by Virna DePaul
It being so early, it was easy to sneak out of the castle. The only time she had to duck behind a column was when a maid suddenly emerged from a linen closet. The foyer’s marble floor made her boots echo loudly, but no one came running.
Soon enough, she had open sky above her and miles of gravel road ahead of her. However, the sounds of rocks crunching or mud squelching under her feet did little to drown out her relentless thoughts.
How could she have been so stupid?
She hoped that the more distance she put between herself and this castle, the less time she’d have to keep reliving that moment in the pub over and over again.
But she was already more than a mile away and still kept smacking her forehead and shaking her head. There was no longer any reason to worry about it. She’d make it into the town of Kelso and head right for the train station to Edinburgh, where she’d catch her flight. She’d definitely feel better with the Atlantic Ocean between her and the Duke. After that, the only time she’d ever see him again was if she one day Googled him.
Well, those hopeful plans soon changed.
A black sedan appeared from the direction of Kelso, kicking up dirt along the winding country road. Molly shifted to the side to let it pass, then was surprised to find it slowing down. It came to a full stop right beside her. She had just enough time to wonder where she’d stored her pepper spray, when the window rolled down and Mack leaned over to smile at her.
“Morning, love,” he said in his gruff but amiable Scottish accent. “Just coming back with some breakfast from Mary’s Bakery.”
“Oh.” She smiled back, ready to continue on. “That’s nice.”
Mack’s eyes traveled to her backpack and he frowned. “What are you up to so early this misty morn?”
She hoped one positive of this whole fiasco was that perhaps her horrendous lying skills had improved.“Out for a walk,” she tried.
The doubt written all over Mack’s face immediately informed her she hadn’t fooled him. Great.
“You’ve got your whole big pack on your shoulders,” he pointed out, nodding as if it had gotten there by accident.
“Um, right.” She was stalling for time to think of something other than I made a pass at the Duke and he rejected me.
Mack was still waiting.
“Um, right, yeah,” she said again with a defeated sigh. “It’s strength training.”
“Strength training, Miss Rose?” He sounded half impressed and half dubious.
“Yep, that’s what I said.”
Why she said it, she had no idea. She glanced down the road and glimpsed the church steeple in Kelso. It was so close. But as she smiled back at Mack, it felt further and further away.
“Just extra weight, I guess,” she explained.
“Well, that’s really lovely, but aren’t you supposed to be in the ballroom right now? I believe we agreed to eight, no?”
Molly was trapped. “Shit. Lost track of time. I’ll head back right now.”
She turned to walk back toward the castle and prayed that Mack would drive on to meet her there.
“That’s ridiculous.” He laughed. “Hop in.”
“I guess there’s no saying ‘no?’” she joked with a forced smile, even though it was no joke at all.
“The Duke will be eager to see you Miss Rose, I’m sure.”
She begrudgingly opened the door and sank into the passenger seat.
She wasn’t sure ‘eager’ would be the word the Duke used.
Surely he’d be horrified.
Just as horrified as he’d seemed when she’d tried to kiss him.
* * *
Callum
During the entire hour-long portrait session, Molly didn’t look at Callum one single time. She did paint him, yes, or at least it looked like that was what she was doing, but her soft blue eyes never once fell upon his face.
From his seat, Callum had watched her come into the ballroom behind Mack and march straight to the easel. It had already been set up with canvas and her table of paints and brushes. She’d looked at Mack when she’d politely declined the croissants he’d bought from Mary’s in town. She’d made eye contact with his mother during her gracious and humble apology for her tardiness.
But for him, there’d been no such acknowledgements.
She’d hidden behind the canvas and busied herself with cleaning her brushes and mixing her paints again and again. Callum wasn’t an artist, but no paint needed to be mixed that aggressively for that long.
When the session was over, Molly had thanked both Mack and his mother. Then she had dashed out of the ballroom without so much as a glance his way, let alone a goodbye.
He considered letting her go. Even if things between them hadn’t ended the way he would have liked them to end, the fact remained: they had to end. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he’d done as he needed to do. After rambling on about what kind of man he wanted to be, he’d behaved like the man he needed to be. He’d maintained his control where Molly Lane was concerned.
But even as his mind ran through the logical reasons why he’d acted correctly in pulling away from her kiss last night, his feet were already ignoring them.
“Callum?” his mother called as he quickly strode past her. “Where in the devil are you off to in such a hurry?”
He waved her away and strode into the main hallway of the castle. Empty. He heard an echo to the left and jogged along the corridor, jumping down the stairs three at a time and finally, halfway down the stone hallway, spotting blonde curls.
“Molly!”
She must have heard him, but she ignored him all the same. He increased his pace and called her name again. Again she failed to acknowledge him in the slightest—not by the turn of her head, or a dismissive wave, or a frustrated groan.
“Molly.”
She marched on.
At last, he caught up to her and gently grabbed her wrist, moving his body around to face her. She averted her eyes and twisted her arm free while he knelt down to make eye contact. She moved to step around him but he blocked her path, holding his hands up in the universal sign for surrender.
“One moment. Just wait.”
She shook her head and maneuvered her way around him, her feet echoing as she continued down the stone corridor.
“Just listen to me for two minutes. Please.”
This plea, too, was ignored. It was making his extraordinary self-control weaken. Every reverberation from her footsteps moving further and further away from him was like a crack forming in his own stone wall. The stone wall he’d tried so hard to keep erect and which Molly seemed hell-bent on tearing down.
The next time he spoke, it wasn’t in the same tone he’d used to call her name before. That voice hadn’t worked. It had been too reserved, meek, tame. Now, he unleashed a voice that was forceful, almost savage. Reflective of the beast he’d tried to contain but no longer could.
“Miss Lane, you will stop.”
She paused mid-step. Good. That did it.
She still faced away from him, but her body was frozen. It was the strength of her will against the strength of his command. The rationality in her mind raging against the yearning of her heart.
She looked slowly over her shoulder.“What did you just say to me?”
Suddenly, a weight lifted from his shoulders, all burdens released from his smothering grip. The shackles were gone. He moved toward her. Again, he felt the strength of the muscles in his arms, the power of his intimidating height, the way his body moved like the deadliest of mountain lions. She was his prey. And he was free to hunt once more.
His voice was low and dangerous. “I said, you will stay right where you are.”
But her eyes were not the eyes of a frightened deer. They were not wide with terror or paralyzed in shock or flitting to and fro with white hot adrenaline.
As Callum drew near to her, near enough that he could smell her, like a rainstorm in the sweltering heat of a summer’s night, he could see clearl
y that her eyes were the furthest thing from the eyes of prey.
They were calm. They were studying him, watching him, anticipating him. The blue of her irises, dark in the dim light of the hallway, steadily followed his movements as he circled her. Her hands, held loosely at her sides, didn’t tremble. She didn’t flinch when his finger reached out to skim the swell of her ass as he circled behind her. Every time he crossed back in front of her, her eyes met his, daring, confident, waiting.
“My portrait is not finished,” Callum said.
The words slipped from his lips barely above the volume of a whisper in that empty hallway, but they were said with authority, as if he’d shouted them from the depths of his lungs. Behind Molly, he tugged at a particularly perfect blonde curl at the base of her neck. He found her teeth sinking into her lower lip as he moved in front of her, still holding her hair, and checked her eyes. Her pupils grew wide as she met his gaze, unblinking.
“Were you intending to leave me unfinished, Miss Lane?” he asked, giving an extra tug to her hair.
She smacked his hand away and stared right into his eyes.
“I am not your artist, Your Grace. Have you forgotten that?”
There was a challenge to the way she stood, the way she questioned him. He looked her up and down, from head to toe, and held his hands behind his back as he continued again to walk around her. He wanted to touch her, to rip her clothes away, to claw at her exposed neck like a rabid dog. But not yet.
“I am the Duke of this castle.” He leaned closer to whisper into her ear. “I decide who my artist is and is not.”
He hoped his breath sent chills down her spine. He hoped there was strain already growing between her thighs. He hoped she was a spring, held down, tension growing and growing, ready to pop. Just like him.
“And when the real Priscilla Rose comes knocking on your door?” Molly raised an eyebrow as he passed in front of her again. “What then, Your Grace?”
Every time she called him that he felt a groan growing in his chest, an urge twitching at his fingertips, a rush of blood traveling to his cock. Because he hated it, but he also loved it. Hated it because the title was a barrier between them, a reminder of who he was and why he couldn’t have her. Loved it, because she didn’t say it with the deference that was due to him, but to taunt him. To push him. And pushing him past his limits was certainly something she did well.
“I’ll tell her she certainly must be an imposter,” Callum said. “I’ll tell her Priscilla Rose has blonde curly hair, about to here.”
Callum unlinked his hands to skim one pinky along Molly’s collarbone.
“I’ll tell her that she couldn’t possibly be Priscilla Rose, because Priscilla Rose has boots falling apart and T-shirts with holes. Priscilla Rose’s nose wrinkles slightly when she smiles and laughs. I’ll tell her I’ve seen the real Priscilla Rose and those are not her eyes. Her eyes are blue and see the world in a way no one else does.”
She was hanging on to his every word, waiting as he studied her body with a tilted head. His voice got even softer.
“I’ll tell her that I’ve seen the body of the real artist and it looks something like this.”
He traced the air just millimeters above her arms, her waist, down along her legs, even the space just between her thighs. She raised an eyebrow.
“So, that’s why I must stay then, Your Grace?” she asked, this time taking a small, somewhat timid step closer to him, his title falling from her lips not sarcastically, but softly, seductively. “The sole reason I must stay is to paint your grand portrait?”
A devilish spark lit her eyes just as much as anger. Her chest just barely pressed against his, just enough for him to know she was there, that she was real. All he had to do was reach for her.
He remained silent, controlling his breath and willing his hips not to thrust against her crotch.
“That must be it,” she said softly. “Because I know it’s not because I drive you crazy. I know it’s not because you want to touch me. You don’t want me to stay here because you want me to scream out ‘Your Grace, Your Grace, Your Grace’ as I come. If that was the reason, you would have kissed me back at the pub.”
Her voice was like silk wrapped around his neck, tightening, choking him, choking the man he’d been pretending to be.
“You didn’t scrape your fingers down my chest when I stood naked before you, you didn’t bite at my neck, you didn’t even rub your throbbing erection against my hip, so I know the reason you want me to stay here in your castle cannot possibly be that you want to ravage me, make me tremble under your touch, cause me to beg for more and more and still more.”
Callum’s dress shoes scuffed against the stone floor as Molly forced him back another step. He could just make out the flutter of her heart against his chest as she pressed her tits closer. He was sure his was beating twice as fast.
“When you had me pinned against that tree, out on that country road, and there wasn’t a soul in sight…” Her breath caught and Callum knew she was remembering it, the feeling of him standing over her, dominant and powerful. “I was helpless against you,” she whispered, “I wanted you to take me, up against the tree or down in the mud. Hell, you could have fucked me on your horse in the rain, and I would have flung my head back in ecstasy.”
She looked up at him and he wasn’t sure how long he could hold back from heaving her up into his arms and crashing his lips into hers.
“So I know,” she said, lifting her chin higher, meeting his eyes, “I just know you don’t want me to stay here for any other reason than to paint your fucking portrait. Isn’t that right, Your Grace?”
There was resignation in her eyes, but hope, too. A flicker of hope. Callum’s hand almost shook from the effort of restraining himself for so long as he slipped it behind Molly’s neck. He felt her skin shiver as he lowered his head to hers and kissed her softly. At the pub, her kiss had been like a shock of lightning. It had left him trembling for hours and hours after. This kiss was smooth like whiskey, but still it left his lips buzzing when he pulled away to stare into her eyes.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
Callum twisted his fingers into the sides of her sweatshirt. He clung to it as if he was hanging over a rocky ravine and the gray cotton in his grip was the only thing keeping him from plummeting to the bottom. Molly’s feet relented when he urged her backwards and against the stone wall of the hallway.
“Tell me,” she gasped as his fingers twisted tighter in her sweatshirt. “Say it.”
His breath came in stutters as he drowned in the light from her eyes. She reached a hand around him, grabbed his ass, and pulled his crotch tight against her. Callum bit into the flesh of his cheek to hold back the groan when she devilishly rolled her hips against his erection. Slowly and yet urgently, she repeated the motion.
“Say I want to lose control with you,” she urged with a desperation mirroring his own. “Tell me. I need to hear it.”
Her fingers snaked up his back. The collar of his control was fraying, each strand spiraling loose, the threads coming undone one by one. It was barely wrapped around his neck as Molly buried her hands in his hair and yanked.
“Tell me,” she said with a weighty finality, “or you’ll have to find yourself another artist, Your Grace.”
Those last two words from those pink lips, still wet and shining from his kiss, undid him. He nudged her head to the side and nipped her neck, and she hissed. “Callum. My name is Callum. Say it.”
“I…no…”
“Say it, Molly.”
She sighed. “Callum.”
“That’s right. I’m both Your Grace and Callum. I want you to call me both. Your Grace in public. Callum when we’re alone. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re right. I do want to lose control with you,” he said, looking at the red marks he had left along her goose-bumped skin. “I don’t want to hold myself back.”
“Then don’t,” she brea
thed, clinging to his shoulders.
“I want to take you apart.”
“Yes.”
“I want to rip and bite and tear.”
“Yes, Callum, please. Yes.”
Hearing his name come again from her lips in that breathy, desperate tone… He tugged down the collar of her sweatshirt, groaning at the obstacle to her naked, searing skin, and sucked at her clavicle. “I want to dominate you completely and utterly and unquestionably.”
She sagged against the wall but he pinned her tighter and tighter against the stones.
“Callum,” she whispered, and this time Callum didn’t hold himself back from grinding his cock against her, growling at the delicious friction.
He lifted her, one hand under her ass and the other against her back, and moved to push her against a door just a few feet to the left. He held her there and used one hand to fish a key from his back pocket before fumbling behind her back to insert the key into the lock. As the handle came down and the door swung open, he stumbled with her in his arms into a quiet hallway lit by weak morning light filtering through an arched window of stained glass at the end. Locked doors lined the stone walls behind which the many treasures of Floors Castle were stored. No one but him had the key.
He kicked the door shut with his foot as she held his face between her two hands.
“Fuck me,” she said, the blue of her eyes nothing but a sliver around her blown wide pupils.
He lowered her to the ground and stepped back to lean against the far wall.
“Take off your shoes,” he commanded.
She slipped them off and flung them further down the small hallway. He watched her, tugging at his belt.
“Now your top.” His voice was thick with lust, and she wasn’t even naked yet.
She grabbed her sweatshirt hem and tugged it over and off her head. He palmed at his dick over the material of his pants, his eyes only on her. Underneath, she wore a skimpy lace bralette, through which he could see the full shape of her breasts, the quiver of her breath, the peaks of her straining nipples. She tossed the sweatshirt into the short distance between them and waited.
