She wondered if the Ardknocken people were going home tonight or staying here. If they were going home, maybe she could scrounge a lift. Maybe she could sit beside Glenn and torment herself with unrequited lust.
Smiling to herself, she texted a simple, Yes, thanks to Louise, put her phone away, and reached up to grasp the banister as she rose to her feet.
Which was when she saw Glenn at the foot of the stairs.
Chapter Nine
“You okay?” he asked.
“Sure, I’m fine. Just checking on Jack before I go to bed.”
“Already?”
“Well, Harry fell asleep, and I don’t really know these people—”
“Come and join us,” Glenn said.
It sounded so natural. In fact, the whole idea seemed so natural that she found herself descending the few stairs to the bottom before she’d even thought about it. He even held out his hand to her, and she took it. Warm, strong fingers closed around hers. For the first time, she wanted to know the stories behind the scars—to learn not just what kind of man he was now, but who he’d been. You couldn’t have one without the other.
She said, “I heard some of your set. You were brilliant, and the audience loved it.”
“Helps to pack your audience,” he said wryly. “But thanks. Glad you caught us. Drink?”
Another band was on now, apparently the highlight and last act of the evening.
“Why not?” Izzy said. “A glass of red wine would be nice.”
Glenn gave the order almost immediately—he didn’t seem the kind of man who was kept waiting at bars—and paid for the wine. He didn’t buy one for himself. As they joined the rest of the Ardknocken crowd, she saw why. He picked a half-full beer bottle from the table and raised it to his lips.
“You missed them,” Chrissy said reproachfully.
“No, I saw some of it.”
“Where’s Harry? He not joining us?”
“He’s gone to bed,” Izzy said diplomatically.
Chrissy grinned and raised her glass. “Sleep well, Harry.”
Unexpectedly, Dougie raised his too, although it may have been a conditioned response to any kind of toast.
“So when’s your next gig?” Izzy asked Glenn.
“We’ve got the beer festival next month, and then a couple of Christmas markets—and our own open day, of course.”
Izzy sipped her wine. “You and jazz seem an odd pairing,” she observed.
His lips twisted into not quite a smile. “Think I’d be better at thrash metal?”
“Are you?”
“I can thrash,” he admitted, although she wasn’t quite sure he was talking about music. His eyes flickered as if he picked up that doubt and was offended. She opened her mouth to apologise, to explain her genuine interest, but before she could speak, he almost blurted, “I’m not bad at Beethoven and Chopin either. Or progressive rock. Or my own label-less racket. It’s all music to me.”
“You write your own music?” Izzy asked, quickly latching on. “You compose?”
He shrugged. “Yes. But even I wouldn’t compare it with Beethoven.”
“Can I hear your stuff some time?” she asked boldly.
His eyes had locked on hers again. He nodded once. “You already have. It was playing last night. But yes, if you want.”
“I want,” she said, smiling, and then, as his breath seemed to hitch, she flushed at her own words. “I looked at that photocopy you gave me,” she said almost desperately. “It really does mention the ghost of Mary Ross, the wife of James MacLeod of Ardknocken.”
“Fiona told me. It also mentions the ghost was recognized from a portrait of Mary, which hung over the fireplace in the hall.”
“Long gone by your day, I suppose?” Izzy asked.
“Even the hall was gone by my day. The Victorians built the current house around what was left of the original building. We think the hall probably covered what is now the entrance hall and stairs, and that the original house stretched as far as the back of the kitchen. That wooden arch in our hall is medieval.”
Izzy thought about it. “The Victorians liked antiquities. They wouldn’t have thrown such an old portrait out.”
“Probably not, but anyone else could have in the previous three hundred years. To say nothing of fire and war. The house was trashed by Covenanters in the seventeenth century.”
“I gather the TV company is actually going with Mary Ross MacLeod rather than the Mary, Queen of Scots legend?”
Glenn shrugged. “They can get Mary, Queen of Scots into almost anywhere else. At least our Mary’s different.”
“I like her,” Izzy said. “She’s got my name, after all.”
Glenn clinked his bottle against her glass and took a drink. His feet moved to the beat of the music, which vibrated through the floor and Izzy’s chair.
“They’re good,” Glenn said.
Izzy nodded. It was ages since she’d heard live music. She’d forgotten the excitement, the way you could lose yourself in the right noise, the right rhythm. She’d forgotten all that in her two years with Ray, and afterwards. Ten years of prison hadn’t made Glenn forget. Or perhaps it was just something he’d learned to value with his freedom.
The band received rapturous applause as they walked off stage, so it wasn’t surprising they came back on almost immediately.
Glenn set down his beer and stood. His fingers closed around hers once more, drawing her with him. It seemed natural to go, perhaps because the others were all moving to the dance floor in appreciation too.
The band began a slow, haunting melody full of sad guitars and husky, almost whispering vocals. With her hand in Glenn’s, Izzy’s whole body secretly thrummed with awareness. She watched the stage and let the music take her. Somewhere, she recognized that the rest of the Ardknocken people were some distance in front, that couples had formed in between, slow-dancing.
But only when she felt the light brush of his fingertips against the side of her face did she glance up at Glenn, startled. His expression was serious, almost awed, as he pushed the lock of escaped hair off her face. Her heart thundering, she smiled, hoped her lips didn’t tremble. His hand dropped, drifting down her shoulder to her waist and her back as he began to sway.
After a moment, she lifted her free hand to his shoulder, and, as if that was permission, he drew her closer. Slowly, she leaned her head until it rested against his chest, and she could feel the strong, quick beat of his heart, out of rhythm with the band and yet still somehow part of the music.
His breath stirred her hair; something, perhaps his lips, brushed against it. He said, “You’re not angry with me anymore.”
She closed her eyes. “I was never angry,” she said with difficulty. “Just…surprised.”
A breath of laughter seemed to catch in this throat. “Not as surprised as me.”
She lifted her head from his chest to see his face, and at once, as if in fear that she was escaping, he drew her even closer. Her breasts pressed more definitely to his chest. Their hips swayed and fitted together like a jigsaw. He was all hard, male heat, and she could feel his erection growing against her tummy. Her whole being began to melt into blind, unthinking desire. There was just the music and Glenn and sweet, exciting sensation.
She almost forgot what she’d set out to ask. Almost. “You thought you were dreaming. Do you often dream of me?”
God, it sounded so cheesy, such a plea for compliments that she wished she’d phrased it differently. Only, how many ways were there to ask something so simple?
“Yes,” he said. “Since before I even met you.” A smile flickered across his eyes. “That’s not a pickup line. I have vivid dreams, usually before some…traumatic event in my life. Or someone else’s. They’re not all good dreams, believe me. You were a good dream.”
“Why, what was
I doing?”
His eyes darkened impossibly and yet seemed to glitter, as if caught in some trick of stage lighting. His lips tugged upward. “Making love.”
Heat surged through her body. She swallowed, licked her dry lips until his gaze dropped to them and she forced herself to stop. “With you?” she whispered. Her fingers dug into his shoulder.
His head bent. Slowly, he lifted her other hand and placed it on the back of his neck. “With me,” he said and closed his mouth over hers. Butterflies in her stomach seemed to hurtle downwards, churning, as his kiss melted her.
It wasn’t instant ravishing like those few hectic moments in his bed. It was slow, sweet exploration. His mouth moved softly, tenderly over hers, parting her lips and caressing for a long moment before his tongue slid inside and tangled with hers. She didn’t know when she started kissing him back. Perhaps at once. Everything was instinct, blatant and sensual.
The music cried and soared as they kissed. Their bodies swayed as one. Intense happiness mingled with fierce, growing lust. Izzy never wanted this moment to end. It was curiously perfect. One of those rare occasions of utter accord with another; an instant between wanting something and having it. Surely, here and now, the promise was enough.
His lips released hers. As her eyelids fluttered open, she caught the glitter in his clouded eyes once more, had time for one, trembling breath, and then he kissed her again, deep and unbearably sexual. His cock rubbed and throbbed against her, and standing here in his arms, kissing him, holding him, feeling the thick hard column of his desire, was no longer enough.
The hand cupping her cheek left her. His fingers closed around her hand, which clung to his nape, and lowered it as he raised his head once more. Without a word, he threaded his fingers through hers, releasing his hold everywhere else. She felt cold, bereft, but his fingers held on to hers, drawing her with him away from the others, across the empty part of the floor toward the table where he picked up her clutch bag and handed it to her as they walked on out the door.
In silence, they crossed the foyer and climbed the stairs. When they got to her room, she opened her bag and took out her key, slid it into the lock. Glenn leaned one shoulder against the wall and watched her. His eyes burned, but when she pushed the door wide, he didn’t move. She wanted to cry, because although she was so obviously and totally won, he still needed an invitation. She took his hand and drew him inside, switched on the light and firmly closed the door.
He stood perfectly still. Only the swift rise and fall of his chest gave any clue of agitation.
He said, “They’re not set in stone. The dreams. They don’t all happen. Some of them happen to someone else—I think. Sometimes I see things as if I’m doing them, but they could be anyone’s eyes I’m looking through. Or no one’s. I don’t pay any attention to the dreams, and neither should you.”
“You stared at me,” she said huskily. “When I accosted you outside the tearoom, you stared at me as if I was an alien. Or a ghost. You do pay attention.”
A smile flickered in his eyes and vanished. “Oh, I paid attention to you. I’d already decided you were someone else’s lover. I never expected to meet you.”
“Glenn, don’t,” she whispered. “I’m no catch. Don’t imagine I am or—”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll be disappointed, or you’ll spoil it, or something. We’re here. I like that we’re here.”
Still he didn’t move, apart from to swallow, convulsively enough to draw her attention to his Adam’s apple. He said, “So do I. But you should know… I don’t know how, because I deliberately didn’t ask, but I think Dougie spiked Harry’s drinks.”
Izzy felt her eyes widen.
“I even suspect Chrissy might have put him up to it,” he added.
“But…why?” Izzy demanded.
Glenn shrugged. “I think they imagined they were clearing away the competition for me. I knew it would make no difference.”
“It doesn’t.” She lifted his hand, which she still held in hers, closed her other hand around it too and squeezed. “There is no competition, Glenn,” she whispered. “It was you, always you I wanted, and I don’t even know why—”
Abruptly she was crushed hard against his chest, and his mouth devoured hers. She gasped into him, welcoming, melting. His hands tangled her hair, dragging it loose as kirby grips and combs spilled to the floor. His thigh pressed into hers, and he walked her backward as they kissed.
As she fell onto the bed, his weight pressed gloriously between her hips, and his hands were everywhere, stroking her throat and shoulders, pushing the evening dress down over her arms and tugging until it revealed the tops of her breasts. He tore his mouth free of hers to kiss her there instead, pushing at the top of her bra with his lips and tongue.
Izzy found her way under his shirt to the hard, naked back that had haunted her daydreams since the last time she’d caressed it. Ignoring the buttons, she simply hauled the shirt up and over his head.
He cooperated fully, even left her breasts for long enough to watch her caressing his hard shoulders and chest with greedy wonder. He reached under her, unzipped her dress and unclipped her bra, then pushed the whole lot down to her waist. Izzy jerked her hips to be rid of it, and he immediately thrust back with a groan that sounded almost anguished.
He palmed one breast, brushed the nipple of the other with his lips. “You’re so lovely,” he whispered. “So soft and beautiful, and you smell like—spring flowers.”
“Perfume,” she confessed and was rewarded with one of his rare smiles before he took her nipple back into his mouth, rolling it, gently sucking.
“No. Not just perfume.”
She took his face between her hands and locked her mouth to his. She’d never in her life found such pleasure in kissing, and she needed his lips on hers again. They opened wide and pressed harder while his tongue plundered. His breath came in short pants as his fingers scrabbled between them to get rid of his jeans and underwear.
He kicked off his own clothes, before sliding down to remove the rest of her dress, and her knickers, which by now were little more than a wisp of soaked cotton.
“Oh Jesus,” he said huskily. “How do I…” Almost helplessly, he dragged his gaze up from her thighs over her pussy and stomach and breasts to her face. His cock, big and utterly rigid, stood up against the muscled plane of his stomach.
She reached for him, her whole body clenching and pleading for his entry. He lowered himself into her arms, into the cradle of her hips, and kissed her wildly. The head of his cock nudged her inner thigh, slid along the wet folds of her pussy.
“If I’m too rough, if you want me to slow down,” he said unsteadily, “tell me. Or hit me. I haven’t had a woman in ten years, and I’m so desperate for you, I barely know what I’m doing.”
While she still tried to grasp that he hadn’t had sex since before prison, she heard the distinctive rustling of foil and caught at his hands. “Then we won’t need that. I haven’t been with anyone in more than three years, and I’ve no chance of pregnancy.”
He paused again, staring down at her. “You really trust me that much?”
She did. It came from sheer gut instinct and went way beyond the desire simply to make love, flesh to flesh, with no barrier. She nodded wordlessly and kissed him. It was down to him, and either way was fine with her, just so long as he was inside her…
He jerked, and the wrapped condom hit the wall above her head. She let out a shaky laugh just as he pushed inside her, and she cried out because it had been so long, and he was so big, shocking her. He closed his eyes, but only for an instant. It seemed he needed to see her face as he thrust farther in and then held still. On either side of her head, his arms shook, as if with the sheer effort of not moving.
She caressed his broad, smooth shoulders, moving up his neck to his face with wonder. She’d known him o
nly a couple of weeks, and yet it seemed she’d waited years for this moment. With her fingertips, she traced the line of his scar and the shape of his lips before she kissed them. He felt so good sheathed in her, stretching her, filling her, touching all those places screaming out for attention. At the flick of his tongue on hers, she clenched around his cock, and as if that were a signal, he moved, a slow, grinding, circular motion that seemed to caress everywhere. It set nerves on fire, sparked pleasure points she’d forgotten or never noticed. She moaned into his mouth, thrusting upward in a response she couldn’t control, while her hands scrabbled and clung to him in a wordless plea.
He drew back and pushed in hard, thrilling her. His hands tangled in her hair as he drove again and again. Her body followed him blindly, desperately. There was no thought in this, just mindless need to feel more and more of the deep, aching pleasure building within her, to release it.
With her whole being on fire, she lost herself in wonder, because the man inside her, doing this to her, was Glenn. At last. He tore his mouth free of hers with a gasp, twisting his back to plunge again while he bent his head and kissed her breast, sucking on the nipple with increasing strength until it seemed to create another pleasure pathway straight to her core. She’d never felt, never imagined anything as intense as this. A strong, troubled man of hidden depths and secret hurts, of unexpected tenderness and profound, giving sensuality, he was just…more, and she yearned, needed to give him that back. To make him happy. She arched to meet him, pushing into his mouth, onto his cock, writhing and straining with him.
His whole body shook as she held on to him. His hands slid underneath her, holding her hips, her buttocks as he pounded her. He lifted her hips right off the bed, rearing up onto his knees, groaning as if he was in agony as he pushed deeper yet. Strange, guttural sounds escaped from her, but she didn’t care, because the storm was about to break over her.
In His Wildest Dreams Page 11
