The Dark Highlander

by Karen Marie Moning

  Had they not forgotten so much, he might never have stood in the circle of stones, assuring himself there was no evil in the in-between awaiting him should he use the stones for personal motive. He might never have half-convinced himself that the Tuatha Dé Danaan, a vague race spoken of in vaguer terms, were but a myth, a fae-tale woven to prevent a Keltar from misusing his power. Not that he’d believed he had been abusing it. He’d not thought of his actions as serving personal motives. Well, not entirely, for was love not the greatest and most noble purpose of all?

  She was havering away again.

  How best to make her give him some peace?

  A predatory smile curved his lips.

  He looked up. Raised his eyes from the text and looked at her, deliberately letting all that he was thinking about doing to her—which was everything—show on his face, blaze in his gaze.

  She sucked in a soft breath.

  Head canted down, he looked at her from beneath his brows. It was the kind of look one warrior might give to another in challenge, or the kind of look a man gave a woman he intended to thoroughly plunder. Slowly, with lazy sensuality, he wet his lower lip. Dropped his gaze from hers, to her lips and back again.

  Her eyes grew impossibly round and she swallowed.

  He caught his full lower lip with his teeth and slowly released it, then smiled. It was not a smile meant to reassure. It was a smile that promised dark fantasies. Whether she wanted them or not.

  “I’ll just be in the study,” she said faintly, hopping briskly from the sofa and practically running from the room.

  Only after she’d left did he make that noise. A long, low growl of anticipation.

  Chloe’s heart was hammering furiously and she wasn’t seeing a darned thing as she pretended to peer at the titles of the books on the shelves in his study.

  Heavens, that look! Holy cow!

  There he’d sat across from her, looking breathtakingly gorgeous in black from head to toe, his gorgeous midnight hair pulled back from his gorgeous face, essentially ignoring her, then he’d raised his eyes—but not his head—from the text and given her a look of . . . quintessential sexual heat.

  No man had ever looked at Chloe Zanders like that. Like she was some kind of succulent dessert and he was coming off a week-long fast of bread and water.

  And his lip—God, when he caught and released that sinfully full lower with his teeth, it made a girl just want to snack on it. For hours.

  I do believe the man might be planning to seduce me, she thought wonderingly. Yes, she knew he was a womanizer, and yes, last night he’d seemed flirtatious, but she hadn’t taken it seriously. She wasn’t exactly the kind of woman that men like him fell all over themselves trying to get to. Chloe was pretty realistic about her looks; she wasn’t tall, leggy, model material, that was for sure. Even the Security guys had said she wasn’t his type.

  But that look . . .

  “He only did it to get you to leave, Zanders,” she muttered to herself. “And it worked. You willy-nilly chicken, you.”

  She was on the verge of stomping back out there and calling his bluff; indeed, had moved back toward the door and was about to step out, when he made a sound.

  A sound that made her shiver and close the door instead.

  And lock it.

  A hungry animal sound.

  Leaning back against the door, Chloe took slow, deep breaths.

  She was in way over her head. It was one thing to be held hostage by a criminal. To maybe fantasize about kisses. It was entirely another thing to be seduced by him. The dastardly man was both a thief and a kidnapper, and she dare not forget that.

  She had to escape before it was too late. Before she was fabricating reasons, not merely to aid and abet the criminal, but to present him with her virginity on a silver platter.

  When Chloe crept from the study half an hour later, the arrogant man actually let her get all the way to the door before he bothered moving. Then he stood slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, and gave her a look of gentle reproof and disappointment.

  As if she was doing something wrong.

  Defiantly, Chloe brandished the short sword she’d pilfered from his wall collection, having decided it was best for her size, eighteen inches of razor-sharp steel. “I told you I won’t tell anyone and I won’t. But I can’t stay here.”

  “Put down the blade, lass.”

  Chloe twisted the interior dead bolt.

  The precise moment she tugged at the door, he lunged, and when it didn’t open she was stunned, then realized that it hadn’t been locked to begin with. Frantically, she scrabbled to turn it the other way, but his palm hit the door above her head and he crowded her with his body. Instinctively, she raised the sword and he stiffened, as the tip of it came to rest at his heart.

  They stared at each other a long moment. Dimly, she realized his breath was coming as shallowly as hers.

  “Do it, lass,” he said coolly.

  “What?”

  “Kill me. I’m a thief. The evidence is here. You’ll need but summon your police and show them that I am—or was—the Gaulish Ghost, that I held you captive. None will blame you for killing me to escape. ’Tis no more than any honest lass would do.”

  She gaped. Kill him? She didn’t like hearing him speak about himself in the past tense. It put a cold, awful knot in her stomach.

  “Do it,” he insisted.

  “I don’t want to kill you. I just want to leave.”

  “Because I’ve treated you so badly?”

  “Because you’re holding me captive!”

  “And it’s been awful, has if no’?” he mocked lightly.

  “Just step back,” she hissed. When he deliberately pressed his body forward against the tip of the sword and she felt his skin give beneath the blade, she gasped. His lips curved in a chilling smile.

  And she knew if she drew the blade back, it would gleam red with his blood. The awful knot was joined by nausea.

  “Kill me or put down the sword,” he said with deadly intensity. “Those are your options. Your only options.”

  Chloe searched his eyes, those glittering golden eyes. They seemed to be swirling with shadows, changing color, dimming from molten amber to burnt copper, but that wasn’t possible. The moment was taut with danger, and she had the sudden bizarre feeling that something . . . else . . . was in the penthouse with them. Something ancient and very, very cold.

  Or was it just the coldness in those eyes? She shook herself, scattering her absurd thoughts.

  He was serious. He would make her kill him to leave.

  She couldn’t do it.

  It wasn’t even remotely possible. She didn’t want Dageus MacKeltar dead. She didn’t ever want him dead. Even if it meant he was out there, a rogue thief, beautiful as a fallen angel, breaking laws and stealing artifacts.

  When she let the sword dip, his hand moved in a lightning-fast blur of motion. She screamed, dropping the sword as the silver flash of a blade arced up toward her face.

  It sank into the door beside her ear.

  “Look at it, lass,” he ordered.

  “Wh-what?”

  “The dirk. ’Tis a fourteenth-century skean dhu.”

  She turned her head gingerly and peered at the blade protruding from the door, then glanced back at him. She was walled in by six feet plus of muscle and man, palms on either side of her head. A knife by her ear. He’d had it somewhere on his body all along. Could have used it on her at any moment. But hadn’t.

  “You like your artifacts, doona you, lass?”

  She nodded.

  “Take it.”

  Chloe blinked.

  He dropped his hands suddenly and stepped back. “Go on, take it.”

  Eyeing him warily, Chloe tugged the blade from the door with a little grunt. It required both her hands to free it. “Oh,” she breathed. Hilt studded with emeralds and rubies, it was exquisite. The finest blade she’d ever seen. “This must be worth a fortune! It’s in mint
condition. There’s not even the teeniest nick on the blade! Tom would give anything for this.”

  So, she was afraid, might she.

  “’Tis my own. ’Tis the crest of the Keltar on the hilt. Now ’tis yours. For when you leave. Should you lose your job.”

  He turned around and stalked back to the sofa.

  When he sat down and resumed working on the text, Chloe stood in stunned silence, her gaze drifting from him to the skean dhu and back again. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

  His actions had just demonstrated, more persuasively than any words he might have used, that he’d meant it when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. What words had he used last night? Naught will be done to you that you doona wish done.

  She didn’t find that quite as comforting as she might have, had her own wishes been a bit purer.

  He’d just put an ancient Celtic artifact in her hands and called it hers.

  Her fingers curled possessively around the hilt of the dagger. She should object strenuously. Or at least, protest politely. And she was going to, anytime now.

  She waited. Anytime now.

  Sighing dismally, she acknowledged that some things just weren’t humanly possible—not even Martha Stewart could fold fitted sheets.

  Oh, Grandda, why didn’t you ever tell me Scotsmen were so fascinating? He knows just how to get to me.

  She almost thought she heard Evan MacGregor’s soft laughter. As if he’d answered her from somewhere beyond the stars, You wouldn’t be satisfied with less, Chloe. You’ve got your share of wild blood in you too.

  Did she? Was that why, lately, she’d been waking up in the middle of the night, full of energy that desperately needed an outlet? Why, despite how well her job was going (she knew she was going to be promoted soon), she’d been growing increasingly restless? For months now, a small but insistent voice inside her had been murmuring, “Is this all there is of my life?”

  The Gaulish Ghost was offering her a bribe, a payoff of sorts. Be a “good lass” and leave with a prize. Her very own Celtic artifact.

  In exchange for her silence and cooperation.

  Chloe was having an ethical crisis.

  Fortunately, it was brief.

  She stooped to pick up the forgotten sword and return it to the study. “I could use some clothes that fit,” she grumbled as she passed behind him.

  Had his back not been to her, had she seen the smile that curved his lips, she would have shivered from head to toe.

  “Dageus, darling, I miss you, I need you. I’m dying without you.” Pause. “Call me. It’s Katherine.”

  The answering machine clicked off.

  A moment later Dageus appeared. Their gazes collided as he turned down the volume on the answering machine.

  “Dageus, darling,” Chloe cooed, feeling inexplicably irritable. There she’d been, paging delicately through the Midhe Codex and feeling strangely content while he rattled about domestically in the kitchen, cooking for her, when Katherine had interrupted.

  He flashed her an entirely-too-devastating smile and shrugged. “I’m a man, lass.” Then went back to the kitchen.

  Leaving Chloe to mutter beneath her breath. Just why she cared she had no idea. But it irritated her.

  “Were you born in Scotland?” Chloe asked later, pushing her plate back with a sigh. Another fabulous dinner: Aberdeen Angus steak with mushrooms in wine sauce, young red potatoes with chives, salad and crusty bread spread with honey-butter. And wine, though he was sipping Macallan, fine single-malt scotch.

  “Aye. The Highlands. Near Inverness. And you?”

  “Indianapolis. But my parents died when I was four, so I went to live in Kansas with my grandda.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  It had been horrible. They’d refused to let her see her parents’ bodies, which, though now she understood, at the time she hadn’t. She’d thought someone had stolen them and wouldn’t give them back. Hadn’t believed they could just not be anymore. But eventually she’d healed. She knew it had shaped her in ways people with parents would never understand, but she’d been lucky. She’d had someone who’d rescued her, and Chloe believed one should always count one’s blessings.

  “Where’s the Scots blood in you, lass?”

  “My grandda. Evan MacGregor. Do you have family?”

  A dark shadow flitted through his eyes, a brief flash of anguish, there and gone so quickly that she wasn’t certain she hadn’t imagined it.

  “My mother and da are dead. I have a brother.” He rose abruptly, gathering plates and taking them to the kitchen, leaving her to puzzle over what she thought she’d glimpsed. She was determined to pursue it, but when he returned, he distracted her by placing a glass of sparkling blood-red liquor in one hand and a cigar in the other.

  Chloe blinked. “What is this?”

  “The finest cigar money can buy and a glass of equally fine port.”

  “And just what do you think I’m going to do with it?”

  “Enjoy.” He flashed her a charming smile.

  Chloe peered at the cigar curiously, rolling it in her fingers. She’d never smoked. Not anything. Had never wanted to. But if ever a moment was ripe to try new things, it was here and now, with a man who certainly wouldn’t sit in judgment upon her, no matter what she might do. It was strangely freeing, she realized, being around a man like him.

  “Doona fash yourself, you needn’t inhale. ’Tis but the subtle combination of the port and pungent smoke on your tongue. Give it a try. If you doona like it, at least you’ll know the next time someone offers you one.”

  He showed her how, preparing the cigar, coaxing her to puff it alight.

  “I feel like I’m doing something bad.” She sneezed.

  Och, she had no idea how bad. A small thing, to get her to smoke a cigar and have port. Lasses loved to flirt with danger, with things they’d never tried before, no matter how good they were. Oft because of how good they were. And one wee taste of the forbidden, oft translated into hunger for other fruit. Hunger, Chloe-lass, he willed silently. I’ll sate any desire you have. He could nearly taste her innocence on his tongue. Indeed, would, very soon.

  “You’ve been doing something bad since the moment you met me, lass,” he purred, meaning himself, but when she glanced askance, he provoked, “snooping about in my bedroom—”

  “I only snooped in your bedroom because you had stolen artifacts in there—”

  “And why were you in my bedroom in the first place?” he asked silkily.

  She flushed. “Because I was, er . . . I got, er . . .” she sputtered.

  “And I must confess, I’ve been wondering just what you were doing near enough my bed to find those books. You must have been all but in it. Were you curious about me? About my bed? Mayhap about me in it?”

  Her blush deepened. “I was just snooping, okay? But if I’d had any idea what I was going to find, I wouldn’t have.”

  He smiled, a slow seductive smile, and Chloe caught her breath.

  “Take a sip of port and let it lie upon your tongue a moment.”

  Chloe sipped.

  “Now the cigar.”

  She puffed lightly. Sweet and smoky, a fascinating combination. Another sip, another puff. She laughed. She felt silly puffing on the fat cigar. She felt warm and alive. She turned her head to tell him what she thought, but he’d dropped beside her on the sofa and she ran into his lips.

  Smack into that decadent, full, sinful mouth, and the minute they made contact, Chloe sizzled. Heat lanced through her from head to toe; a kind of wild heat she’d never felt before. A heat that she instinctively understood could burn her beyond recognition. He’d not smoked his cigar, and he tasted of malt, then his hot tongue slipped inside her mouth and her entire world upended. She scarcely noticed when he deftly slid the cigar and glass from her hands, depositing them elsewhere. He might have dropped them on the floor for all she cared.

  “Chloe-lass. I need to tas
te you. Open more. Give me.”

  He buried his hands in her hair, kissing her, and suddenly it was utterly insignificant that he stole artifacts, that he’d taken her captive, that he lived outside the law. She cared only that his tongue was in her mouth, and how it made her feel. The world ceased to exist beyond that.

  Slow, deep kisses, erotic nips with his teeth, his mouth gliding, slipping and sliding over hers. He caught her lower lip and tugged lazily away, returned to catch it again, then slanted his mouth firmly over hers, plundering. He nibbled, he sucked, he consumed. The man didn’t simply kiss, he made love to a woman’s mouth, made it feel all hot and swollen and achy. Made her make funny noises and feel shaky all over. Made her feel like she might—

  I’m dying without you. Call me. It’s Katherine.

  —totally lose herself and fall for him like countless women undoubtedly had. A woman he’d not called back. And unlike what she’d heard in the sophisticated purr of Katherine’s voice, Chloe didn’t possess the proper worldliness, the necessary defenses. If she were foolish enough to let him, the man would use her and discard her. And there’d be no one to blame but herself. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know, going in, what kind of man he was. Definitely the love-’em-and-leave-’em type. And how would she feel, knowing she’d been just another hit-and-run? Used, that was how.

  “S-stop,” she breathed.

  He didn’t. His hands dropped from her hair to her breasts, moving possessively over them, cupping and plumping. His thumbs glided over her nipples, and they peaked instantly. She felt like she was drowning. The man was too overwhelmingly male and sexual, and Chloe knew that she had to stop him, because in a few more moments, she wouldn’t be able to remember why she should.

  “Please,” she cried. “Stop!”

  He held her lower lip hostage for a long, erotic moment, then, with a ragged growl, he broke the kiss. He rested his forehead against hers, his breathing shallow and fast. When had it gotten so cold in the room? she wondered dimly. There must be a window open somewhere, letting in an icy breeze. She shivered. Her skin was hot, flushed from his passion, yet the fine hair all over her body had puckered into goose bumps.