The Dark Highlander (7 page)

6

I’m no’ a good man.

’Twas the only real warning she would ever get from him on her sweet, inevitable fall from grace.

Dageus sipped his whisky and stared at her. That kiss, that one mere sip of a kiss still lay upon his tongue, honey-sweet, and no amount of whisky could wash it off. He’d scarce begun to taste her when she’d stopped him.

And stopping had damn near killed him. His tongue in her mouth, his hands in her hair, for a brief moment he’d been filled with icy rage, pure and black, something that refused to be denied. The ancient ones had stirred, demanding he sate his hunger.
Force her,
a dark voice had purred.
You can make her like it.

He’d waged a dread battle against them, hence the carefulness with which he’d pulled away. That blackness was not him. Would not be him. He would not permit it. It could too easily consume him.

He knew he shouldn’t be in the bedchamber. He wasn’t in the best temper for many reasons, not the least of them that he’d used magic earlier, first on a brief visit to Security before she’d wakened, reminding them that they saw Chloe Zanders leave yestreen, and later when she’d tried to escape, a reflexive action, without thought. The interior dead bolt had been locked for a change, and she’d unlocked it, and he’d jammed it with a whispered word before she could open it.

Then, pressed close to her, with blades betwixt them and a bit of blood on his skin and the darkness rising, he’d made clear the cost of her escape: his life.

Wagering she’d back down swiftly.

A perverse part of him daring her to end his dishonor at the end of his own sword.

Either way, he’d have more peace.

She’d accepted his blade and stayed. She didn’t ken the full significance of that. When a Druid offered his favored weapon, his
Selvar
, the one he wore against his skin, to a woman, he offered his protection. His guardianship. Forever.

And she’d taken it.

She was sleeping on her back, the only way she could, with her wrists restrained, though he’d left considerable play in the bonds. Her lovely breasts rose and fell with the gentle, slow breaths of deep slumber.

He should let her go.

And he knew he wasn’t going to. He wanted Chloe Zanders in ways he’d never wanted a lass before. She made him feel like a sapling lad, wanting to impress her with masculine feats of prowess, protect her, sate her every desire, to be the focus of her shiny bright heart, so full of innocence. As if she might somehow wash him clean again.

She was curiosity and wonder; he was cynicism and despair. She was bursting with dreams; he was carved out and hollow inside. Her heart was young and true; his was iced with disillusion, scarce beating enough to keep him alive.

She was all he’d dreamed of once, long ago. The kind of lass to whom he’d have given binding Druid vows, pledged his life to forever. Smart, the woman spoke four languages that he knew of. Tenacious, determined, logical in a circuitous way. Real, believing in things. Protective of the old ways, that was evident each time she watched him turn a page. Twice she’d handed him a tissue to do it with when he’d forgotten, lest he get the oil of his skin on the precious pages.

And he could sense in her a woman that wanted to break out. A woman who’d lived a quiet life, a respectable life, but hungered for more. He could sense, with the unerring instincts of a sexual predator, that Chloe was wanton at heart. That the man she chose to grant liberties to, would be granted them unconditionally. Sexually aggressive, dominant to the bone, he recognized in her his perfect bedmate.

He was a man who could offer no promises, no assurances. A man with a terrible darkness growing inside him.

And all he could think was . . .

. . . when he took her, he would strip the clothing from her body, baring every inch of her to his immense hunger.

He would stretch himself atop her, forearms flush to the bed on either side of her head, pinning her long hair beneath his weight. He would kiss her . . .

He was kissing her and she was drowning in the heat and sensuality of the man. Her hands tied to the bedposts, her body naked, she was lying in his bed, on fire. His for the taking.

He didn’t just kiss, he claimed ownership. Took her mouth with urgency, as if his life depended on his kissing her. Licked and nipped and tasted, sucking her lower lip, catching it with his teeth. His hands were on her breasts and her skin ached with need where he touched. He kissed her long and deep and slow, then kissed her hard and punishing and fast. . . .

. . . like fine china, delicate china, then he would punish her with hard kisses for being so perfect, for being everything he didn’t deserve. For the wonder she still had, the wonder she made him remember once feeling.

Being a man, he would have to know that she needed him. So he would kiss every inch of her silken skin, dragging his tongue over the peaks of her nipples. Rasping them with his unshaven jaw, till they budded hard and tight for him, teeth nipping, then he would move those kisses to the sweet feminine heat between her legs, where he would taste that taut aching bud. Slow long strokes of his tongue there.

Ever-so-delicate nips.

Then more strong strokes, faster and faster until she writhed beneath him.

But still, she wouldn’t be wild enough for him.

So he would slip his finger inside her. Find that spot, one of several special ones, that drove a woman wild. Feel her tighten convulsively around him. Feel her hunger. Then withdraw and taste her with his tongue again. Lapping. Lapping. Drowning in the sweet taste of her.

Then two fingers. Then his tongue. Until she . . .

“Please!” Chloe cried, arching her back, arching up and up, begging for his touch.

Dageus loomed above her, his hard body gilded by firelight, a sheen of sweat glistening on his skin.

“What do you want, Chloe?” His glittering gaze challenged her, dared her to want, dared her to speak of those things she’d never said aloud. Secret fantasies she sheltered in her woman’s heart. Fantasies she knew he’d be only too willing to fulfill; one and all.

“Please!” she cried, not knowing how to put it into words. “Everything!”

His nostrils flared and he inhaled sharply, and she suddenly wondered if she’d said something far more dangerous than she knew.

“Everything?” he purred. “Everything I might want? Everything I might dream of doing to you? Do you mean to gift me your innocence—without condition?”

A heartbeat passed, then two.

. . . would say that she needed him. Was willing to relinquish everything. He would turn his years of mastery—all those years he’d made heated love with a cold heart to women who’d wanted nothing from him but his body—to Chloe’s lush curves, the backs of her knees, the inside of her thighs, laving every inch with his tongue. He would untie her, roll her onto her stomach. Stretch her hands above her head, catch them in one of his, nipping the nape of her neck. He would drag his tongue down her spine, lavishing attention on his favorite spot, the slender, delicate arch where a woman’s back met her bottom, then kiss every inch of her sweet ass.

Kneeling above her, straddling her, he would nudge her soft curves with his hard cock. Feel her buck up and back . . .

“Dageus!” Chloe cried. He was behind her, hot and silky and hard against her bottom, and she felt so damned empty inside that it hurt.

“What, lass?”

“Make love to me,” she gasped.

“Why?” He stretched flat atop her, skin to skin from her head to her toes, his palms to the backs of her hands, pressing them against the bed, letting her feel the full weight of him, making it hard for her to breathe. He nudged her thighs apart with his knee. He thrust his hips, pushing against her, but not inside her. Deliberately teasing her.

“I want you.”

“Want is no’ enough. You must feel like you can’t breathe wi’out me inside you. Do you need me? No matter the cost? Though I’ve warned you I’m no’ a good man?”

“Yes! God, yes!”

“Say it.”

“I need you!”

“Say my name.”

“Dageus!”

Chloe snapped awake with a violent start, sweating and breathing hard, and so intensely aroused that she hurt from head to toe. “Wh-what . . .” she trailed off, remembering the dream.
Oh, God,
she thought, appalled. Shaking her head, she suddenly realized she wasn’t alone.

He
was in the room with her.

Sitting not two feet away from her in a chair beside the bed, watching her with those glittering tiger-eyes.

Their gazes collided.

And she had the most awful feeling that he somehow knew. Knew that she’d been dreaming of him. In his smoldering gaze was a strange satisfaction.

A hot flush suffused her from head to toe. She glanced frantically down. Thank God, she was still fully clothed. It had been but a dream.

He couldn’t
possibly
know.

She tugged the covers up to her chin. The air in the room was positively frigid.

“You sounded restless,” he purred, his voice dark as the shadowy room. “I came to check on you and thought I’d sit nearby till you calmed.”

“I’m calm now,” she lied blatantly. Her heart was hammering and she turned away so she wouldn’t betray something with her eyes.

She sneaked a quick peek at him. Beautiful man. Sitting half-gilded by the dying firelight. One side of his face golden, the other in shadows. She was nearly panting. Bit her lip to quiet herself.

“Then I should go?”

“You should go.”

“You doona . . .
need
. . . anything, Chloe-lass?”

“Just for you to let me go,” she said stiffly.

Never,
Dageus thought, pulling the door firmly closed.

When she’d wakened, he’d been stunned to realize that somehow his thoughts, the painfully intense seduction he’d been imagining, had crept into her dreams.

Power. There was power inside him and he dare not forget that. Somehow that power had made her share his fantasy.

A dangerous thing.

Apparently, he’d used magic yet again, without even realizing it.

A muscle leaped in his jaw. ’Twas getting damned hard to see where the ancient ones began and he ended.

He had work yet to do this eve, he reminded himself, shaking himself sharply, resisting the darkness that stretched and flexed within him. The darkness that tried to convince him he was a god, and aught he wished was his due.

Tugging on his boots and donning his coat, he cast a last glance in the direction of the bedchamber before he slipped from the penthouse. She was securely bound, would never know he was gone. It would be but for a few hours.

Before he left, he turned the thermostat up. It was cold in the penthouse.

7

He had to use magic again, the
féth fiada,
the Druid
spell that made the user difficult for the human eye to see, and by the time Dageus returned to the penthouse, he was too tightly strung to sleep. He’d not known such a spell existed before the dark ones had claimed him that fateful eve. Now their knowledge was
his
knowledge, and although he tried to pretend he was unaware of the full extent of the power within him, sometimes when he was doing something, he’d suddenly know a spell to make it easier, as if he’d known it all his life.

Some of the spells he now “simply knew” were horrific. The ancient ones within him had been judge, jury, and executioner on many occasions.

It was getting dangerous, he was growing more detached. Perched at the edge of the abyss, and the abyss was looking back, with feral, crimson eyes.

He needed. A woman’s body, a woman’s tender touch. A woman’s desire to make him feel like a man not a beast.

He could go to Katherine; it wouldn’t matter the hour. She would welcome him with open arms and he could lose himself in her, shove her ankles above her head, and drive himself into her until he felt human again.

He didn’t want Katherine. He wanted the woman upstairs in his bed.

He could all too easily see himself taking the stairs three at a time, stripping as he went, stretching atop her helpless, tied form, teasing her until she was animal with need, until she begged him to take her. He knew he could make her give herself to him. Och, mayhap she’d not be willing at first, but he knew ways of touching that could drive a woman wild.

His breathing was ragged.

He was headed for the stairs, tugging his sweater over his head when he caught himself.

Deep breaths. Focus, Keltar.

If he went to her now, he would hurt her. He was too raw, too hungry. Gritting his teeth, he yanked his sweater back on and whirled about, stared sightlessly out the window for a time.

Two more times he caught himself heading up the stairs. Two more times he forced himself back down. He dropped to the floor and did push-ups until his body ran with sweat. Then crunches, and more push-ups. He recited bits of history, counted backward in Latin, then Greek, then in the more obscure, difficult languages.

Eventually, he regained control. Or as much control as he was going to get without sex.

She was going to shower today, he decided, suddenly chafed by her lack of faith in him, if he had to lock her in the bathroom all day.

As if he might break in on her when she was in the shower.

He’d just
proved
that he was in control. Verily, he was all about control where she was concerned. Had she any idea what he was battling, and how difficult it had been thus far—yet he’d prevailed—then she’d shower.

Ha. Then she’d, like as not, fling herself from my terrace forty-three floors up merely to escape me,
he thought, getting up and propping one of the terrace doors slightly ajar.

He stared out over the quiet city—as quiet as Manhattan ever got, still humming, even at four in the morning. Fickle March weather, the clime had been fluctuating for days, rising and dropping as much as thirty degrees in a few hours. Now it was temperate again, but the light rain could well turn to snow by midmorn. Spring was trying to beat back winter and failing, rather mirroring his bleak internal landscape.

Blowing out a gusty breath, he sat down to immerse himself in the third Book of Manannán. This final tome, then he would go. Not on the morrow, but the next day. He’d done all he could here. He doubted what he wanted was in the tome anyway. There’d once been five Books of Manannán, but only three were extant. He’d already read the first two; they’d dealt with the legends of Ireland’s gods before the arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danaan. This third volume continued the tales of the gods, and their encounters with the first wave of settlers to invade Ireland. As slowly as the historical timeline was moving, Dageus suspected the arrival of the race of creatures he was interested in would not be addressed until the fifth volume. Which no longer existed except mayhap in one place: the Keltar library.

Whether he liked it or not, he was going to have to go home. Face his brother so he could search the Keltar collection. He’d wasted many months trying to find a solution on his own, and time was running out. If he waited much longer . . . well, he dare not wait longer.

And what of the lass?
his honor roused.

He was too weary to bother lying to himself.

Mine.

He would endeavor to seduce her with her own desires first, make it easier for her, but should she resist, one way or another, she was going with him.

Chloe stood in the hot spray of seven jetting shower heads—three on each side, one above—sighing with pleasure. She’d been feeling like the poster child for grunge. The door was locked and the chair Dageus had brought her to prop beneath the handle was propped snugly beneath the handle.

After dreaming about him and waking in the middle of the night to find him watching her with virtually the same look he’d worn in her dream, she’d hardly been able to meet his gaze when he’d untied her this morning. Just thinking about the dream made her feel flushed and shaky.

I’m no’ a good man,
he’d said. He was right. He wasn’t. He was a man who lived by his own rules. He stole other people’s personal property—though he insisted he was “borrowing” and, oddly, left more valuable items. He held her captive—though he cooked scrumptious meals and, frankly, she’d agreed to cooperate for a bribe. Criminal at worst, at best he existed on the fringes of civilized society.

Then again, since she’d accepted his bribe, she supposed she was on those fringes now too.

Still, she mused, a truly bad man wouldn’t bother warning a woman that he wasn’t a good man. A truly bad man wouldn’t stop kissing a woman when she said stop.

What an enigma he was, and so strangely anachronistic! Though his penthouse was modern, his demeanor was distinctly old-world. His speech also was modern, yet he lapsed, at times, into an infrequent, curious formality, splashed with old Gaelic colloquialisms. There was something more to him than she was seeing. She could feel it dancing just at the edge of her comprehension, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring it into focus. And there was definitely something about his eyes . . .

She might not be as worldly as New York women, but she wasn’t completely naïve; she could feel danger in him—a woman would have to be dead not to. It dripped from him as liberally as testosterone oozed from his pores. Still, he tempered it with discipline and restraint. He had her at his complete mercy, and he’d not taken advantage of it.

She shook her head. Maybe for him, she thought, as easily as women must fall for him, it was the chase he enjoyed most.

Well, she thought, bristling, he could chase all he wanted. She might be on the fringes, but that didn’t mean she was just going to up and fall in bed with him, no matter how much she might secretly long to be initiated into the exotic, erotic, mysterious Dageus MacKeltar club. Salient word there being “club”—as in, with
lots
of members.

With that resolved, she shampooed her hair twice (she’d never gone without a shower for two days straight before) and stood under the pulsing spray until she felt squeaky clean. And then a bit longer. Those massaging shower heads were to die for.

Wrapping herself in a luxurious towel, she dislodged the chair and unlocked the door.

When she opened it, she gaped. Half her wardrobe was piled neatly on the bed. She blinked. Yup, there it was. In tidy piles. Panties (uh-hmm, and
those
were staying firmly on her butt), bras, dresses, sweaters, jeans, a lacy little nightie, socks, boots, shoes, the works. They were stacked in “outfit” piles, she noted, bemused. He’d not just grabbed clothing, but had matched things together as if envisioning her wearing them.

He’d even brought some of her books, she noticed, wandering over to the bed.

Three
romance
novels, the dastardly man. Scottish romance novels. What had he done? Poked through all her stuff while he was there? Right on top was
The Highlander’s Touch
, one of her favorite novels about an immortal Highlander.

She snorted. The man was incorrigible. Bringing her steamy, sexy things to read. As if she needed any help thinking steamy thoughts around him.

She could hear him downstairs, talking quietly on the phone. She could smell the scent of fresh-brewed coffee.

And though she knew she should be offended that he’d broken into her apartment and rummaged through her drawers, he’d put much thought into his selections, and she was oddly charmed.

He hardly spoke to her all day. He was in a downright brooding mood. Controlled and remote. Perfectly polite, perfectly disciplined. Utterly self-contained. His eyes were . . . strange again, and she wondered if maybe they took on varying hues under different lighting, like hazel sometimes went from greenish-blue to greenish-brown. Not amber, they were the dull shade of copper just before it blackened.

She’d perched on the counter and watched him cook breakfast—kippers, tatties, toast, and porridge with cream and blueberries—eyeing him while his back was to her. For the first time she’d noticed his hair. She’d known it was long; she hadn’t realized how long because he wore it pulled back. But now that she was behind him, she could see that he’d folded it up several times before binding it in a leather wrap.

She decided it must fall to his waist when it was free. The thought of his sleek black hair sweeping his naked muscled back drove her crazy.

She wondered if he ever wore it down. It seemed so in keeping with his character that it would be long and wild, but meticulously restrained unless he chose to free it.

She tried to make small talk, but he didn’t rise to any of the bait she cast. Fishing, trying to pick his brain, getting nothing but grunts and incoherent murmurs.

They sat together in silence for hours that afternoon, with Chloe delicately turning the pages of the Midhe Codex with tissues, and sneaking peeks at Dageus while he worked with the Book of Manannán, scribbling notes as he translated.

At five o’clock, she got up and turned the news on, wondering if there might be some small mention of her disappearance. As if, she thought wryly. One little girl gone missing in the wormy Big Apple? Both police and newscasters had better things to do.

He looked at her then, a hint of smugness playing about his lips.

She arched a questioning brow, but he said nothing. She listened absently while she read, then suddenly her attention was riveted to the screen.

“The Gaulish Ghost struck again last night, or so the police believe. Baffled might be the best way to describe New York’s finest. At an unknown time, early this morning, all the artifacts previously stolen by the Gaulish Ghost were left at the front desk of the police station. Once again, no one saw a thing, which makes one wonder just what our police . . .”

There was more, but Chloe didn’t hear it.

She glanced down at the text she was holding. Then at him.

“I bartered for that one, lass.”

“You really did it,” she breathed, shaking her head. “When you went to my apartment for my things, you took them back. I don’t believe it.”

“I told you I was merely borrowing them.”

She stared at him, utterly flummoxed. He’d done it. He’d returned them! A sudden thought occurred to her. One she didn’t much care for. “That means you’re leaving soon, doesn’t it?”

He nodded, his expression unfathomable.

“Oh.” She pretended a hasty fascination with her cuticles to conceal the disappointment that flooded her.

Hence she missed the cool, satisfied curve of his lips, a touch too feral to be called a smile.

Outside Dageus MacKeltar’s penthouse, on a sidewalk crammed with people rushing to escape the city at the end of the long work week, one man wove his way through the crowd and joined a second man. They moved discreetly aside, loitering near a newsstand. Though clad in expensive dark suits, with short hair and nondescript features, both were marked by unusual tattoos on their necks. The upper part of a winged serpent arced above crisp collar and tie.

“He’s up there. With a woman,” Giles said softly. He’d just come down from rented rooms in the building on the opposite corner, where he’d been watching through binoculars.

“The plan?” his companion, Trevor, inquired softly.

“We wait until he leaves; with luck he’ll leave her there. Our orders are to get him on the run. Force him to rely upon magic to survive. Simon wants him back overseas.”

“How?”

“We’ll make him a fugitive. Hunted. The woman makes things simpler than I’d hoped. I’ll slip in, take care of her, alert the police, anonymously of course, and make his penthouse the stage of a cold-blooded, gruesome murder. Set all the cops in the city after him. He’ll be forced to use his powers to escape. Simon believes he won’t permit himself to be imprisoned. Though if he were, that might work to our advantage as well. I’ve no doubt time in a federal prison would hasten the transformation.”

Trevor nodded. “And I?”

“You wait here. Too risky for both of us to go up. He’s not to know we exist yet. If anything goes awry, ring Simon immediately.”

Trevor nodded again, and they drifted apart, to settle back and wait. They were patient men. They’d been waiting for this moment all their lives. They were the lucky ones, those born in the hour of the Prophecy’s fruition.

To a man, they would die to see the Draghar live again.

A messenger from a travel agency arrived shortly before the small crew of people who delivered dinner from Jean Georges.

Chloe couldn’t begin to imagine what something like that cost—didn’t think Jean Georges delivered—but she suspected that when one had as much money as Dageus MacKeltar, virtually anything could be bought.

While they ate before the fire in the living room, he continued working on the book that had initially landed her in this mess.