The Vampire Laird (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery/Romance) (25 page)

He groaned. “You do know I can see right through that thing? Are you even remotely aware of what you’ve been doing to me most of the day?”

She smiled wickedly. “I couldn’t help but notice something had come between us…again. But next time…”

He smiled darkly. “The next time there will be no
next time
. I will take you anyway I have to and that is a promise. And wrap that sheet around you if you want to leave this room any time soon.”

***

It was several hours till dawn and still dark despite the lights that spilled from almost every window in the manor house behind them, as Meg, Charlie and Allyn huddled on the front steps, watching the action.

Johns ‘stiff upper lip’ failed him miserably, when they frisked him for weapons and lined him up in the hall with a hysterical Mrs. Bently and the rest of the household staff, including Daryna and Alla, who were sobbing more in relief than fear. Meanwhile, Zack had joined in the hunt for the others who had scattered in all directions. Shots were exchanged in the stables and gunfire was heard coming from the airstrip. “I’m rather proud of myself if I do say so,” Allyn told them smugly. “If it wasn’t for me, none of those guys would be here cleaning house. Maybe I have a gift for this kind of thing. Do you think your friend Zack or Agent Masters might get me started in this line of work?” he asked Charlie with a boyish grin.

“No. You would be dead in a month. Take my word for it. But you are right about one thing. It was your idea to send the Morse Code message which brought the help we so desperately needed. In fact, once we pulled you out of your stupor, you did pretty well for a kid brother,” she told him ruffling his sandy hair.

Meg looked from one to the other and grinned wearily, as she pushed back a bedraggled curl that had drooped into her left eye. “Ain’t it great! The Ravynnes together again and still alive. I don’t know about you guys, but I would love a nice hot bubble bath right now and a glass of wine and maybe a thick slice of chocolate cake and…..”

Charlie drew her into a hug. Resilient Meg was back to normal…or almost. There was still something she couldn’t quite put her finger on that was different about her sister. When this was all over, she would pry it out of her. She knew what buttons to push by now…or hoped she did. “I had the bath part and believe me what followed wasn’t worth it. We’re all super tired. I feel like I’ve been run over by a rogue elephant.”

“A whole herd ran over me. Do you think I ought to find Meaghan and encourage her and Seth to go into the light? I feel like the whole thing lacks closure somehow,” Meg said, as a worried frown crossed her dirt-streaked forehead.

“Get off it, Meg. You are such a do gooder. From what you told me, they are both vampires so what kind of salvation are they going to find in your ‘light’ or anywhere else?” Allyn asked around a huge yawn.

Meg was about to reply hotly, when Seth’s Land Rover roared up and Zack leaned out the window. “Get in…now!” he told Charlie curtly.

Knowing just how much their sister hated being ordered about, they were more than surprised, when she smiled at them and climbed in the car. They both stared after the taillights that headed down the road towards the village.

“Is my mouth still hanging open?” Meg asked her brother.

“No more than mine,” he replied. “I never…but never…thought I’d see that.”

Meg looked down at the fingernail she was about to pop in her mouth and thought better of it. Had her sister lost her heart to Zack Mallory just as she had feared she would some day? She let her mind drift back to the first time she’d met him at Hensley Hall. The day he had pulled up in his black car and asked to rent the tower room. Sparks had flown from the moment he had met Charlie and…. Her thoughts were interrupted by the rhythmic sound of a galloping horse coming down the road. Allyn was the first to speak. “I must be nuts. That sounds just like a horse coming our way at a canter, but I don’t see a damned thing.”

Meg smiled secretly to herself. She knew who it was…who it had to be. Grey had come for her. Closer and closer came the sound of the galloping horse and then a semi-transparent image, rimmed in blue flames, appeared. It was a coal black steed and his tall rider, whose dark hair was stirred by the night wind blowing in from the sea. By the time he had reached the portico, he was as solid as any living man…a Highland Laird splendid in every detail. He reined to a stop in front of them and held out his hand.

Meg turned to her brother and said, “Sorry, Allyn. I have something I have to do. You’ll be fine here by yourself.” And with that, she sped down the steps and grasped Grey’s hand, letting him lift her into the saddle in front of him, where she leaned back with a heart felt sigh.

As they disappeared up the road towards the castle, Allyn stared after them in utter disbelief. After rubbing his eyes and pinching his forearm hard enough to elicit an “ouch”, he buried his head in his hands and groaned. “This whole thing has been freakin’ insane,” he moaned, “now I’m insane, too. Mad as a April hare or is it a March hare? I don’t know…it doesn’t matter. I saw…or thought I saw…my sister gallop off with some guy on a horse that appeared out of nowhere. Could anything be crazier than that?”

As if in answer to his question, something bumped against his shoulder. “What the?” he began, looking around just as a solid furry body landed in his lap and began to purr loudly. There was nothing there! Yet he could feel a warm weight and hear the purr of a … cat? To his amazement, Cloud materialized and looked up at him with half closed sleepy eyes, before he began kneading his leg with his very sharp claws. “Well…what the hell. Now I’m hallucinating about a cat. Probably some residual effect of all the crap Orianna’s been feeding me, but he
is
company of a sort, since my sisters have left me sitting here all alone like some wallflower.” He scratched under Cloud’s chin and behind his ears. “You like that, huh? I wonder what your name is? Casper the cat?” Cloud closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep without dignifying
that
with a reply.

***

“Can I at least ask you where we are going?” she said, eying Zack out of the corner of her eye.

He kept his own eyes on the road ahead. “You can ask,” he replied tersely.

“But you are not going to tell me, are you. Should I start guessing? Let’s see…..”

“I am taking you someplace where we won’t have to deal with any of your family or their problems for awhile.”

“I see.”

He looked at her then and couldn’t help but notice the stubborn tilt to her chin that seemed to run in the Ravynne family. Turning his attention back to the road, he skirted the church and drove to the cliffs then followed them up to an isolated stretch of moor. “I have a blanket in back that someone managed to snag for me if you don’t mind the smell of horses. Or you can lie down in that purple stuff….”

“Heather…it’s called heather…blooms this time of year.”

“Or that other stuff….”

“Gorse. I should have brought my sheet. I forgot it when you
ordered
me to come with you. The blanket…smelly or not…was thoughtful, of you, but what makes you think I’m going to be on the bottom?” she asked as offhandedly as she could manage under the circumstances.

He turned till he faced her and even in the dim light she could see one black brow raised, as he smiled wolfishly. “You’re going to fight me all the way to the end, aren’t you?” With that, he slid out of the Land Rover and circled its front, banging once on its hood with his fist. Reaching her door, he jerked it open and said, “Get out!”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Oh, but you do. I may be all kinds of fool in some ways, but I know for a fact that you want me as much as I want you.” And with that, he pulled her from her seat and up against his hard frame. The fluttering expectancy that had grown more intense with each passing moment ignited in a hot rush that washed over her from her tremulous mouth to her very toes and every point in between…especially the points in between!

His mouth descended in a plunderous kiss that made her knees buckle and shattered the last of her obstinate pride. She opened her mouth to his insistent invasion and met his tongue with her own in a dance of fire, clutching his shoulders as she tried to pull him closer still. She wanted…needed the completion he could bring…wanted to crawl inside his skin…wanted…

She felt him smile against her mouth, then he slid one finger under her chin and tipped her head back so he could look into her eyes. “The blanket is in the back….” he began thickly, but she circled his knee with one leg and pushed him backward till he fell heavily in the fragrant heather and took her with him.

She looked down into his half closed eyes and smiled with just a touch of triumph that made him laugh, as he flipped her neatly onto her back. Growling wolfishly, he kissed her again, but this time his kiss was savage and impatient. Straddling her, he leaned back on his heels and opened her robe, exposing her to his scorching gaze.

She was lit by the moon…a timeless siren…and so very beautiful, he thought as he groaned deep in his throat. Leaning forward, his mouth found the curve of her ivory neck and he began nibbling along its length…then along her collarbone…on down to the full breast he’d cupped in his hand. Laving the already hardened bud with his hot tongue, he groaned again as she moaned and writhed with the pleasure that pulsed through her entire body.

He suckled and nibbled at the other breast, then moved lower still. Spreading her thighs, his dark gaze swept the length of her, heating up every inch, until she felt like her skin would surely burst into flame. “You are so very beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely and then lowered his head between her legs.

Her fingers tangled in his black hair and she arched backward, as his tongue found her nub and circled it, making her squirm wildly in response. His tongue moved into her swollen folds and he licked the honied moisture he found there, breathing in her woman scent until his arousal was so painful he could wait no longer. Nor could she. “Now!” she cried hoarsely, as she pulled him upward till she could feel the prod of his rock hard flesh. He groaned from the very depths of his being as he thrust into her slick hot depths. His eyes locked with hers as he drove into her, again and again, with barely controlled ferocity. Lit by the dying moon, he was savage…pagan…and so very beguiling, she thought, fleetingly, then gave up all coherent thought as the exquisite tension that wracked her body continued to build and build like a coiled spring being tightly wound…on and on…until she shattered in a blinding release that had her screaming his name to the night sky, while her inner muscles clenched tightly around him again and again. She was so lost in sensation, she didn’t hear him laugh and moan simultaneously then utter a savage cry, as he found his own release in her still pulsing depths. Spent and thoroughly sated, he lay heavily upon her, his fingers twined in hers, his mouth panting next to her ear.

Her body was still throbbing, when he groaned and rolled off her, leaving her feeling cold and oddly bereft until his hand found hers again and they lay side by side, face up to the night sky that was already pinking with dawn. Above them, dark wings circled as a solitary raven observed the scene with interest and then flew off towards the castle on its black crag.

“Zack.”

“Right here,” he murmured.

“Did you ever think our first time would be in Scotland lying in the heather at the edge of the sea?”

“No. But I knew it would be somewhere,” he told her. “It had to be.”

“What now?”

“Now?”

“I mean ‘us’. What’s to become of us?”

He was quiet for a very long time…at least it seemed like a long time to her. Finally, he said, “I have something I have to finish.”

“Something dangerous?”

“You know the business, as well as I do. Could be dangerous. No guarantees.”

It was her turn to lie quietly and then she said, “You are a very successful writer. You don’t need all that any more, do you?”

He sighed loud enough for her to hear. “Maybe I’m an adrenaline junkie, but I like the danger. I never had a reason to stop before.”

She was glad he couldn’t see her face…couldn’t see how much his next words would mean to her, when she asked, “And now?”

He propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over her. Her gray eyes were silvered with moonlight and he traced the line of her tremulous mouth with one finger, before he replied, “I’d like to rent the tower room again. Be there at Christmas. But at the moment, I want to do to you all the things I’ve put on hold far too long.” And then he kissed her.

***

They were headed for Blood Castle and Meg knew she had to stop him. Reaching back, she let her fingers tangle in his long black hair. “Please, Grey. Let me down. We need to talk.”

She heard his long intake of breath, as though she had wounded him, and her own heart felt his pain more deeply than her own. “We will walk on the moor if ye wish it. Thare is much I would say to ye, too.”

She noticed how his brogue had thickened and knew his heart was in whatever he was about to say. He reined in and lifted her from the saddle, then lowered her to the ground, before he swung down lithely beside her. He turned her so she was forced to look up at into his eyes, then bent his dark head close to hers. “Ah was just reading aboot this sort of thing…the winning of a lass…the right words to say and yet they dinnae come easily. According to the book, Ah might say, ‘Meg, my darling, Ah want to breathe in yer fragrance…bruise yer honeyed lips with mah savage kisses and….”