Labyrinth (3 page)

Firelight glinted off his eyes in the instant before his head dipped. Moist lips closed around a nipple. Margot arched into his mouth. He emitted a low growl. He slipped warm fingers beneath her top and around her waist to the small of her back,
then
pulled her against him. The soft fabric of his shirt tickled the tiny hairs on her skin.

Margot ground her taut belly against the steel of his abdomen. Her heated flesh cooled, then warmed again in sync with his warmer body. Teeth gently tugged at her nipple. She gasped. He sucked, flicked his tongue against the sensitive bud, and sucked again. She wrapped her hands around his ass. Muscle tightened as he sucked harder. Margot rolled her sensitive nub against his rod. He growled.

“That’s it, sugar,” she coaxed.

His hand covered the other breast as he released her nipple and kissed her mouth. He flicked his tongue against her lips. Margot opened and his tongue swept inside. Damn, he tasted like brandy. Just like the movies. What fantasy had she conjured him from? She slid her hands around his waist and flattened her palms on his chest. His heart raced like a thoroughbred. Margot shifted her hands upward and her shirt bunched. He grabbed her lapel and yanked the remaining buttons free of their holes. Two buttons pinged off the wall and bounced noiselessly to the carpet.

Margot glanced at the shirt,
then
lifted her gaze to his face. “You ruined my best pair of pajamas.”

The awareness that had grabbed her attention a moment ago sliced into her thoughts. She twisted in an effort to see the door she was still pressed against. “What the hell’s out there?”

He scooped her off the floor and pressed her tightly against his broad chest.

“Whoa!” Margot threw her arms around his neck.

He strode to the bed, tossed her onto the mattress and came down on top of her.

She lifted a brow.
“Ready to step things up a notch?”

He stared for a long moment,
then
laid a palm on her stomach. Her flesh quivered as his warm fingers glided downward. He slipped his hand beneath her waistband. Margot yanked his kilt up, wrapped a leg around his naked hip, and arched into the fingers sliding through her curls. He grazed her clit with a fingertip and she pulsed against the long digit. The finger dipped between her folds and into her wet channel.

His head dropped to her neck. “Faigh muin,” he said in a hoarse voice.

Margot gave a low laugh. “I don’t know what you said, but I like the way you said it.”

Warm breath bathed her neck. He slid the finger in, then out, starting a rhythm. Feather light kisses moved along her neck to the hollow in her throat. Soft hair tickled the underside of her jaw. She startled when his thumb brushed her swollen sex. His in-and-out rhythm didn’t miss a beat.

What the hell was she doing? She’d never before waltzed into a stranger’s room and let him fuck her. Pressure mounted in her core. Familiarity edged to the surface. What was it
—

Sweet Christ, I’m dreaming
.

Pleasure shot through her. Well, damn, how long before she woke up? Margot shoved a hand under his kilt and grasped his steel-hard cock. His intake of breath hissed in her ear. Satisfaction shot through her when his rhythm faltered then started again with renewed vigor. She rubbed the mushroom shaped tip and a trickle of thick, sticky cum coated her fingertip. He groaned. Her nipples tightened and throbbed in sync with the ache building in her core. He gently flicked her pleasure point. She gasped.

He thrust into her hand. She tightened her grip around him, until the edge of her hand met pubic bone,
then
he lifted and slowly thrust again. His thumb slowed on her nub, teasing, keeping her release in sight, but just out of reach.

He rose up on one elbow, his eyes meeting hers as he pulled his finger from inside her and began rubbing her clit in quick strokes. She squeezed his cock, sliding her hand up its length, while
pulsing
her hips against his finger. Pleasure rose on a hard wave, building for a mind numbing orgasm. She released him and covered the hand massaging her. Margot jammed her eyes shut and bucked against him. Light burst behind her lids.

“
Don’t stop
.” She bucked harder.

A ripping sound filled the space around her. The hand moved faster. Pleasure tore through her. A finger dipped inside her channel as another stoked again, then again, and one last time while the orgasm tightened her channel and locked her insides in spasm. She arched into his hand and pleasure exploded between her legs.

Chapter Three

Margot snapped open her eyes and gasped at the orgasm that tightened her body. She drew in even breaths in an effort to slow the hammering of her heart. Vague images of a dimly lit hall, soft light, and a tall dark figure flitted through memory. Her room at last came into focus and she registered the beginnings of gray morning light seeping through the curtains of the French doors leading to the balcony. Margot lifted her head off the pillow and ran her gaze down her arm. Her hand disappeared inside her pajama bottoms. Bare breasts, open shirt, and missing buttons? Well, damn.

She allowed her head to drop back onto the pillow. The best fuck she’d had in over a year—maybe the best finger fuck she’d had in her life—and she’d administered it herself. She eyed the shirt. How had she managed to ruin her favorite set of pajamas in the process? She withdrew her hand from the pajamas and a chill rolled across her arms. Margot glanced at the fireplace on the opposite wall. Red embers glowed beneath the ash. Apparently, even early summer in a Scottish castle was damp and chilly.

She rolled over, dragging the quilt over her arms, and looked at the travel alarm clock on the nightstand. That and the Blackberry lying beside it were the only pieces of modern equipment in the room. The digital numbers read
6:39
. Margot grimaced. The time in
Mississippi
was just past
midnight
. She should go back to sleep. Instead, she looked past the foot of the bed at the painting that hung over the mantle.

Soft light from the coals bathed the painting in a glow that didn't stop the same prickle of gooseflesh up her arms she had experienced yesterday when she’d first seen the painting. Even the twenty feet that separated her from the painting didn’t diminish the castle’s detail. Cat must have gone to a lot of expense to have the picture restored. Why put it in the room that was the last to be renovated?

Margot slid her gaze past the castle to the
North Atlantic
that stretched into infinity beyond the steep cliff where the castle sat. The distant crash of the waves beyond her room filtered into her consciousness. Had the artist sat on her balcony while painting the pale blue water? Margot glanced at the doors leading to the balcony.

After Cat’s warning yesterday afternoon, Margot had examined the balcony. Cat hadn’t exaggerated. The wrought iron railing teetered on the verge of crumbling away from its stone anchors. Margot burrowed deeper beneath the thick quilt. She’s really stepped into the looking glass this time.

Four years ago, the coroner ruled the death of Donald Bowers, son of Wilkinson County’s richest land owner, accidental, but Margot knew better…had seen what no one else had seen. Chief Hicks ordered her to forget the case. Even a champion swimmer could drown, he said. But she couldn’t forget the gawky blond boy she’d grown up with, or the way he’d mooned over Cat throughout high school. She would never forget his body when she arrived on the scene at the lake. But most of all, she
couldn’t
forget the lack of pain in Cat’s eyes when Margot broke the news that her husband had been found floating face down in the lake.

The day after Margot got Cat’s call, she asked Hicks for a leave of absence. He told her she could take as much time as she needed—as long as she wasn't planning a trip to
Scotland
. Margot had laid her deputy sheriff's badge and service automatic on his desk and walked out.

Sadness tugged at her. Despite long periods of boredom, heat, and humidity, she had thrived on being one of four police officers who patrolled six hundred and eighty-eight square miles of woods and swamp that hid moon-shiners, alligator poachers, and backwater gambling. She would never find another wild ride like the last twelve years. But losing her job was a small price to pay to give Donny peace.

A soft chime drew Margot’s attention to the Blackberry. She reached for the phone and pulled it close, and tapped the lit email icon. A message from her father loaded.

How you doing, baby girl? I did some fishing this afternoon.
Caught me some perch and catfish.
You'll be sorry you're missing this meal. I bet they don't have nothing like this in
Scotland
. Anyway, let me know you're all right. I still say you should come on home and leave things be. Ain't
no
use fussing with a witch.

Your father.

Margot couldn't help a smile. Her father figured that any woman who could kill a man and not leave a trace of how she did it had to be a witch. He wasn't completely wrong. He also wasn't a modern man, and didn't have any real understanding of modern forensics. His use of a computer to email her only illustrated his determination to stay in touch with her. But he understood people, and he believed in her. When Hicks asked him to
talk some sense into Margot,
he'd told Hicks that she was the best damn cop on the force, and if she said Cat was a killer, then she damn well was. Of course, when Hicks left, her father told her the same thing his email said,
ain't no use fussing with a witch.

She typed a reply that she was fine, and she would stay in touch. Margot hit send, then set the Blackberry back on the night table and buried deeper beneath the covers. She had just begun to drift off when the creak of the door brought her to attention. Who was visiting her room so early? The door creaked again and she tugged the edge of the quilt from her eyes. Margot stilled. Cat had entered and was clicking the door shut. Cat turned and stared at the fireplace. Not the fireplace, Margot
realized,
the picture.

“Gets to you, doesn’t it?”

Cat whirled, green eyes wide.
“What—you’re still here?”

“You expected me to be up? What kind of vacation would that be?”

Margot propped up on an elbow. The quilt fell forward. Cat’s gaze dropped to Margot’s chest. Margot glanced down at her exposed breasts.

“Oops.” She pulled the pajama top closed.

“What happened?”

Something in Cat’s demand gave Margot pause, but she grinned as if talking to the old
Cat
. Cat understood what it meant to have a good time, even when flying solo. That fact hadn't changed for her even after Eric Olsen was killed while drag racing their senior year in high school.

“A wild and wet dream,” Margot said. At least, what she could remember of it. Damn, why were the good dreams always the hardest to recall?

Cat crossed to the bed. “You had a wild time on your own last night?”

Margot waggled an edge of her pajama top.
“Looks that way.”

Cat looked from the shirt to Margot. “That’s a stretch, even for you.”

Margot grinned again. “I know. Guess I’m starting my vacation off with a bang.” She flopped back onto the mattress. “What do you have planned for us today?”

“Us?”
She shook her head. “I’m working all day. The contractors are starting the second phase. I’ve got to be available for consultation.”

“No problem. I’ll just bum around today, see what this place is all about.”