Tormented by Darkness (17 page)
“Did the artist design it?”
“N-no…I did.” As his hand swept over her tattoo again, Miranda twisted around, eliminating the pleasant friction. “It’s a tattoo, Cian. You’ve got one too. Why the third degree?”
A shadow fell across his face as his gaze dipped to the base of her throat, lower to her breasts, and slowly canvassed her from head to toe. As that damnable warmth infiltrated her veins, and heat spread slowly through her body, Cian’s frown deepened. The light in his grass-green eyes glinted like shards of glass.
He shook his head, and the same quiet calm she associated with him settled into his features. “It’s a pattern known exclusively to the Selgovae tribe, whose works aren’t heavily documented. I possess the vast majority of written accounts about the people. Where did you learn it?”
Busted.
Miranda groaned inwardly. Since she’d met Cian McLaine over a year ago, he’d been coming in here for early Celt information. She should have known better than to hold back the raggedy pages she’d found stuffed behind a collection of early Roman maps that she bought at auction last month. Now, she couldn’t hope to deny she’d deliberately kept that priceless antique record from him out of spite.
“Um.” She paused, searching for the explanation least likely to set him off. “I, ah, stumbled onto it. It was in something I read.”
His stare intensified. “About the Selgovae?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see your hands.”
Miranda blinked, unaccustomed to the brittle, demanding tone of his voice. “What?”
“Your hands. Let me see them.”
“Why?” What in the world was going on? He’d been known to have his moments, but this defied Cian’s usual oddness.
To her complete surprise, Cian reached one hand between them and grabbed her by the wrist. First one, then the other, he turned her palms up and stared. The tightness along his mouth hollowed out his cheeks. She could almost feel the anger radiating off him.
“Cian?” she asked hesitantly, tugging on her hands. “What’s going on?”
A word about the author...
Claire Ashgrove has been writing since her early teens and maintained the hobby for twenty years before deciding to leap into the professional world. Her first contemporary novel,
Seduction's Stakes
, sold to The Wild Rose Press in 2008, where she continues to write steamy, sexy stories for the Champagne and Black Rose lines. Adding to these critically acclaimed romances, Claire’s paranormal romance series,
The Curse of the Templars
will debut with Tor in January 2012. For those who prefer the more erotic side of romance, she also writes for Berkley Heat under the pen name Tori St. Claire.
Claire lives on a small farm in Missouri with her two toddler sons, fifteen horses, five cats, and five dogs. In her “free” time, she enjoys cooking, winning at Rummy, studying ancient civilizations, and spending quiet moments with her family, including the critters. She credits her success to her family's constant support and endless patience.
To learn more about Claire, visit her
on the web at
or
and at the Cascade Literary Agency blog site,
http://cascadeliteraryagency.blogspot.com
.
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