, when she came upon a white rose shining in the bushes. As soon as she plucked the rose, a young man appeared. ‘I am the guardian of this forest,’ he said, ‘and that rose does not belong to you.’ Well, Janet had meant no harm and told the man so. He immediately forgave her. ‘I wish I could give all the roses of this forest to one as lovely as you.’ You see, the man was instantly smitten.”
She felt Calum’s fingers run lightly up and down her neck, so exquisitely arousing every sensual nerve she missed the next few sentences and had to ask for a repeat. If his fingertips felt that good, what would his lips feel like?
“The man’s name was Tam Lin,” he repeated. “This startled Janet because she had heard of the elf knight. But Tam Lin’s reputation had been tainted unfairly. He told Janet how he had been taken by the Elf Queen as a child and was now spellbound to her. The only way to set him free was if that very night, as the fairy folk rode through the hills, Janet pulled him from his white horse and held him tight to her no matter what the Elf Queen did. This touched Janet, and she agreed to free Tam Lin from the spell.”
A cool breeze blew off the horses backs over the buggy and Beth trembled, surely from the breeze.
“Come, I’ll keep you warm, lass.” He gathered her into his arm like her very own electric blanket. Oh perhaps she could lean here a little while, just an hour or so of bliss, in Vieux–Quebec, listening to her very own warrior tell fairy tales in that softly accented brogue that made her weak in the knees.
“‘Twas a night so fair as this, m’eudail.” His voice was gilded in magic. “Justly sparkling with the dust of fairies, a high silver moon hanging in gossamer threads, the woodlands gone soft and faded into the night. Janet did as Tam Lin had asked and hid in the shadows of a hawthorn, waiting for the fairy procession. At last, she saw Tam Lin on his white horse. Janet ran from the hawthorn, pulled him from the horse and held him tight.”
He snuggled Beth in closer. His chin glanced over her head, his warm breath a caress in her hair.
“The Elf Queen cried out and drew her horse to a halt. Her eyes glared as she cast a spell upon Tam Lin. He immediately shrank into a scaly lizard, but Janet didn’t let go. Then he changed into a slippery snake that she clutched to her breast. Suddenly, her hands seared as the snake turned to a hot coal.”
Calum picked up one of Beth’s hands and interlaced his fingers through hers. “Though poor Janet’s hands burned, she did not let go, for back in the forest when Tam Lin had promised her roses, she saw in his eyes her true mate and nothing would tear him from her.”
Nothing? Had she ever loved like that? She was starting to love the rhythm of Calum’s thumb tracing patterns on the palm of her hand.
“The Elf Queen knew she had lost Tam Lin, for Janet’s love was steadfast and strong. She shaped Tam Lin back into his human form, leaving him in Janet’s arms as naked as the day he was born.”
Naked? Now, there’s a picture, Tam Lin naked, Calum naked, his great expanse of golden skin …
The carriage stopped in front of a trio of woodwinds who strung a soft sounding Chopin. It really was the most romantic city in North America. When Calum shifted in his seat, his lips brushed her forehead. She turned into him, her hand resting against his thigh. The man was hard muscle, and she couldn’t help running her fingers toward his hip.
A faint groan sounded low in his throat as his lips grazed her temple. Her heart pounded in her ears. She knew he wanted her and the thought was intoxicating. His lips were so close, a finger’s width away. His promise came back to her. I give you my word; I’ll not kiss you until you ask me. No denying she wanted him. She was like a train engine bearing down.
She bridged the gap closing her lips over his, willing to take from him all he would give. It surprised her that he hesitated. He accepted her kiss but held back, as if distinguishing her need from his to read the depth of her intent. Fine, she would be the master.
Yes, I want you, Calum.
She ran the tip of her tongue along his upper lip. He tasted ripe and wild like fruit from a rain forest. His hair was like baby down against cheek. She swept her hand from his neck up the back of his head. His hair slipped smoothly between her fingers as she shaped her hand to the curve of his skull.
Give me more. He didn’t. He met her intensity, but let her place each kiss. She slipped her tongue through his lips, prodding. That, he responded to, greeting her gently, deftly, exquisitely surging to life, deepening the kiss to an exquisite ravage. No less than she would have expected from him.
Her senses filled as if she had never known her capacity. An awareness of the hard lines of his back, each muscle scarcely contracting under her touch blended with the awareness of his masculine scent, filling her head not nearly full enough. The taste of him was so right, like ambrosia she’d been denied. Each soft sound that played low in his throat was for her, and though her eyes stayed closed she saw him there pulling her in as if their need was to become one.
The display they were making was likely outrageous, and Beth had just enough wits left to keep from tearing his clothes off in the back of the buggy. That was new. She had never felt passionately aggressive before. Always under control. Never losing herself.
Oh no.
What was she doing? Reason and restraint whispered in her ear and tempered her desire to get under his shirt. Unrestrained passion was a nasty attribute and would carry her down the road to destruction. She knew that. Didn’t she?
His tongue was a sweet swirl around hers.
Perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps every moment of her life had been a highway to Calum with road signs warning do not yield, do not enter, do not give yourself to another. Had she not been alive before reaching this destination? How could the touch of this man over any other be so profound? Why deny herself? Why not let passion take her for a ride?
Calum pulled back to look her in the eye. “We’re a street away from the hotel. Do you want to go back?”
“Oh, yes.”
He sent her that smoldering look he did so well, melting her clear into the seat. Would she be able to walk?
She didn’t walk. She merely glided back to the hotel. Surely her feet never touched ground. He nearly devoured her as they waited for the elevator, barely possessing the wits to look abashed and resume control when the concierge cleared his throat loud enough for them to hear across the lobby. They weren’t alone in the elevator either. Calum caressed her neck so soothingly, Beth would have let him take her on the elevator floor if he only promised to do that forever.
Chapter 14
Returns and Exchanges
Things were moving fast. The lass was a freed dam, and he was about to get doused. Holding back, let
ting her dominate had fueled a deep–seated fire in her. Finn was wrong. She was his. Nowhere in that kiss had he felt her wish to free herself from him. By God, he’d missed her.
Calum paced the hotel room waiting for Beth to come out of the bathroom. He’d gotten his kiss. Finn would be satisfied, and while he felt slightly guilty for the Alfarian’s involvement, he still had a problem.
In the elevator, he’d felt some firmness in what had only lay flaccid since he’d been human, but it wasn’t near enough. He was nowhere close to oak, not even softwood. It was time to centre his will, and if that didn’t work … he’d think of something to tell Beth and spend the night pleasing her.
Perhaps he could be suffering an illness. No. That reeked of some horrific disease. A battle wound? No. Too permanent. He was saving himself for marriage? Think! It would be a nightmare if she thought him not man enough, or God forbid, that he didn’t find her sufficiently attractive to be aroused. It would have to be the battle wound, but something about to be remedied. He paced the floor a few more times.
The bathroom door opened. Calum drew a deep breath. This time he would be the one to dominate.
“Would you please explain this, Calum?” Beth asked with passion of a different sort glaring in those eyes.
“Huh?”
“This, Calum, this shirt I found under the towels in the bathroom. Look familiar?”
Beth held up the shirt that Finn had taken from him that morning. The trickster had put it back. The bastard. “Finn,” he said tightly.
“Pardon? Could a man sink any lower than to pretend to have lost his shirt to, what was it? Oh, yes, the Big Mac baker. Honestly, Calum, were you laughing inside thinking I fell for that one? Because I didn’t.”
“Beth, it’s not what you think.”
“How do you know what I think? Perhaps I think you’re a moron. Or perhaps you think your chest is God’s gift to womankind, and we all drop like flies from a good look. Or perhaps — ”
“Stop,” he interrupted. “That shirt was taken from me this morning.”
“Oh? How convenient that the thief returned it to the bathroom. I guess it really stunk!”
“That’s not nice.” He took a step forward. She took one back.
“I’m not nice? You want to know something about women, Calum? We don’t like being played. All you had to do, was be your honest self because, truth be told, I thought you were a great guy with your shirt on. But now, you … you’re not the person I thought you were.”
His honest self. The thought made him cringe inside. He planned to tell her the truth of who he was, but could he tell her that for their greater good, for his eternal soul, he must secure her love and then leave her to live this life alone? “No, I’m not the person you think I am. But you’ve not trusted me to tell you the truth.”
Beth crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ve got my full attention, go ahead.”
He read her body language and rolled his eyes. “The reason why I had no shirt this morning was not because I think any part of my anatomy is God’s gift to womankind. That said, I want you to remember you promised to keep an open mind.”
He took a deep breath. “You know, there are many Scottish folk, everyday intelligent people, who believe that fairies live in the hills amongst humans. There have been many written accounts of it.”
The look in Beth’s eyes suggested she was not one of those believers. Best get it out fast. “I didn’t come to you from Scotland. I came from the Upper World, the place where souls go when they leave their lives on Earth. To get here to you, I enlisted the help of an immortal named Finn. He is known as a prankster, but I had no choice. He’s the one who took my shirt this morning and then put it back so you’d find it and think exactly what you’re thinking. No doubt Finn finds the mishap highly amusing.”
“An immortal.” Beth let her breath out in a loud spurt. “Well, thanks for sharing. I can’t imagine why you’d think I wouldn’t believe that one. Fairies, pranksters, immortals — all common enough stuff. Why don’t you ask the prankster to beam you up out of here because if that’s the best you can do, you need to go.”
“Beth …”
She wadded up the shirt and threw it at him. Her eyes filled.
“Don’t cry, lass. Why don’t you tell me what’s truly bothering you? I’ll not have you weeping over a shirt.” Calum reached for her arm, but she smacked his hand.
“You’ll not have it? Who gave you the right to tell me what to do? Nobody. So back off, Bucko. I’m going downstairs to phone Matthew. You can do something useful and get your own room.” She grabbed the room key and slammed the door after her.
Calum saw her purse on top of the television. He picked it up, slipped out the car keys, and went out into the hall.
“Beth,” he called as the elevator bell rang. “You might need this.”
She stomped the few feet to him and snatched it out of his hands without a word. He watched the door slide closed behind her.
He went back to the room and booted the chair. “Damn you, Finn! I am not here for your sport and amusement, you bloody …” But he stopped there. He’d have better success giving a starved dog a bone and asking him not to chew it. Invoke the immortal — pay the price. No one had forced him to go to Finn — if anything, he’d been warned against it.
No, he was responsible for whatever Finn chose to do. It was time to put this into perspective, it was just a shirt. He picked it up, tossed it on to the closet floor, and shut the door. Beth had overreacted because she thought she was betraying that Matthew ass. But what happened in the carriage was real. That kiss? That was the coming together of two souls meant to be one. That was the all–powerful, certainly bigger than two humans and one measly immortal.
Calum would not find himself another room. Nothing had changed. Beth was still in danger. And if she thought she could order him out of her life, she didn’t have an inkling whom she was up against. Order him out of her bed, he conceded, plopping down on the half–a–couch, but Calum never shirked a challenge, and this was naught but a minor setback.
Chapter 15
Headline News
She was a fool. Should she ask the question one more time? What was she doing with Calum? Clearly there was one of those physical forces working here, like gravity but yet to be defined. Some kind of physics crackup that caused her electrons to stick to his protons, powerful enough to vaporize what used to be her good judgment.
Beth had been so close to giving Calum everything. Take her on the elevator floor? Her perfect control for twenty–five years had been shot to hell from one kiss — one mind–blowing kiss, she allowed — but certainly no more a rush than what a drug addict might feel and equally as dangerous.
Okay, perhaps that was an unreasonable analogy. She drew a breath from the bottom of her lungs to calm her down so she could think.
Get a grip. She didn’t usually flare up over little things like guys taking their shirts off. That eruption obviously happened for some reason, and she didn’t have to think long to figure it out. Anger had come to her rescue — the perfect antidote to kill the urge to drag Calum to her bed. Did she always find something wrong with a man? The thought needled her, but she wasn’t motivated to dwell on that at the moment.
Since her cell phone battery was dead, she walked across the lobby looking for a pay phone.
Matthew was snippy with her on the phone when he found out she’d left Montreal. To save him renting a car and driving to Quebec City, she would just meet him in Montreal in the morning. Despite his irritation, he promised to find her excellent legal representation.
After stopping for a tea, Beth slipped into the hotel room. All was quiet.
Calum had not met her demand and gotten his own room — big surprise there. Part of her was pleased, the double–crossing part, although she wasn’t angry
over the shirt anymore.
She supposed her softening was related to tomorrow’s departure. It was separate ways for them in the morning, and she’d like to carry the memory of him being her benevolent love–struck warrior. It didn’t matter any longer where he’d come from or what laws governed the force of attraction she’d felt. All that mattered was getting a good night’s sleep.
• • •
Later on that morning with the sun in the sky, Beth and Calum packed their few belongings. He packed them into the car before joining Beth for breakfast.
“Don’t let me forget to pick up a Toronto newspaper before I leave,” she said when he sat down with his plate. “I want to see if there’s anything further about Meals on the Move.”
“Good idea.” Calum slathered jam on his whole wheat toast. “Will you not eat something?”
“I’m not hungry. I want to talk about last night in the carriage, to set a few things straight.”
Good, she was thinking about that kiss.
“My behaviour was inappropriate and please trust me on this, completely out of character. The storytelling carried me away, and I haven’t been myself, as you can well understand. I know it was just a kiss, but it shouldn’t have happened.”
Calum shot her a playful grin to alleviate her seriousness. “I can’t agree with you on that. What carried you away was your deep and primal heart, and that kiss was an awakening of two parts meant to be one. ‘Tis precisely what should have happened.”
Beth exhaled a truck load of exasperation. “Will you stop talking like that?”
He didn’t answer in words. He sent her a look infused with everything passionate he wished to do to her.
“On second thought, I will get something to eat.” She retreated to the buffet. He watched her look over each serving dish before she picked up a plate.
A smooth English speaking voice rose over the din of the small dining room. “Bernard, isn’t that the woman from the newspaper, the jewel thief? Look at the picture!”
Love of Her Lives Page 9
