by Nina Mason
“Just how many other knights are running around the—what did you call it?—passing themselves off as humans?”
“The Hitherworld,” he replied. “And only me and MacQuill, so far as I know. Unless you count Axel Lochlann, who guards the portal down in Faery Glen. Technically, though, Sir Axel is still enslaved.”
“Portal? What portal is this?”
“The passage between Hitherworld and Thitherworld,” he said.
She went quiet, giving him a chance to ask a question for a change. “What else did Sorcha tell you while you were hunting vampires down in the dungeon?”
Her gaze met his with searing intensity. “Only that what you were looking for was right in front of you, too.”
He didn’t doubt it. He had an overriding yen to conquer the lady, to bring her to heel, to pin her to a board like one of the butterflies he collected in his youth. But he wouldn’t, because that would spoil her beauty and crush her spirit, destroying the very things he found so appealing.
Chapter 8
The next few days passed quickly and blissfully. Duncan departed with Callum still undecided about the election—and what to do about Vanessa. At the moment, they were back in Wick. Vanessa had been pleasantly surprised by Callum’s offer to take her shopping, though a bit apprehensive about his offer to pay—until he marched her straight to a purveyor of naughty lingerie.
Named Indecent, the shop had a diva-chic aesthetic with pale pink walls and a checkerboard marble floor. In the center, a beaded chandelier hung over a circular table stacked with lacey knickers. In the back, near the draperied dressing rooms, a French-looking settee and matching pair of chairs flanked a magazine-strewn table.
Callum took her hand as they entered, which she liked, especially when the two sales clerks glanced their way. She knew the look. Not that she blamed them. How could any normal woman look at him without lusting in her heart?
“Can I help you find something special?” The clerk asking was a dark-haired, statuesque beauty with pale blue eyes.
Vanessa offered her a tepid smile. “No thanks. We’d just like to look around for now, if that’s all right.”
“Be my guest.”
She proceeded to look around, towing her randy Scottish knight along by the hand. Floor racks and wall-mounted hooks displayed bras, panties, corsets, garters, merry widows, teddies, baby-doll nighties, and everything in between. A line of mannequins by the front window exhibited elegant silk nightgowns and peignoirs. Molded female torsos modeled bras and bustiers from atop rounds and tables.
Squeezing his hand, Vanessa said, “Tell me if you see something you like.”
“It might be quicker to point out the things I don’t,” he returned with an adorable grin.
She couldn’t help smiling. He looked like a tyke in a sweeties shop with a penny burning a hole in his pocket. Shit, she was really starting to like him. They hadn’t talked anymore about trying to work something out once the week was over, though she definitely wanted to. She couldn’t bear the thought of walking away from the best man she’d ever met, but neither could she give up her new job.
“In that case, tell me if you see anything you’d like me to try on.”
Both golden eyebrows shot up. “Will you model for me?”
“Will you get hard if I do?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“If I don’t, we won’t be buying it,” he whispered with a salacious grin. “I can tell you that much.”
Tickled by his playfulness, she went on looking, feeling a bit like a kid in a candy shop herself. Would he let her keep it after they parted ways? Grief squeezed her heart as she imagined opening her suitcase back in her London flat and finding it full of lingerie she had no idea how she’d come by. Callum stopped before a mannequin modeling a pink bra and panties trimmed with black lace. A matching garter-belt held up thigh-high fishnets. “How about this?” The grin he gave her was rakishly appealing.
She ran an approving eye over the ensemble. At least he had good taste in lingerie. Not that she was surprised, given the way he dressed and decorated his castle. “I’m game. But let’s keep looking.”
The next mannequin he stopped before displayed a full corset over a frilly, pale pink crinoline. It was fetching, albeit a bit too Little Bo Peep for her taste.
“Get me a crook and a lamb and I’m all set,” she said, her tone dripping sarcasm.
His smile slumped. “You don’t fancy it?”
She leaned close and, keeping her voice low, said out of the corner of her mouth, “Would you seriously want to shag me in that?”
“Oh, aye.”
The fire in his eyes shot a thunderbolt straight to her crotch. She turned round to look for the dark-haired clerk who’d greeted them. Catching the girl’s eye, Vanessa called out, pointing at the mannequins in turn, “Could I try this on? And that pink set over there?”
“By all means.” The saleswoman came right over. “I’m Monique, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Vanessa. And this is Lord Lyon.”
“Oh, I know who he is.” Monique said in an overly familiar way Vanessa didn’t like in the least while unabashedly ogling Callum.
Oblivious to Vanessa’s venomous glare, Monique asked her size and, a few minutes later, ushered her into one of the draperied cubicles with an armload of sheer underpinnings. Callum parked himself in one of the chairs, crossed his leg over his knee, and selected a magazine from the assortment on the table.
After Monique departed, Vanessa stripped and tried on the pink satin and black lace set with the corset-style garter belt. She’d worn a simple dress and strappy sandals for their shopping excursion—something easy to slip on and off in dressing rooms just in case she saw something she wanted to try on.
As Vanessa wrestled with the hooks and eyes on the lingerie, overhearing Monique flirting with Callum made her blood pressure escalate. How dare that scheming shop girl hit on him? Not that Vanessa could blame her for trying. Callum offered the whole luxury package: looks, brains, money, title, political ambitions, and a castle to ice the cake.
Except for the vampire faery bit, he was a dream come true.
For her parents.
The thought chilled her to the marrow. She saw herself, clear as day, playing the good wife, catering to him and his children, while he chased his political ambitions.
Through the soft-focus filter of unexpected tears, she checked all the angles in the full-length, three-way mirror. The pieces fit like a dream and she looked good, but did she look good enough to hold the interest of a man as libidinous as Callum Lyon? Biting her lip, she drew aside the curtain and, tingling with self-consciousness, stepped out into the shop.
Monique was perched on the settee facing Callum, predatory intentions glaringly obvious in her body language. A sudden, strong compulsion to scratch the clerk’s eyes out tore through Vanessa’s system like a cyclone. Swallowing the urge, she ventured forth and inserted herself between the two.
Forcing a smile, she asked what he thought of the outfit.
As he looked her up and down, a smile hitched up one corner of his mouth. “You look good enough to eat.” Peeking around her to Monique, he added, “Can you get her some stockings to try?”
“What kind?”
He flicked his thumb toward the first mannequin. “That kind.”
“Fishnets?”
“Aye. And some plain black ones, too. With the seam up the back.”
When the clerk set off on her errand, Vanessa stepped up to him and bent over to give him an eyeful of cleavage. He reached up, slipped his hand inside the bra, and rubbed his thumb across her nipple. A searing bolt of lust shot straight to her crotch.
She waggled her eyebrows at him. “Is it making you hard?”
Before he could answer, she reached between his legs and squeezed, getting her answer.
He pulled the hand out of her bra and moved it between her legs, slipping a fing
er inside the panties to encircle her bud with a finesse born of considerable experience. Despite her mixed emotions, she felt an onrush of moisture the shop would doubtless not appreciate.
“Do you think they’d let me have my way with you in the changing room?” He cleared his throat. “Purely to test the efficacy of the merchandise, of course.”
“I somehow doubt it.” She bent to kiss his mouth. “Though I wouldn’t put you out if they agreed.”
As Monique returned with the stockings, Vanessa jerked back her hand and straightened up. Callum withdrew his, too, but swept it around her hip and over her bare bum before dropping it back into his lap to hide his erection.
Monique, pretty features pinching, handed the packaged stockings to Vanessa before turning to him. “I’m afraid I can’t let her try them on unless you’re planning to buy them.”
“If she wants them, I’ll buy them.” He shrugged one broad shoulder like the cost meant nothing. “I would buy her the moon and stars, were it possible.”
Vanessa, buzzing with triumph, took the stockings with her to the dressing room. If that statement, and the less-than-subtle grope, hadn’t sent a clear signal to the pushy clerk, she was as clueless as a bucket of hair.
It didn’t help that Callum was so bloody hot Vanessa couldn’t look at him without feeling a scorching surge of lust. And his opinions and intelligence were just as impressive. She could really go for a guy like him. If only they could be more than passing ships.
As she slipped into the Bo Peep ensemble, she heard Monique say, “Independent lingerie shops are becoming going concerns, and I’m thinking of opening a second one down in Inverness, but could really use an investor.”
Outrage spread across Vanessa’s skin like molten depilatory wax. That bitch was after his money! Not that it was any of her business, mind, especially since she’d be leaving soon and probably wouldn’t even remember him, but still. He deserved better than a user like Monique. He deserved someone who could see past his attractive packaging to the substance underneath.
Just as she did—on both scores.
Monique was still jabbering to him about investing in her new shop. Clearing her throat, Vanessa stepped out of the dressing room and did a little twirl beside his chair, fanning out the crinoline to show off the black lace garters underneath.
“Well?” she asked, eager for his reaction and to put the clerk in her place.
The lust that darkened his eyes made words unnecessary. Victory sang in Vanessa’s heart as she returned to the dressing room to try on the last outfit.
Last and least, she thought with a smile as she held up the skimpy black T-shirt and garters combination. After slipping it on, she felt too exposed to leave the dressing room, so she stuck her head through the crack in the curtains and said, “Callum, baby, could you come here for a minute?”
Okay, maybe calling him baby was laying it on a bit thick, but it was better than peeing on his leg to mark her territory. He was there in a flash, smiling as she modeled it from inside the cubicle. The thing was practically backless, with only the thong and garters covering her bum.
Making a lustful noise deep in his throat, he swept through the curtain and snapped it closed behind him. In a blink, she was up against the mirror with his mouth on hers and his hands sampling the merchandise.
“If I could take you right here without getting arrested, I so fucking would.”
She couldn’t contain the laugh that burst forth. “I gather from your reaction this one’s a keeper?”
“Oh, aye.” He flicked his tongue against her lips. “In fact, why don’t you keep it on under your clothes while we do a bit more shopping?”
* * * *
Backlit by the vivid vermillion sunset, Callum and Vanessa walked arm-in-arm back toward the car loaded down with packages, from Indecent as well as the other boutiques they’d patronized that afternoon. He’d bought her some earrings, a scarf, a silver trinket box, and everything else she fancied. He’d meant it when he’d told that overly solicitous shop girl he’d buy his bonny butterfly the moon and stars if he could.
While money might not buy happiness, it sure as hell could buy pleasure. Buying her things was like giving her an orgasm wrapped up in a box or bag—an orgasm she could keep long after the thrilling tremors subsided.
How long she could keep her baubles, however, remained to be seen.
For the moment, though, the simple knowledge of what she had on underneath her clothes had him half-hard. What was it about garters that lit his wick like a torch? As far as he could figure, it had to do with the times in which he’d been born.
In sixteenth-century Scotland, women were brazen about their sexuality. Bare-breasted lasses would lift their skirts as the king’s carriage passed through their town. Whores walked about the army camp stark naked and soldiers partook of their wares in plain sight.
This hadn’t put him off nudity altogether, mind. The unclothed female form still aroused him. He just happened to find the mystique provided by naughty lingerie a wee bit more tantalizing.
By the time they reached the car, loaded down with packages, he had ideas. Though he’d done his share of watching in his day, he’d never been one to engage in public rutting with whores. As a knighted baron and court astrologer, he held himself to a higher standard. He might have shagged his share of prostitutes, but he’d done so in private.
Still, there was something to be said for the thrill of potentially being observed en flagrant delicto. What he was trying to decide right now was whether the thrill was worth the risk of discovery, especially if he might run for Parliament.
At the car, which he’d parked in an out-of-the way spot, he loaded the packages into the back while she waited beside the locked passenger door. After slamming the rear hatch, he moved around to her and in one fluid move, captured her around the waist and turned her toward the car.
“Spread ’em,” he said near her ear, “like you’re about to be searched by the police.”
She assumed the requested stance. “Am I?”
“Oh, aye, lass,” he rasped. “Cavities and all.”
He rolled his now fully engorged cock against her arse. Groaning with pleasure and need, he lifted her skirt, exposing the pale moons of her buttocks, bare but for those three wee straps.
“Have I done something wrong, officer?”
“Oh, aye. Public indecency. It’s illegal to walk around looking this bonny.”
“Is it? And why’s that?”
“Because it gives the weaker sex ideas.”
Thankfully, now that she knew the truth, he didn’t need to bother with condoms. He hated the damn things, but it was easier than the alternative. Since Lady Vanessa was on the pill, they had nothing to worry about. God, how he missed the carefree days between reliable birth control and AIDS.
He unzipped, eased his erection out of the toothed slit, and rubbed the tip of it with his thumb before rolling it up and down her crack. Her breath hitched when he paused at her anus and gave a wee push.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He laughed. “Want to place a wager on that?”
Moving lower, he parked his cock at the humid entrance to her vagina and debated within himself. He wanted her, damn it. Body, blood, and maybe more. He was so lonely, so tired of mechanical sex, so ready to be with someone who cared. If only he could see a way to go forward with Vanessa. But he couldn’t. Try as he might, he just couldn’t. Asking her to stay was too much too soon and a long-distance relationship just wouldn’t work for his overactive libido.
Aching with frustration, he thrust his hips, pushing into her. He buried his length to the hilt, drew back, and buried himself again. His fangs dropped, crying for blood. Throwing back his head, he roared to exorcise the need.
Vanessa rolled her hips and pushed back, taking him even deeper. He withdrew until just his cockhead was yet embedded, circled her succulent ingress, and plunged in again, shuddering
under the blistering pleasure.
A gasp behind him made him freeze. Oh, fuck. Whoever it was had seen much too much. He pulled out, sucked his fangs back in, and zipped up his fly.
“What’s wrong?” Vanessa asked, starting to turn.
He held her where she was, sorted out her dress, and whispered near her ear, “We’ve got company. Get in the car and let me handle it, eh?”
He fished out the clicker, unlocked the car, and, as Vanessa got in, he rounded on the voyeur. His gut fisted when he saw it was the gold-digging clerk from the lingerie boutique. What the fuck had her name been? Monique.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked, fixing her with a contemptuous glare.
“That depends.” She held up a fancy cell phone. “How much is it worth to you to keep the video of what you’ve just been doing off the internet, Lord Lyon?”
Callum swallowed, tasting stomach acid. “How much do you want?”
“Enough to open that second shop I told you about.”
Judging by her smug expression, she believed she had him by the bollocks.
“Will you take a check?” he asked. “I don’t carry that much cash around nor will an ATM dispense as much as I presume you’re hoping to collect.”
“A check’s fine,” she said, regarding him suspiciously, “as long as it’s good.”
“It will be,” he assured her. “Besides, you’ll have my address on the check, so, if it should bounce, which it won’t, you’d ken where to find me, eh?”
“That’s true.” Hope was breaking through the clouds of skepticism in her pale-blue eyes.
He opened the passenger door and reached past Vanessa to retrieve his checkbook from the glove compartment.
“You’re not actually going to pay her off, are you?”
“Wait and see.”
After shutting the door, he opened the checkbook against the side of the Land Rover, unclipped his pen, and wrote in the date. “Whom do I make it out to and for how much?”
The lass came closer and looked over his shoulder, just as he hoped she would.
