by Mimi Riser
But Alan managed it anyway. One stiff yank, and she was sliding across the slippery satin and staring, with a sort of glazed fascination, at the broken piece of bedpost clutched in her white knuckled fist.
A club?
His eyes must have read the expression in hers. The post went sailing through the air, bounced once as it struck the floor, and rolled under the dresser.
“Don’t worry about it, dear. I’ll have it mended later,” Alan said, in response to the dismayed look on her face. “Now come here. There’s something I want to tell you.”
I’ll bet it’s something I don’t want to hear, Tabitha thought, and countered with a quick, “Actually, that’s not true what I said before. You’re not the first nude man I’ve seen.”
The grip on her wrist hardened, and his eyes darkened with suspicion. “Another surprise, Tabitha?”
“I…I’ve seen pictures of Michelangelo’s David,” she admitted weakly.
A small grin began twitching the corners of his mouth. “Oh? And how do you think I compare?”
A hell of a lot better, she realized—gulp—and changed the subject again.
Or tried to. His arm snaked around her waist, hoisting her over and onto his lap before she could utter another word.
“That’s better. But don’t you find this sheet a bit constricting? I know I do,” he said, casually inching the satin away from her breasts.
She caught her breath and the sheet at the same time, yanking the latter away from him and clutching it frantically against herself.
“You are a Nervous Nellie, aren’t you? I’d have thought you’d be getting at least a little used to me by now.” Alan sighed and tightened his embrace, as though that would still the trembling that had overtaken her. It increased it, in fact, making him sigh again and tuck her head against his shoulder.
“Listen, lass, I do appreciate why you’ve been frightened of me. But you can’t possibly understand the whole story, and you’ve given me no chance to explain it.”
“So, explain now!” She tried to push away.
He cradled her closer.
Tabitha broke off the fight. Struggling didn’t help, she was beginning to realize. It only made her more aware of that masculine form pressing against her. Of course, not struggling didn’t work either. There was simply no way to block the feel of his hot raw energy wrapping around her, holding her fast. She suddenly had a great empathy for all the little creatures who’d ever been snared in a spider’s silken web.
“Another time. I’m hardly in the mood to discuss it at present,” Alan answered her. “I only want to point out that if I wanted to harm you, I’ve had ample opportunity to do it before now.” His hand traced the length of her bare arm, stroking from the wrist to the elbow, elbow to shoulder, and over the shoulder till it tangled in the long locks at the nape of her neck.
“I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to make love to you,” he whispered.
What’s the difference? The one would end her life, but the other would end everything that made her life worth living.
“You’re only frightened because this is your first time. Would it set your mind at rest if I told you what to expect?” Alan offered, sounding almost fatherly.
His tone set her teeth on edge. “Good heavens, I’m not a child. And I have an extensive background in science—including biology! I fully understand the human reproductive system and how it functions,” she grumbled into his neck.
“I’m relieved to hear that. It makes things so much easier if we both know what goes where.” He chuckled. And instantly had to tighten his hold again as she tried to lunge away.
One hand still buried in her hair, he pulled her head back to meet his eyes. Before she had time to resist, she was trapped, drowning once more in those smoldering amber pools.
“Tabitha, what is the problem? I’ve been most patient with you so far, but I am fast reaching the end of my tether. I don’t want to force you to do something you’re uncomfortable with, but if you can’t give me a good reason for all this fuss, I may end up doing just that.”
The threat snapped something awake inside of her. Sudden outrage and indignation gave her the strength to tear free from his gaze.
“I’ll give you at least three. Number one, regardless of how you view this mock marriage, I do not consider it valid. And I was raised to believe that intimate relations between unmarried people are wrong. Number two, even if none of that were the case, I simply do not want to be married. I have a life already that I am very satisfied with. A life that does not include domestic servitude, men, or children. I have other plans for myself. Important plans!”
“Don’t let Uncle Angus hear you say that,” Alan blithely broke into the tirade. “He’s expecting a new heir nine months from tonight.”
“To hell with Uncle Angus, and to hell with you!” With a violent twist, she threw herself off him, landing face up on the other side of the bed, her sheet torn half away, exposing her to the hips.
She grabbed for it, but not fast enough. His weight was upon her—hot and heavy, skin to skin—holding her flat on the mattress before she could blink or gasp. The indescribable raw force of his naked torso molded to hers drove all reason from her head.
Alan gave a thick groan and buried his face against her neck for several choppy heartbeats, as temperatures spiked and pulses began to climb skywards.
“That’s only two reasons,” he panted out. “What’s the third?”
Tabitha had no idea. “Um…I…ah…” She fumbled for words, dizzily trying to rake her wits together.
He braced up on an elbow to search her eyes—a look that drilled deep into her core, opening an aching void within her that demanded to be filled.
“Never mind. It can’t make any difference,” he said hoarsely. “None of your reasons can stand against this one.”
A sharp tug tore the rest of the sheet from between them. A hungry mouth claimed hers…
“Alan! Y’awake, lad? You’re needed!”
The shout was accompanied by the banging inward of the door, and brought a blast of curses from the bed that would have blistered a better man than Dunstan MacAllister. Or a smarter man, anyway.
“Have you forgotten how to knock, you half-witted Scottish buffalo?” Alan sprang off the mattress like a cougar about to pounce.
Dunstan slouched lazily in the doorway, a stupid grin pulling his thick features into a lopsided caricature of contrition. “Sorry, cousin. I reckoned you’d be finished with the lass. Hell, you’ve been in here lang enoof. I coulda serviced her ten times o’er by now.” He glanced at the bed where Tabitha was frantically rewrapping the satin sheet about herself. “Perhaps nay, though. She’s a bit scrawny for my tastes.” He frowned slightly, then the grin twisted itself back into place. “Ah well, breedin’ and nursin’ bairns’ll fatten her oop.”
Tabitha turned pink, then red, then scarlet.
And Dunstan turned an amazing shade of chartreuse as Alan, with thumb and forefinger, jerked him to his toes and jammed him hard against the wall by his nostrils.
“What are you here for, Dumbstan?” He skewered him on a lethal look before letting him drop.
“Ow. Dinna be mad at me, laddie, I’m just the messenger,” the beefy blond grumbled nasally, rubbing his swollen nose. “You’re wanted in the yard. ’Tis Mary.”
Alan let out a deep, gut-wrenching groan. “I’m going to ship that little lunatic back to Boston on a mule train. What’s her folly now?”
“She’s climbed oot on the ledge o’ the wizards’ tower and promises tae jump if you dinna come,” Dunstan said, as Alan yanked his clothes back on.
“Why can’t one of you get her down?” He fastened his trousers with a slight wince. “Haul her in through the window above, or use a ladder. Don’t tell me you’re all afraid of one moon-mazed lassie!”
“Aye, when she’s got a loaded revolver, we are. Malcolm did try the ladder, though. She waited till he was nearly oop, then gave it a stout kick.
” He paused a moment to scratch under his arm. “Molly says ’tis a good, clean break, his leg ought tae heal.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Alan said, as though glad was the last thing he was. “How the devil did she get a revolver?”
“How should I ken? She’s a witch maybe.” Dunstan shrugged, blinking at Alan through bloodshot eyes. “You comin’ or ain’t you?” The eyes flashed to Tabitha, huddled small against the large bed’s headboard. “I can keep the bonny bride amused whilst you’re gang,” he offered with a leer that curdled her blood.
“You can find yourself flayed and staked out on the prairie, too,” Alan said, with a grin that curdled Dunstan’s. “Wait for me in the yard. I’ll be there directly.”
He watched until his cousin had lumbered sulkily out of sight, then swung about, snatched Tabitha’s clothes off a chair, jammed them into her trunk on top of the others, slammed the lid down, turned the trunk’s key with a vicious twist, tore it out of the lock, and shoved it into his boot.
“Just making sure you won’t want to go anywhere while I’m gone.” He stalked to the bed and nailed her to the headboard with an iron glare. “When I return, I expect to find you exactly where I left you. This night is not over for us yet, lassie. As far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t even begun. Now come here.”
She couldn’t. Fury radiated off him like heat waves, paralyzing her. She’d seen him angry before, but not like this. This was a real temper. It was suddenly too easy to imagine him killing someone.
She gave her head a little shake, simply because that was the only response she could manage, but it seemed to infuriate Alan even more. A snarl on his lips, he reached forward and hauled her into his arms, capturing her mouth, kissing her as though he’d devour her in one bite.
It rocked her like a volcanic eruption, turned her blood into molten lava and her breath into steam—swept through her like a firestorm, burning away resistance, leaving nothing in its wake but a deep, driving, devastating need.
“There, that should hold you for a bit!” Abruptly, he released her.
She landed on the mattress in a shower of electric sparks and lay there gasping, staring at him through a red-hot haze as he strode for the door.
“I’ll be back,” he flung over his shoulder. And then he was gone.
And she was alone with a quivering, unquenchable desire… And a shivering, unspeakable fear.
Chapter 4
Turning up the lamp didn’t help. It brightened the room, but Tabitha’s thoughts grew blacker with every erratic beat of her heart. Alan had been gone about thirty minutes, she estimated, yet it may just as well have been seconds so intensely could she still feel the scorch of his body, taste his lips, sense his energy. It was like being branded, she thought, furious with him for marking her and herself for letting him. Even if she escaped now, she’d never really be free. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she would have to carry his memory with her. The rat.
Shaking her head in a hopeless effort to clear it, she paced the room—from end to end, side to side, corner to corner, and back again. Wrapped up in the sheet, wrapped up in anxiety, glancing at the door and dreading his return…glancing at the bed and longing for what she dreaded… Boiling in such an emotional stew, the sudden crack of the door banging open hit her like a gunshot.
She jumped, tripped over a trailing corner of sheet, and stumbled forward and sideways before catching herself with both hands on the edge of the dresser. Left to its own devices, the sheet slipped down off her breasts, and she stumbled again in the hasty grab to pull it back into place.
“Need some help?”
The offer was made cheerfully enough, but the reek of stale sweat and fresh whiskey that came with it almost turned her stomach inside out. And the meaty hand that latched onto her arm sent a polar chill through her veins.
“Don’t you ever knock?” She jerked away from the grip with a sharp twist.
“Why bother? ’Tis all family here, Cousin Tabby. We’ve nothin’ tae hide fray one another, and we share and share alike.” Dunstan stared at the swell of her breasts beneath the satin and licked his lips.
Eww…
“Get out.” Tabitha watched him the way a cornered cat watches an advancing dog, every fiber tensed for fight or flight, whichever opportunity came first. The moron ought to know she wasn’t easy prey. He still wore the scratches she’d given him when he and Duncan had locked her in the prison tower.
“Aye, tha’ reminds me,” he slurred, not so drunk he couldn’t read her expression. “I owe you somethin’ for t’other day!”
A heavy hand lashed out, delivering a vicious slap before she could dodge it. The blow hit her on the jaw, knocking the wind out of her and sending her hard into the dresser. She grabbed at it for support, trying to spin clear, but the back of the hand cracked into the other side of her face, driving her to her knees. The room started to tilt, and she struggled to stay conscious, barely aware Dunstan was dragging her down beneath him by her hair. He let go of it to clamp down on her throat while his other hand tore away the sheet.
Jagged nails raked a raw path from her breast to abdomen. “Here’s some o’ your own back, you wicked cat!” He bit her shoulder with enough force to draw blood.
Pinned fast and battling for breath, Tabitha had bigger concerns. The grip on her windpipe was choking her more than Dunstan in his drunken anger realized. Or maybe he did realize—but she preferred to give him the benefit of the doubt; dealing with one murderer per night was about all she could manage. More likely, Dunstan was just a stupid, lecherous lout with a wounded ego and a sore nose.
Wham! She slammed the latter with the heel of her hand.
He yelled, drew back and gave her several more blows that nearly knocked her eyes out of their sockets, but her lungs expanded with the needed air—gasp—because to strike her, he’d had to let go of her neck. He grabbed her wrists instead, locking them together in one huge, sweaty hand, straining them high over her head. His free hand fumbled his kilt aside. His hairy knees began forcing hers apart…
“This be for Alan. Stake me out, will he? I’ll stake his bride tae the floor!” His breath made her feel like she had her face stuck in a sewer.
Tabitha gagged, then as something ungodly grazed her thigh, started screaming for all she was worth.
Not half so loudly as Dunstan, however, as a yowling, black fiend landed on his back in a furious frenzy of fang and claw. He bellowed like a wounded bull, rolling over and crushing the creature beneath his bulk, but it scrambled free, clawed its way over his head and drove straight for the man’s throat.
Dunstan lumbered to his feet and floundered about the room, trying to free himself from fangs that refused to let go. For something that was really only a good-sized house cat, the animal fought with the studied ferocity of a full-grown panther. It seemed to know exactly what it was doing, and it clung to him like some crazed devil-leech straight out of the darkest depths of hell. It strained toward his jugular, like it had done this sort of thing many times before, like it reveled in it, craved it, and only a long drink of hot spurting blood would be able to appease it.
Left sprawled on the floor, Tabitha followed the struggle with incredulous eyes while she groped a hand up under the dresser. Somewhere…there. Her fingers closed around something hard and smooth. She inched it out, her breath coming in ragged snatches, then pulled to her knees and gazed down.
It was a fancy carved piece of hardwood, about the length and thickness of a baseball bat. It was the broken bedpost. But to her it was the end to this nightmare.
Struggling to her feet, she grasped it with both hands and staggered toward Dunstan just as he finally ripped the cat off his neck and hurled it into a wall. The animal dropped to the floor in a hissing, spitting crouch, and the wild-eyed man lunged forward to stomp its head in. But Tabitha lunged faster, swinging with all her might, and it was his head that cracked, instead. Not literally, though.
Unfortunately.
S
tudying the man’s motionless, but obviously breathing form, she decided that since he had mostly rocks between his ears, all she’d done was to rattle them a bit.
She hovered above him another moment, poised like a batter awaiting the next pitch, just in case he needed another crack, but his lights had been well and truly blown out. Dropping her weapon, she raced to the cat.
Who sat washing his face as though nothing had happened.
Tabitha scooped him up, hugging him against her chest with an almost hysterical relief. He snuggled into her, purring like a miniature locomotive.
“You brave, foolish, little angel”—tears splashed onto his fur—“thank you! But that was an awful chance you took. He’s so much bigger than you.”
The cat fussed his way out of her arms, padded over to Dunstan, sniffed him, then turned his back, lifted high his tail, and sprayed the unconscious man square between the eyes. His way, apparently, of saying, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Blinking up at Tabitha, who was suddenly racked between laughter and sobs, his glowing eyes seemed to suggest, “Don’t you think you should be leaving now? We won that battle, but let’s not press our luck.”
“Good point.” She sniffled and stumbled back across the room to collect what was left of her sheet.
Not until she was tucking it around herself did she realize she was angrier with Alan than she was with Dunstan. The latter was only a drunken fool. Alan was the shameless villain who’d deliberately stranded her in such a vulnerable position in the first place. If she’d been properly dressed, she could have dodged Dunstan before he’d ever laid a finger on her.
“It’s this damned sheet that caused the whole thing! It keeps slipping and tripping me,” she complained to the cat through a new flurry of frustrated tears.
He gazed at her a thoughtful moment, then snagged Dunstan’s monogrammed kilt pin with a neat front paw, tore it loose, and batted it across the floor to her. “Will this help?” his eyes asked.
Tabitha blinked away her tears, staring from the cat to the pin and back again. “You are utterly extraordinary.”
