Dark Lover (38 page)

He smiled. Then he walked her backward, their gazes locked. Sam knew what he wanted, and it wasn't just her body. She didn't know if she could or would ever get those words out again. The back of her body hit the wall of shelves. He'd kept one hand low, under her buttock, and she raised herself onto a shelf. He helped her.

It was awkward. The other shelves hurt her back, but who cared? She lifted her right leg and hooked it over his hip.

He finally tore his gaze from hers and looked at her mouth. “I want ye more than I did at Oban,” he said. “More than I did all those nights I watched the tapes. More than I did yesterday or this morning.”

Sam inhaled. “Good. The feeling is…mutual.”
Isn't it?
she thought silently.

He was moving toward her. His eyes widened as he entered her.

Sam choked, overcome by the pressure within her, and the immediate tide of pleasure that began to rise. But he paused. She knew she flushed. She hadn't been fishing, had she? She didn't expect him to love her back—or did she?

His eyes blazed and, too late, she knew he'd heard her. She started to press at his chest, to keep him back, but he withdrew and then drove deep, forcing her other leg up and around his waist. And as he began to thrust long and slow, the sense of belonging was so consuming that Sam held him and surrendered to the moment and the man.
She really loved Ian Maclean.

She was ready to shatter.

He pulled her head back and their gazes met. “Thank ye,” he said roughly. “Fer not runnin' out on me.”

She somehow smiled and then she gave up. She couldn't stand the love and joy, the desire. She gave herself over to the incredible force inside her, the incredible pressure building, the first wave of pleasure, and he kissed her.

He kissed her like it was the first time, the last time, the only time. Sam rode his waist and kissed him back exactly the same way.

 

T
ABBY PAUSED
in the loft she used to share with Sam, overcome with so many memories of the times she'd spent there with her sister. Macleod put his arm around her. “I ken ye'll always miss her.”

She looked up at his breathtaking face. “I have no regrets. Not one.”

He studied her for a moment. “Even if ye did, I'd never let ye go.”

Tabby smiled, when another woman would be annoyed
or angered by his controlling nature. It had been hard, at first, to get used to being with such a ruthless, chauvinistic, medieval man. But every passionate argument had always ended with even more passionate lovemaking—and a deeper understanding of and greater love for one another. They were two souls drawn to one another like magnets, and he knew it as well as she did.

“There are no regrets, but I am
worried,
” Tabby said softly. “Until Ian Maclean sees the light, can she count on him?”

“He will be there for her,” Macleod said flatly. “He willna ken why, but he willna turn his back on her if she is in danger.”

“Brie has to be wrong. About Moray,” she added, hating having to speak the name aloud.

Macleod was silent but she heard his every thought. In the twenty-five years since Brie had come to live with Aidan at Castle Awe, she'd been wrong exactly one time about her visions.

Tabby walked across the large interior of the loft. Sam kept the chest at the far end locked, but Tabby still had her key, which she wore on her girdle with the other manor keys. She unlocked the chest and lifted the lid, crying out as she saw her beloved crystals. She ran her hands over every one before turning to smile at Macleod.

He shook his head, bemused. “Will ye take them home with us?”

She had dozens of powerful crystals at Blayde. “No. Sam might need them one day.”

“Her Fate is Maclean.”

“Yes, I believe he is her Fate. But I'm not willing to speculate as to when and where they will live out their lives.”

“He's as medieval as I am,” Macleod pointed out, amused.

Tabby smiled, unconvinced. Sam had met her Fate, she was certain, just as she had more than two centuries ago. Sam would always be a Slayer, but Tabby was thrilled that she would now have Ian Maclean at her side. He wasn't a Master, but he had power and he cared.

If Moray was back, they needed all the help they could get.

Macleod became sober, and so did she as they shared a look and their thoughts.

So much was still about to happen, if Brie were not wrong. “I was there,” she said slowly. “We all were, except for Sam and you. Brie, Allie, Claire and I vanquished Moray. Aidan destroyed his physical body. We watched his soul vanish into the universe. It looked as if his black energy scattered.”

“An' if it dinna vanish?”

“Then I will find the right spell to do what we failed to do twenty-five years ago,” Tabby said simply.

“Tabitha,” he objected. “I ken yer power, but the burden now is far too great fer a single woman.”

“No, it's not. I'm a Rose, Guy. Maybe it's up to me to save this particular day.”

He crossed the room. “Yer the most stubborn of women an' I love ye so much fer it. But I willna allow ye to have this great burden alone.” He was firm. “Are ye sure it can't wait till dawn?” He pulled her close, his eyes warm.

Her body tightened. The attraction between them had been almost fatal from the start. She stroked his rough cheek. She loved Macleod now more than she ever had. “Have I ever been able to say no?”

He laughed and held her hard.

But in spite of the raging desire, she was afraid. What if she couldn't find the magic they now needed? Had Moray come back for Aidan or for Ian? Tabby loved her cousin and her sister impossibly. Their battles were her battles.

Macleod sighed and looked down at her.

She looked up. “Malcolm and Claire vanquished Moray in Orkney in 1425—and he came back from the dead. We vanquished him a second time, in 1502. Guy, if he's come back, maybe the rumors are true.”

Macleod released her. His face had darkened. “That he's immortal?”

“And we are not. Not a single one of us.”

 

S
HE WAS FINALLY ASLEEP
, even though it was noon and the sun was pouring into his bedroom.

Ian looked at her and gave over to the impossible need. He ran his hand over her long, lithe, beautiful body. He stared at her striking face. His heart thundered, close to bursting. In her sleep, she sighed and stirred.

Sam Rose loved him
. He threw himself onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, unsmiling.

Images from that night flashed. The doctor he'd so ruthlessly strangled. The monk, being attacked by those souls. Sam, pointing her gun at Carlisle's forehead.

He shifted uncomfortably. His heart kept telling him to smile, to rejoice. But how could he? He was sick inside.

He closed his eyes. He'd been afflicted with the incessant memories since leaving the Brooklyn town house. It was as if he'd been freed yesterday, as if sixty-six years of pain and fear were engraved on his mind and in his soul. The monk was dead but he saw him so clearly, it was as if he stood before him. And his grandfather. He'd never forget the mastermind behind his captivity and torture. Moray made the monk seem kind. Moray made the monk seem human. Sam had said the helpless boy was gone and that he'd never be back, but he felt like that boy again.

He wasn't going to rejoice.

Not now, and not ever.

She loved him.

It didn't matter.

He couldn't love her back.

He didn't want to love her back.

Tears began burning beneath his closed eyelids.

He was damaged still. He'd always be damaged. There was too much in his past, too much pain, too many memories. He didn't know what love was, didn't want to know, even if a stupid part of him was pleased that she loved him.

He could never give her what she wanted. He could never do this.

He realized he was afraid all over again. No, he was
terrified
. When was she going to figure out the truth about him?

She'd realize the truth when she read his file
.

He stared up at the ceiling but something was wrong with his vision, which was blurred. It was hard to think clearly, hard to breathe. Come hell or high water, he would still get that file and have every copy destroyed. He just couldn't figure out how he'd do that now, when he had no leverage. But it wouldn't matter. Sam was smart. She probably knew the truth, because she had all the pieces of the puzzle. She just hadn't had a moment to put the puzzle together. Sooner, not later, she'd do it.

And then her confusion would end. She might think she loved him, but it was impossible. It was the sex that enthralled her—and that wasn't even a matter of his own skill, it was the power and stamina he'd inherited from the gods. It couldn't be anything else. He wasn't kind. He wasn't pleasant or charming. He had no morals, no code of ethics. He wasn't a hero. A pretty face only went so far. It could only be the sex. He was not lovable. He knew that beyond any doubt.

No one loved him. Not now, not ever. Not even his father, because if Aidan had really loved him, he would have found a way to rescue him when he was that boy. He
was unloved—as he should be. Men like him did not deserve love. He did not deserve love—he did not deserve Sam Rose.

He saw his entire life in his mind's eye. It was a long, bleak, endless tunnel, one he traversed alone. The tunnel began with his imprisonment, a black hole of pain and despair. There was no light within the tunnel, not where it began and none at its end, to guide him out. There was no way out. He started to laugh, helplessly.

The tunnel was his Fate.

He stared down at Sam as she slept. She was the strongest, toughest woman he knew. Even in sleep, he saw and felt her warrior strength, the kind of strength even someone like him could rely on.

He'd been alone his entire life, for as long as he could remember. He was used to it. There was no reason for his chest to start aching now.

Memories they'd made together so recently swept over him, with the force of a tidal wave. Her dropping that little red dress. Her snapping those handcuffs on, triumphant. Her standing between him and Forrester, trying to broker a deal for him. Her pointing a gun at Carlisle and vanquishing him.

And the tunnel suddenly got darker, an impossible feat. It was hard to imagine a life without her in it, but there was no other choice. Because he could imagine her looking at him with scorn and derision and then walking away with an indifferent shrug. He knew, beyond any doubt, that day would come.

She turned to him in her sleep, surprising him. He did not move. Facing him on her side, her hand brushed his hip. And his heart thundered differently now.

He was addicted to her body. He was addicted to the release she could give him, the incredible pleasure, the escape from the damned tunnel of his life. If he leaned over her now, this terrible moment would vanish. But it would
be temporary. When they were done, nothing would have changed.

His chest hurt so badly he wondered if he was having a heart attack. He couldn't imagine a day going by without their verbal sparring. He liked her tough comebacks, her clever retorts. He'd had more conversation with her than he'd had in his entire lifetime, he realized grimly. But then, most of his life had been spent in isolation, either as a captive or since his release.

How he felt didn't matter. He was used to being alone. There'd be other women, faceless and nameless, eager to please him, women he'd use and walk away from, women he wouldn't bother to talk to, women who could think whatever they chose to about him and he wouldn't care. They wouldn't challenge him or talk back to him or look at him with those concerned violet-blue eyes…

It crossed his addled mind that a light had gone on in that tunnel since meeting Sam. And it had been growing brighter each and every day. It was almost as if there were a beacon at the tunnel's end…

But that was impossible.

The fear clawed, the same fear he lived with, day in and day out.

She was stirring. Ian sat up, throwing off the covers. He left the bed and quickly dressed, yanking on his clothing with sheer determination, refusing to think any further. His mind was made up. Using his cell phone, he told the pilots to file a flight plan to Glasgow. He had no intention of leaping, not ever again.

When he came out of the walk-in closet, he was shrugging on a lightweight leather jacket. Sam was sitting up in his bed, beneath the gold sheets, her hair more mussed than usual, her full lips swollen. Her eyes were searching and filled with dread, as if she knew what he was doing. “Where are you going, Ian?”

“I'm leaving,” he said without emotion. He turned away from her. Looking at her actually hurt, the way those instruments of torture had.

She hugged her knees to her chest, under the covers. “You're leaving me, aren't you?”