The Dark Highlander Read online

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice low and urgent.

  Maybe not physically, she thought, but there are other kinds of pain. In twenty-four hours she’d become hopelessly infatuated with a thief. Mesmerized by a stranger who dripped “forbidden” and “secrets” and “criminal.” She shook her head, straining to pull away from him. Accepting a bribe was one thing, losing herself was another. And she had no doubt that she could get lost in such a man. They simply weren’t in the same league.

  His hands went back up to her hair and he clutched tightly, his head down, and for a moment she thought he would refuse to let her go. Then he raised his head and looked at her, his gaze dark and intense.

  “I want you, lass.”

  “You hardly even know me,” she retorted shakily. She suspected that when Dageus MacKeltar told a woman he wanted her in such a voice, he didn’t hear “no” often, if ever.

  “I wanted you the moment I saw you on the street.”

  “On the street?” He’d seen her on the street? When? Where? The thought that he’d noticed her before they’d met in his bedroom made her feel breathless.

  “You were arriving when I was leaving. I was in the cab behind you. I saw you and I—” he broke off abruptly.

  “What?”

  He smiled bitterly and traced the pad of his thumb over her lower lip, still swollen and damp from his kisses. “And I told myself a lass like you was no’ for me.”

  “Why?”

  The desire in his eyes ebbed, replaced by such a remote, empty expression that she felt it like a slap. He’d shut her out. Completely. She could feel it, and didn’t like it one bit. Felt bereft.

  He stood abruptly. “Come, lass, let’s put you to bed.” He smiled mockingly, another one of those that didn’t reach his cool eyes. “Alone, if you insist.”

  “But why? Why would you think that?” It was terribly important to her to hear his answer.

  He didn’t answer her. Merely escorted her to the bathroom, offered her towels for a shower if she wished—which she was definitely too uncomfortable to do and refused, but washed up and brushed her teeth again—then motioned her toward the bed so he could tie her.

  “Must you do this?” she protested as he knotted the first scarf.

  “No’ if I’m sleeping with you,” was his cool reply.

  She thrust her wrist at him.

  “I know you’re untouched, if ’tis what fashes you.”

  “And we both know you’re not,” she muttered irritably. Mr. Multiple-Magnums-beneath-the-bed. How did he know she was a virgin? Was it stamped on her forehead? Were her kisses so inept?

  “’Twas naught but practice for the day I might please you.”

  She shivered. Smooth, very smooth. “If you don’t tie me, I promise I won’t try to escape.”

  “Aye, you would.”

  “I give you my word.”

  With a graceful flick of his hand, he tossed one of the pillows from the bed.

  Chloe didn’t have to glance down to know what he’d just revealed: the skean dhu she’d wrapped earlier in a soft piece of plaid she’d found, then tucked beneath the pillow so she might cut herself free later. “I was keeping it safe. I didn’t know where else to put it.” She batted her lashes.

  “No words of promise or even desire binds a woman. Bonds bind a woman.” He scooped up both blade and plaid, crossed the room, and tucked them in a drawer.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Who taught you that? Women? Sounds to me like maybe you pick the wrong ones. What are your criteria? Do you have any criteria?”

  He shot her a dark look. “Aye. That they’ll have me.”

  Blinking, she let him tie her. The man could have any woman.

  There was a very dangerous moment when he fastened her second wrist. A long pregnant pause where they simply stared at each other. She wanted him, ached for him, and the intensity of it terrified her. She hardly knew the man, and what she did know about him was anything but reassuring.

  As he closed the door he said over his shoulder, “Because you’re a good lass.” A heavy sigh. “And I’m no’ a good man.”

  It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about. Then she realized he’d finally answered her question—why she was not for him.

  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 coul
d 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.