He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. It was more a caress, a tease, than a kiss. Then he braced his arms on the wall on either side of her and leaned i
n. He kept his body so close…
so close, yet didn’t touch hers. Instead, their only contact was when he pressed his cheek to hers and whispered in her ear. “I’m curious to know about my future. My immediate future. With one person in particular who is still very much alive.”
Her breathing had gone all funny and she thought for certain her heart was about to pound out of her chest. “Like what?” she managed.
He lifted hi
s head enough to look her directly in th
e eyes. “I propose we make a pact to be completely honest with each other. And, in the spirit of that pact, I will tell you that I don’t know how long I’l
l be staying. In this castl
e, or in this country. But I do know I have no intentions of going anywhere tonight. And at the moment I could care less about our tangled past history, recent or distant. And I can’t say I’m all that willing to worry about what’s likely to be our just-as-tangled future.” He slid his hands down the wall, then cupped her face, tilting her mouth to his. “All I know is that I’m insatiably
curious about you. When I left our bed this morning, I had to talk myself out of going after you, told myself it was better to give you what you wan
ted, one anonymous night. But…
”
Her heart tripped. “But?” The word was hardly more than a rasp.
He brushed a whisper of a kiss across her cheek. “Why were you crying?”
And just like that, she tensed. Was he still suspicious? Did he still think—
He tipped her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “I was going to leave you alone, leave this alone. But I couldn’t stand the thought of you leaving with tears. So I came after you. In fact, I was going to do whatever it took to catch you.”
She sniffed, unaware until that moment that her eyes were brimming. “You were?”
He nodded, brushing at a stray tear with the pad of his thumb. “Only you’d left me without a trail to follow. I figured it wasn’t destined to be, but I hated having to give up before I even began.” He tilted his head, his fingers tangling in her hair. “But now here you are.” He slanted his mouth just above hers. “And I was thinking I don’t care about much of anything else.” He brushed his lips across hers. “I don’t
care whether it’s one day or ten, whether it complicates matters or not.” A smile teased his beautiful mouth. “I caught you after all. And I just can’t bring myself to let you go twice in one day.”
“What about what I want,” she miraculously managed, every last ounce of her quivering in need.
“Now you get to decide if
you want to catch me back. So… tag,” he said, lips curving, “
You’re it.”
He’d come after her, before he’d known about
…
any of this. Sure, it could be a big story, a ruse to get her in a vulnerable position. But Christ, wasn’t she already? Because, the truth of it was, foolish or no’, she wanted
exactly what he claimed to want, and then some. Dangerous, yes. Not to her heritage. Ballantrae wasn’t at stake here. But her heart might well be. And, at the moment, it seemed just as big a thing to risk.
“I…
I don’t know
what to think anymore. I want…
” She trailed off, warring with herself over whether to take what she wanted, or call it all off right now.
He nudged her chin up when she broke eye contact. “Honesty,” he reminded her.
So
she held his gaze, quite directl
y, and said, “Okay. I want you. Here. Tonight. And I don’t want either of us to be alone. But that’s all I’ll commit to wanting. We have things to work out, you and I. And there’ll be emotions involved and it’ll get messy. Messier still the more tangled up we become. I—”
He pressed his thumb across her lips. “I want to spend tonight with yo
u, too. Preferably in a bed, th
ough I’m not all that choosy. There aren’t too many walls in the places I inhabit. So I’m rather enjoying this novel habit we’re rapidly adopting.”
He kissed her again, sliding the palm of his hands down her sides, letting his thumbs brush along the s
well of her breasts, before settl
ing the full weight of him between her thighs. She moaned in almost desperate appreciation. It was as if this was how their bodies were meant to be, so perfectly fitted. Always. And anything less was torture. “Yes,” she breathed, aching now for him to brush those clever fingers of his over her nipples, to push harder, higher between her thighs. Aching to feel his hands on her again, his body thrusting inside hers.
“Yes, you’re enjoying the novel habit?” he asked, so close his
lips brushed hers ever so lightl
y as he spoke. “Or yes, you want me to stay the night. In your bed.” He kissed her then, flicked his thumbs over the tips of her nipples. “In you.”
Chapter 13
S
omewhere between leaving that cavernous monstrosity of a room she called a parlor, and finding her in a dark stairwell, he’d completely lost his mind.
He’d set the fire, then paced the room, waiting for her return. It had given him just enough time to ask himself what in the hell he was doing. And why. He was arguing with her for the sake of arguing. Did he really want the responsibility for this heaping pile of stone? Of course not. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted to be responsible for the property he’d grown up on. And while Morgans may have factored into the history of Ballantrae, this castle and the la
nd surrounding it was Sinclair-
held. And had been for centuries. He had only to look at the massive framed portraits that lined the walls of the parlor, and any other wall space not taken up by soaring bookshelves, to observe the proof of that claim.
And those bo
okshelves…
Now they had drawn his interest. He was an avid reader, but by necessity most of his material pertained to research. Still, the idea of shelf after shelf, crammed with all manner of reading matter, had lured him in like no amount of ancestral history
could have. He’d glanced through a few and been bemused to find
leather-bound histories of Scotl
and with copyrights dating back over a century, privately published treatises on fox hunting, complete with painstaking hand-painted illustrations, along with thick tomes dedicated to the vagaries of sheep breeding. All shelved side by side and in
between current paperback pulp-
fiction mysteries and romances. And that was just on the shelf or two he’d skimmed.
When she hadn’t returned, he’d turned his attention to those imposing portraits. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised to note a Morgan or Ramsay in a few of the group sittings, mostly hunting or regimental portraits. He might not know vast amounts of Morgan clan lore on this side of the ocean, but he did know the story of how Rogues Hollow came to be, and he knew that history was strong enough to tangle the Morgans, Ramsays, and Sinclairs together on his side of the ocean for another three hundred years.
But that didn’t explain why his father had decided to financially obligate himself to this particular piece of Sinclair, and to a lesser extent, Morgan history. Tag had dismissed his earlier idea that it was some twisted revenge plot. If anything, his father was all about blazing new trails into the future. Certainly not dwelling on the Morgan clan’s turbulent past. Recent or distant.
No, Morgans didn’t dwell on past unpleasantness. They moved on.
By the time he’d gone off in search of a bathroom, his mind had been made up. He’d go through the paperwork with her, clarify all the facts, and if any part of this place actually was his, as Mick had claimed, then he’d just sign it over to her. This was her legacy, not his. As for the money, well, that was also her burden. He had his own legacy to take care of in Rogues Hollow.
This trip had been an ill-advised impulse that he
should never have given in to. So, he’d do the right thing, restore Sinclair prope
rty to the rightful Sinclair…
then find an airport and book passage back to Chacchoben, where he should have been all along. He’d spent the past few months since his father died feeling off-balance and out of sync. More so since coming here. He wanted to go back to a world he understood.
At least, that had been his thinking half an hour ago.
Now he had her up against a cold stone wall, his tongue down her throat, praying she’d beg him to stay.
She trembled beneath his touch. “Is this some new strategy?”
He could feel her heart pound through her shirt, wanted—badly—to remove that shirt and every other barrier between them.
“Strategy?” He trailed kisses to her ear. “No, no diversionary tactics. You’re the Sinclair, the castle is yours. I have no claim on it, no matter what those papers say.”
She struggled against him, pushed him back enough to look into his eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittering with desire, and he wondered how they’d gone from being a breath away from fucking each other senseless again, to talking about the damn castle.
“What are you saying?”
With barely restrained patience, he told her, “I’m saying that this place is your legacy, not mine. We’ll go over the papers. If I have to, I'll sign whatever I have to so the property reverts back to you.”
“But—”
“
Jesus,” he said on a half-laugh, “what more do you want from me?”
“I—” She looked like she’d been fully prepared to shoot back a retort, only she caught herself. “I don’t know,” she said sincerely. She blew out a breath, sounding both disconcerted and a bit overwhelmed.
The tension still screamed between them, but some
small part of him gentled in the face of her revealing a more vulnerable side. Without questioning the wisdom of it, he followed his instincts and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her. She didn’t push him away. Instead her arms came around his waist and she clung to him as he buried his face in her hair. “I just want to do what’s right,” he murmured.
She snorted softly, but her grip on him tightened. “You just want to get in my pants.”
He smiled against her hair, slid his mouth down to her ear. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think I could probably do that without giving away an entire castle.”
Her mouth opened, then closed again without retort. She shook her head and let out a small, rueful sigh. “What are we doing here, Tag? Dancing about each other like dogs in heat, with all this unfinished business we’ve yet to deal with still between us.”
“
Trying to figure out how to have each other without compromising our position,” he answered. “Only I’ve just surrendered from the field of battle. So, as far as I can tell, the only thing keeping us from finding something soft and horizontal is my lack of knowledge of the floor plan.”
She laughed and shook her head. “We’re both too direct for our own good. You know that.” Then her amusement faded slowly, though a certain tenderness lingered in her eyes. “I will probably regret saying this. And my Sinclair forebears are surely rolling in the
ir graves at the moment, but…
” She lifted a hand to his face, pushed back the tangle of hair at his
temples. “
This is Sinclair land, make no mistake. But their hold here has been entwined with Clan Morga
nach for centuries. This is partl
y your legacy, too.”
“Maura—”
She pressed her fingers across his lips. “You can believe what you want, but I’m not saying that to try and lure you into feeling responsible, or to get at your bank account. If I want to strike a business deal with you, I’ll come right out and ask.” She let her hand drop to his shoulder. “I don’t pretend to understand the undercurrent that ran so deeply in your family that it severed you all from your father. Or wh
y you felt compelled to travel
this far to track down a heritage you don’t seem to care about.” He started to speak again and she shook her head, talking over him. “But you
are
here. And the money aside, our personal situation aside, everything else aside, I think you should at least take the time to learn something of those Morgans who came here before you.” She tangled her fingers in the ed
ges of his curls and tugged gen
tly. “You’re already here. What can it hurt?” she asked softly. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said without hesitation. Only as soon as he spoke the words, doubt assailed him.
Was
he afraid? Afraid he might learn something about his ancestry that would make him want to involve himself here in a more permanent way?
Or afraid it might lead him to some new understanding of his father, one that would require him to rethink everything he thought he knew about the man? He was quite comfortable with the situation as it stood. On both counts. He had no regrets. And all these years later, and months too late to confront his father personally, he really didn’t want to do anything that would cause him to have regrets now.
She slid her hands down his arms and wove her fingers through his. It made absolutely no sense, but when she curled them inward and wedded her palms to his, he felt the threat of an intimacy that was far more dangerous than any they’d shared up to now. Which, considering the way he’d claimed her not twenty-four hours earlier, was saying something.
But being deep inside her body was a far cry from delving deep into her mind, or her heart. And, even more of a threat, was opening that same path inside himself to her.
“You know,” he said, conversationally, wanting to slide his hands free before she sucked him in any further, but not wanting to reveal the root of his fear. “Th
ere’s a reason I live in the ju
ngle with a bunch of bones and broken crockery to keep me company.”
She tilted her head, dimples winking. “Because you communicate better with the dead than the living?”
She was teasing, but he nodded, quite serious. “Discovery isn’t mutual in my line of work. You can ferret out their secrets, without risking exposing your own.”
“A very guarded existence.”
“It’s worked well for me.”
“I imagine it has.” She lifted up, kissed him quite softly on the lips. “You asked for honesty. So at the risk of losing at least one last night of amazing sex, I’m going to give it to you.” She squeezed his hands and looked him directly in the eyes. “I want to know your secrets, Tag Morgan. I’ve wanted to know all about them since you kissed me in a snowstorm minutes after meeting me. Knowing what I do now, that curiosity has only compounded. I want to know what happened between you and your father. I want to know why you’ve removed yourself from civilization as we know it. And I want to know why you came here. What, deep down in your heart, you’d hope to find.” She tugged him closer. “Maybe this wasn’t as much an impulse trip as you think. Maybe this was just giving in to something you’ve wanted for a very long time, but were, for whatever reason, too afraid to reach out and take.”
He realized then it was too late to barricade himself in emotionally. She’d already breached that barrier as if it were nothing more than a flimsy shield.
And perhaps, to the right woman, it would always have been that easy. “I don’t know,” he said, striving in vain to sound casually amused. “I think I’ve proven I have no problem taking what I want.”
She smiled at that. “You’re more like your ancestors than you want to believe,” she told him.
“
You’re not the first Morgan man to fall into the clutches of a Sinclair woman, you know. Along these very halls, in fact.”
He found his fingers tightening on hers of their own volition. He was getting pulled under her spell. The cadence of her Highland burr, the throaty tone of her voice, the feel of her against him, her touch, her scent. “Is that what I’m in? Your clutches?”
“Evade and parry,” she said. “You’re quite good at deflection, aren’t you? But then I’m sure you’re well aware of that.” She leaned back on the wall a
gain, pulling him against her. “
There’s one more thing I want to know about you.”
He was already lowering his mouth to hers. “Which is?”
“I want to know if I can engage the curiosity that must be inherent in a man who does what you do for a living.”
“
Trust me, I’m curious about you.”
“I meant about your clan, about this place, your history.”
“Why don’t we work with my curiosity for one Sinclair woman.” He took her face in his hands, tilted her mouth to his. “And go from there.”
“It’s a start,” she murmured, and then took his kiss, took him into her mouth, into her arms and, he was very much afraid, into her heart.
His own was pounding all out of proportion to the moment at hand. His emotions were all over the chart and no longer easily categorized and maintained. “I’m in trouble here, aren’t I?” he asked, meaning to tease,
needing to lighten the moment. But somehow the words came out sounding a bit shaky and bewildered.
“
You’re just now figuring that out?” With a smile he was sure she meant to be reassuring, but was just knowing enough to up the terror quotient by about a hundred percent, she squeezed his hand and led him back down the stairs. He managed to grab
the lantern, though she apparentl
y didn’t need it.
He had choices here, he thought wildly, as they retraced their steps back to the parlor. He didn’t
have
to follow.
She scooped up the file she’d put on the massive granite-topped table by the parlor door and motioned to his knapsack and duffel bag. “Grab those.”
“Where are we going?”
She just smiled. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
At the moment he hesitated to answer that one.
“Do you need any help with that?” she asked, motioning to his bags.
He held her gaze for one long moment, then shook his head as he slung the backpack on one shoulder and the duffel across his back.
I’m well and truly in it now, aren’t I,
he thought, as she grabbed the lantern on her way back into the hall.