“This?”
“Flirting with me. Back in the parlor you were all but calling me an opportunistic slut who’d do anything she had to in order to take advantage of an old guy with money to burn.”
“Is that what I said?” He slid his hands up her arms.
“I guess my mind works differentl
y when I’m touching you.”
Despite the fact that his touch had her involuntarily shivering in pleasure—or maybe specifically because it did—she laughed in his face. “For a guy who’s been lost in the jungle for years, you certainly are a smooth one.” She slipped her arms from his grasp. She would have stepped down one riser as well, despite the height advantage it would give him, but he had her rather cornered against the wall. “So, if insults and an overbearing manner don’t work, you turn on the charm instead? Is that your plan?”
“Would it work?”
She couldn’t help it, she laughed, only this time it wasn’t so harsh. “You really are a piece of work,
you
know that?”
His lips quirked, but the smile didn’t light up his eyes. “I could say the same of you.”
“It certainly would have been much nicer than the things you did say.”
His smile faded, and the intensity in his gaze elevated a few hundred ticks. The scarcity of space between his body and hers became a point of excruciating awareness for her in the silent moments that followed. Leaving right now would be the smartest course of action.
Take control of the situation, make him follow you, be leader in both manner and deed.
Great advice, all of which fell on deaf ears. Or a deaf something, anyway.
“I honestl
y don’t know what’s going on here,” he told her quietly. “I ad
mit maybe I didn’t read the con
tracts
clearly. I was dealing with…
quite a few other things. This—” he gestured beyond her with his hand, “—came as a shock to me, to all of us.”
She wished she was better at reading his expression. Wished she knew more about the dynamics of the relationship between Taggart and his sons. Because, despite
the things he’d said to her in that service vestibule, she wanted to believe he wasn’t the cold, heartless bastard she’d believed all Taggart’s sons must be. Apparently her good nature could be bought for the price of a few orgasms. “So, are you saying you’ve realized you have no permanent claim here?” she asked, forging ahead. Too much longer tucked away in the shadows like this, with him looking at her the way he was, and whatever good judgment she might have left to call on would likely be woefully inadequate.
“I’m not saying anything of the sort. Mick was quite clear in his explanations. My father places his trust in very few people. Those he does have generally well earned the spot.”
He might not know it, but that comment suffused her with warmth. Taggart had trusted her, and she felt closer to him for knowing she was one of few that he had. She supposed she owed it to him to make sure she handled this the best way possible. “I’m sure we can sort this all out.”
“Yes,” he said quietl
y, “I’m sure we can.”
Neither of them made a move to leave their little nook. “You were right before,” she said, her tone also hushed. “I don’t know what went on between you and your father. I only know that he helped me at a time in my life when I thought everything that mattered to me most was lost. So perhaps we’re both biased in our opinions about him, for our own reasons.” She paused, waiting for his rebuttal. When he said nothing, she took it as a positive sign. Ever the optimist
.
“Maybe we should leave him out of this, as much as we can, and focus on the legal issues at hand that are now between us.”
“Maybe.” His hand drifted up along her arm again, making her whole body tingle in awareness.
She couldn’t figure him out. One minute prickly and reserved, the next minute looking at her like he could
lap her up, one inch at a time. She immediately abandoned that imagery. She was having a hard enough time holding on to logic and rational thought as it was. “You confuse me,” she said, before she could think better of it.
His hand drifted to her shoulder, then to her neck, where he toyed with several strands there. His expression intense as always, and just as unreadable. He said nothing. The mere brush of his fingers along her skin said enough.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a bit huskily. “Seduction won’t change the terms of the contract.”
“I suppose I deserved that.”
“
You deserved a lot worse.”
“Probably.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “And to answer your question, I have no idea what in the hell I’m doing. I just don’t seem to be able to keep my hands off of you while I figure it out.”
“Standing—” She broke off on a swift intake of breath as his fingers skimmed across her lips. She moved back, but only the fraction required to end his stroking touch. “Standing here is probably not wise then,” she finished in one rushed breath.
“No,” he said, moving closer, hanging the lantern on a hook in the window niche beside her head. “I don’t suppose it is.” Her back hit the wall just as his hands wove into the hair on either side of her neck. He tilted her head back so he could gain access to her mouth, but didn’t push his body into hers, as she’d expected— hoped?—he would.
It was exquisite torture, the slow descent of his mouth to hers. The way he kept his gaze locked on her own, until the last moment when his eyes closed and his long lashes brushed his tanned, taut cheeks. “Stop me,” he whispered against her lips. Whether it was plea or command, she couldn’t be sure.
Nor, apparently, did she care. An instant later his mouth was on hers. No mere brush of lips upon lips, his fingers immediately tightened along the back of her head and neck and he pulled her into him, kissed her mouth open, and took her. Not with forceful thrusts, but with sure, confident strokes that had her moaning and reaching for him before she could comprehend what had just happened.
He was consuming her, taking her, breeching—easily—any and every defense. As if she’d ever had any against him. What was it about him that made her lose all sense? It was the last structured thought she was able to manufacture. Because he’d finally pushed his body up against hers. His hips found the cradle of hers and he dipped down before thrusting forward, so she could feel the full extent of his arousal.
Her knees went soft and she gripped his shoulders, digging in her nails as she opened for him. Mouth, hips, and legs. She’d be angry later, at him as well as herself. Where was her self-respec
t? Where was any sense of self-
preservation?
But those were distant concerns at the moment, vague threads of doubt too ephemeral to cling to. When all she wanted to cling to was the vibrant, hard, very alive man who was taking her as if she were the last woman he’d ever kiss before being dragged away to his death. The urgency in the way he held her, the way his mouth plundered hers, the way his hips ground into hers now, should have set off claxon bells of warning.
Oh, it set off bells all right.
“Jesus,” he swore against her mouth as he tore his lips from hers. “I just—” He broke off, breathing heavily. He slid his hands to her shoulders, made sure she was steady, then turned his back to her, his chin down, hands braced against the opposite wall of the stairwell landing. “I’m sorry,” he said at length.
“For, specifically?”
A brief snort of laughter got out before he got it under control. “I have no fucking idea.” He turned so his back rolled against the wall, his legs braced wide, hands by his side. “For swearing just then,” he said, a helpless smile ghosting about his mouth. “Beyond that, I honestly can’t say.” He shook his head, then tilted it back and let his eyes close. “I should never have come here.”
“Why do you say that?” She sounded quite calm and in control. Bravo, her. Because she felt anything but at the moment.
“Because you were right. I have no business here. I’m disrupting your life, and God knows I’m disrupting mine. I need to get back to work, not traipse halfway around the world on a wild goose chase that my father—” He broke off, his eyes still shut. She hadn’t been sure if he was talking to her, or to himself. Not that it mattered, she supposed.
She folded her arms, still leaning against the wall, regarding him. “I don’t know about that. Some
of the disruption was quite…
nice.”
He opened one eye to a slit. “Nice?”
Her lips curved. “Men and their egos. I suppose it’s the same the world round.”
“I suppose it is.” He closed his eyes again. “And don’t answer that.” His lips spread in a true smile this time. “But I know it was better than nice.”
“Ballsy son of a bitch, aren’t you?” she said with a laugh.
“A great deal of the time, yes. Only generally it has nothing to do with beautiful women and deep, soul kisses.”
And just like that he took her breath, and whatever smart-ass remark she had, away. Deep, soul kisses indeed. “I, we
ll…
thank you.” He merely opened his eyes and
stared at her, and the tension spiked once again. How was it that it was like this between them? If it were mere animal attraction, she could deal with that. But he pulled at something in her that went well beyond sexual need.
“We’re making this quite the habit,” she said, at length. When he merely arched a tawny brow, she motioned to the narrow niche they’d tucked themselves into. “Tight places,” she explained.
His lips curved slowly, into a smile broad enough to flex the cords in his neck, tightening the choker that circled it. H
er palms seemed to itch constantl
y with the n
eed to touch him. The least littl
e thing triggered it.
“I rather like some of the tight places I’ve been into of late.”
She blushed even as she smiled. “I don’t suppose I can
fault you for speaking so directl
y, since I make a habit of it myself. In fact, it’s one of the things I admire about you.”
“One of the things?” He folded his arms. “You mean I’ve more than one admirable trait?”
She let her gaze drift slowly down his body, pausing a bit about midway down, then slowly shifted her gaze back up to his. “One or two.”
“
Touche,” he said with a nod.
He is such a primal specimen,
she thought, taking in his rangy body, his native good looks, that wild tangle of hair. And yet for all the earthiness of him, he had this almost overeducated, bookish air about him, the way he spoke, the way that, most of the time anyway, he kept silent and merely observed the goings-on around him.
The vestibule display notwithstanding, he didn’t seem the sort who needed to command a room, or be the center of attention. And yet he so easily managed to command all of hers.
She realized, looking at him now, that even if she
peeled away the overt physicality of him, and that professorial air, there was still an aura of mystery about him. Perhaps it was because he was so hard to read that she felt certain the thoughts ran deep behind those enigmatic eyes of his. Or maybe it was that hint of desolation when he’d spoken of his father just now that pointed to something more beneath his admittedly fine exterior.
“I’m starting to feel like I should be on a glass slide beneath a microscope,” he said, but not unkindly.
“Sorry.” She smiled. “I guess I’m just having a hard time figuring you out. I’m an unabashedly curious type, and I admit you’ve raised a number of questions I’m dying to have answered. So I’m trying to show some self-restraint and not poke my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“We don’t seem to do real well with restraint,” he commented.
“No,” she said with a smile, “I don’t suppose we do.”
“So why start now?”
It might have been a rhetorical question, but she chose to answer it honestly. “Because now that I’ve changed
my mind and want you to stay…
I’m very much afraid you’ll leave. And I’m torn between wanting to pry as much informat
ion out of you before you go…
and not doing anything that might hasten your departure.”
If he was surprised by her blunt honesty, he didn’t show it. “What do you want to know?” His body posture remained relaxed, but she wasn’t fooled. Never had she met anyone so intent, so focused.
She tilted her head, debating on the wisdom of asking him anything too personal at this moment. They’d reached a truce, of sorts, and she didn’t want to blow it. “Whatever your reasons, you’ve come a long way. Can you honestly say that now that you’re here, you’re not at
least a little curious? About your ancestors, your heritage?” She wave
d her hand to encompass the castl
e they stood in. “The whole tapestry that weaves their stories together?”
He didn’t say anything for a few moments, then he finally pushed away from the wall and lo
omed in front of her. “I’m insati
ably curious,” he murmured. “But at the moment, and in a distinct departure from my normal nature, my curiosity has nothing whatsoever to do with the past. Much less those who have long since ceased to populate it.”
“What—” She broke off when he moved closer still, fought to moisten her suddenly parched throat. “What are you curious about?”