Heart of the Highland Wolf (18 page)

Ian looked momentarily stunned. Julia couldn't describe it any other way. As he pulled away slightly from her, he looked as though he wanted to leave her this moment and prove it wasn't true, or maybe that it was wishful thinking on her part.

Then a slow grin appeared. “Is that so, lass?”

He didn't believe her? Just like that?

“Okay, fine. We owned the castle. You laid siege to it, and then my great-grandfather, Conaire MacPherson, had to capitulate. He had to agree to the MacNeill's terms to give up his daughter to mate with whomever the current laird was.”

Ian frowned. “None of this is true. No MacPherson has ever mated with a MacNeill in my family line. That would only have been a couple of generations back, and
that
I would have remembered.”

“You're right. No MacPherson, at least from our clan, mated with yours. They escaped. And since then, we've only had male offspring.”

He raised his brows.

“Well, except for me, of course.”

“You're the first?”

“Yes.” She waited to see his reaction.

He was looking down, contemplating her words, and not saying anything. Then he looked at her. “So you would be…”

“Your mate. According to the contract.”

He smiled. “I see. So that's where the issue of love comes in.” He gave her an amused frown. “Who put you up to this?”

Her own frown was not amused. “No one
put me up to this
. But I'm glad that you don't believe in it. Once I find the contract, my grandfather wants to destroy it, and that will be the end of that.”

“Everything on my land is mine. I'm afraid if a box was left here, it is mine as well. If we're able to secure it, I'll inspect the contents and make a decision as to whether it will go to your grandfather or not.” He sounded like he was humoring her.

Maybe he thought she knew of a chest hidden in the walls that contained a wealth of treasure, and she planned to steal it but pretended instead the box contained a betrothal agreement. Now how stupid would that be? He'd inspect the contents for certain anyway.

“So your grandfather sent you to find the box and destroy the documents so you don't have to mate me.”

“Right.”

“Hmm. I don't believe this. You know why I don't believe this?”

“No, but I suspect you're going to tell me.”

“The knowledge would have been passed down from generation to generation. I would have been told that I was to be mated to a MacPherson, if that were the case.”

She shrugged. “Good. Then like I said, you don't have to worry about the contents of the box.”

He shook his head.

She let out her breath hard. “Someone has been blackmailing my grandfather.” She watched Ian's face darken, waiting for him to take in the new information, to see if he thought it was as amusing as the last.

But he didn't say anything.

“Whoever it is knows about the contract and told my grandfather he has to pay if he doesn't want me to have to mate the current laird of Argent Castle.”

“When did this occur?”

Now he sounded like he believed her. Or maybe he was still humoring her. “Recently.”

“How recently?”

“I don't know. I didn't ask. But it had to be recent.”

He reached over her, his hot body pressing lightly against hers. He plucked something off his bedside table and then handed his cell phone to her. “Call him.”

She hesitated. She was certain her grandfather wouldn't like it that she had told Ian about the contract when he'd told her not to. But she hadn't had much choice. After punching in her grandfather's number, she listened to the phone ring and ring and ring. She wondered then if he wouldn't answer because the caller ID might say Ian MacNeill.

But then her grandfather picked up the phone and said, “Hello?” His voice sounded suspicious and businesslike.

“Grandfather, I need to know when—”

Ian slipped the phone from her fingers and leaned back against the bed, pulling her tight against his hard muscular frame and holding her hostage. She would have melted against him, loving the feel of him, except for one thing—fear of what her grandfather was thinking right this very minute—and that made her stiffen with apprehension.

“Hello, Mr. MacPherson? This is Laird MacNeill. I understand someone's been blackmailing you.” With a smug smile, he glanced down at Julia and swept his fingers down her bare butt, the string of a lacy thong she was wearing making her feel exposed and sexy although she was trying to concentrate on what was being said.

She frowned at Ian, figuring her grandfather would really be angry with her for telling the truth.

The smile slipped from Ian's face and he said, “Hello? Mr. MacPherson?”

She could hear the dial tone. Her grandfather had hung up on the laird of Argent Castle.

Ian stared at the phone for a minute before he realized Julia's grandfather had indeed hung up on him. Hell. He tossed the phone aside on the mattress and then ran his hands down Julia's back and reached down to cup her soft arse. He loved her choice of panties. “Do you know where this box is hidden, lass?”

“Somewhere on the floors where the bedchambers are.”

“Aye, well, before we go looking for this secret niche, had you anything else in mind?” He hoped that the way she'd been touching him, she had, and not just to get his mind off questioning her about sneaking into the castle.

She rubbed her thigh against his, and he slipped his hand down to pull her thigh higher, spreading her legs farther apart. She moved her mouth to his nipple and licked, and that was all the answer he needed.

It was insanity, Ian knew, but the sweet torture was too much to resist as he squeezed Julia's arse, the thong she wore riding high and exposing her lovely globes, while she caressed his nipple with her tongue. He groaned with need and slid her sweater up her back, snagged her bra, and struggled to unfasten it. No matter how much he'd tried to deny it in the beginning, the chemistry between them sizzled.

To think
if
all the lass had said was true, which he didn't believe for a moment, Julia was his for the taking. Betrothed to him.
His
.

Even though the situation would be similar to that in the past—instead of his da's choice of mate for Ian, it would have been his great-uncle's—Ian didn't feel the circumstances were that alike. For one, Julia was a wolf. And there was no way he could deny his attraction for her any more than she could deny hers for him. For another, she didn't seem to despise his kin like Ghleanna had done, nor did Julia act in any way like he was a social outcast as his former bride-to-be had.

Still, he and Julia were worlds apart in many ways. She was a werewolf romance writer from America, and hell, he didn't even know if her interest in him had only to do with finding the elusive box and writing the background for her novel.

Cowboys, right.

Before he could unfasten her bra, she slipped her warm fingers into the open fly of his boxers and touched him. That made him struggle faster with the clasp on her bra, cursing in Gaelic under his breath when he couldn't unhook the fastener, to which she softly chuckled.

Pressing breasts still covered in the soft sweater against his chest, she reached back to unhook the bra. When it was free, he pulled the sweater over her head, the bra going the way of the sweater, somewhere on the floor.

Sunlight poured into the chamber through two narrow windows, and Ian assumed the supper hour was nearly upon them. He pressed Julia gently against the mattress and took his fill of her, her red curls splayed upon his black cotton-covered pillow, her green eyes filled with heat. Her lips parted, and her tongue slipped out to wet them, inviting him in, her breasts full, the nipples rosy and fully extended, welcoming. Now all she wore was the red lace thong and nothing else. Except for the bandage on her shin.

He ran his hands on either side of the bandage, softly, gently, feeling her muscle tense. He kissed her knee above the injury. “How is it?”

“Tingling. Tickling. Healing.”

“Your ankle?” he asked, trailing a kiss down her leg until he reached her ankle and examined it. The swelling had abated again.

“It's fine.”

“No more walking or running on it today. Tomorrow, it should be well healed.”

“I want to search for the box.”

“Forget it,” he said, gruffly. “If we look, I'm sure we'll find a copy of the contract in the vault. One way to outwit the blackmailer—I'll just make you mine.”

Her lips parted, but he didn't wait for her to object. Right at this moment, if he didn't have to worry about anything else, he wanted to brand her as his own, like a cowboy would. Let her write that in her story. He wanted to claim her so that no other man could ever do so.

With that damning thought in mind, he captured her mouth and silenced any objection she might have made. But she quickly matched his fiery display of affection, tonguing him in return, her hands sweeping down his back and then slipping under the waistband of his boxers. Her fingers dug into his arse, squeezing and tracing, making his blood feverish with desire. He yanked the boxers off and tossed them on the floor with the rest of their clothes.

His mouth was on hers again, his hand fully on her breast, weighing the feel of it, the soft voluptuous handful as the rigid peak poked at his palm. Her eyes were half shuttered with desire, her breathing hard as she kept up with his searing kisses. He wanted her. He wanted all of her. Yet he told himself it was just sexual frenzy that they were caught up in and nothing more. But he knew better. He'd never had anyone like this, never craved a woman like he did her. Never had lost sleep over a woman before.

He slipped off the scrap of lace she wore and tossed it aside. Grasping one knee, he pushed her apart for him, her short, red curly thatch just as tantalizing as the rest of her. Plunging his fingers into her delicious heat, he drove as deep as he could and then began to stroke her swollen nub. She arched against his fingers, her soft moans nearly undoing him. And then she reached around to touch the length of him, but he groaned his refusal. He couldn't allow her to touch him, not until he'd had his way with her. He'd never last.

Lifting one leg over his hip, opening her wider to him, he continued to ply her with his strokes, his mouth silencing her cry as she came with his fingers deep inside of her and measuring the hard internal shudders. For a moment, her breath came quickly, and then she reached up to give him his due. But he still wanted to be inside her, thrusting into her tight sheath, slick and hot with pleasure.

He was so close to climaxing, just from the way her tongue had probed his mouth and lips and tongue, the way her hands had taken charge of his erection, and the sweet, sexy smell of her that he couldn't extend the eroticism a minute more. With her deftly firm strokes, she brought him to a desperate fevered pitch. And he came, the bliss of her touch turning his world into an explosion of gratification. Sinking down next to her, he pulled her against his body, her own—soft, supple, and boneless.

They'd be late for the meal,
again
.

***

After unlocking Baird Cottage with his lock picks, Cearnach strode inside to search for Julia's journal but stopped dead just inside the entryway.

He sniffed the air and listened for any sign of anyone in the place, although he had assumed no one would be here but the two women, and both were at Argent Castle. But other than smelling the scent of the women and that of Duncan and Ian's presence here earlier, he caught a whiff of someone else.

If he ventured a guess, and he didn't like where this was heading, their staunchest enemy, Basil Sutherland, had been here. Cearnach hurried into the first bedroom, where the bed was neatly made, but the fragrance was Maria's. Then he checked out the other bedroom. The bedcovers were half crumpled on the bed and half hanging on the floor, and when he drew closer, he smelled both Julia's scent and Basil's on the sheets. Worse, the musky smell of sex.
Hell.

He knew Ian was taken with the little red wolf, and this would kill him.

Considering how Ian had reacted after Flynn had met with Ian's betrothed in the woods and had his way with her based on their mutual consent, Cearnach didn't even want to see the black mood Ian would be in once he learned of this new deception over a woman he cared about.

Cearnach lifted Julia's journal from her bedside chest, and then feeling sick about this whole mess, he hurried back to Argent Castle. He checked on the progress of the filming of the movie, which, as he was afraid it would be, was noisy, the castle grounds overrun with humans, and enough to make him want to join his mum in London to get away from it all.

When he glanced up at Ian's chamber, he took a long, deep breath. How could he break the news to Ian about Julia and Basil without shattering Ian's world again—despite the fact Ian always claimed he'd been better off without his betrothed? Cearnach knew better. Since then, Ian had lived with ponderous regret over having sent their cousin away and feeling responsible for getting him killed.

With his teeth set, Cearnach stalked toward the castle, only to be stopped when Duncan waylaid him. “You found the lass's journal?”

“Aye. Was Maria any trouble?”

“Some. Guthrie's watching her.” Duncan frowned at Cearnach and folded his arms. “You seem troubled.”

Cearnach dismissed his concern. “I can see why Ian didn't want this production here. What a mess.”

Duncan nodded. “Is something else the matter? I don't think I've seen you this worried since Flynn got himself into trouble with Ian.”

Cearnach didn't say anything. The problem was that no matter the situation, he was always able to make light of it. Not that time. No matter how many years had passed, he could never see that disaster in a lighthearted way. “If nothing's the matter, I'll see you in a bit.”

Duncan said, “Aye.”

But Cearnach knew from the dark arch of Duncan's brows that his brother didn't believe nothing was the matter.

Trying to learn anything useful about the woman who was still with Ian in his chamber, Cearnach settled in Ian's solar to read all that Julia had written, not sure what he'd learn and hoping he wouldn't find anything damning. Any more so than he'd already found. But something was saving a place in the journal, and he opened to that page. A picture of Ian wearing his kilt stared back at him. It looked to be taken at the Celtic fest. Turning it over, Cearnach didn't find anything on the back. Hell. What was the lass up to? Ian never allowed his picture to be taken. And it made Cearnach believe she had to have confederates working with her. Ian would be sick about this.

In the journal, she had described Cearnach as carefree and happy-go-lucky, but she hadn't seen him when Ian left him in charge. Business came first, fun and pleasure second. He had thought he was just like Ian in that regard, until now. Ian seemed to be dabbling in both business and pleasure at the same time with the lass when he normally was much more serious. Had to be as pack leader and clan chief.

Supper had come, and the brothers and their cousins had eaten, and still Ian and Julia had not emerged from Ian's bedchamber even to partake in the meal. After what he'd discovered at the cottage, Cearnach knew nothing good could come of this.

He returned to the solar and picked up where he'd left off, flipping to another page in the journal. Not only had she done an excellent job of writing about him, but she'd captured Duncan's warrior instincts, Guthrie's studiousness, and the layout of the castle, as well as some of their cousins' gruff appearances and roaming eye for the lassies. She had only praise for the MacNeill clan, which surprised him. Was it a ploy, though? In case they found her journal?

He read through the beginning of Julie's American Western story, where Ian MacNeill featured prominently and the heroine was already stealing a horse, which made him wonder if she intended to steal something from them. Something of importance.

From both the notes she had written about Ian, her hero in the Highland historical romance she had started and then seemed to set aside, and now in the cowboy story, she was in love with him. Maybe only on paper, but he obviously was her hero, the one who would capture the heroine's heart if they could ever be on the same side of the law. A made-up tale for sure, if she was in a conspiracy with Basil Sutherland. And no matter how much Cearnach didn't want to believe it, he couldn't see it any other way.

Duncan stalked into the solar and looked at Cearnach sitting on the settee against the wall, journal in hand. “Are they still in his bedchamber?” Duncan asked quietly.

Cearnach gave a slight bow of his head and then rose, crossed the floor, and placed the journal in the top right-hand drawer of Ian's desk.

“Does she say much of anything?” Duncan asked.

“Aye. She portrays all of us.
In a good light
,” Cearnach added, not about to reveal what he'd discovered at the cottage to anyone but Ian. “So what's going on with the film crew?”

“They want everyone who signed up as background performers to show up to wardrobe first thing in the morning so we can be fitted for costuming. And then?” Duncan smiled darkly. “We're to learn how to swing a claymore properly.”

“Weel, do they want us to do the teaching?”

Duncan laughed. “If Ian got wind of it, he'd be out there leading the whole bunch in training. An armorer is supposed to hand out swords tomorrow.”

“My claymore will be the one I got as a lad. With the sword having the proper balance and weight, I can manage anyone.”

“The director won't like it.”

Cearnach snorted. “The director doesn't have to like it. As to costuming? I'll be wearing my own plaid.”

“Aye, same here.” Duncan motioned with his shoulder in the direction of Ian's bedchamber, the door shut tight. “Is it serious?”

“What? The relationship? Or what she's up to?” Cearnach tried to keep the bite out of his words.

Duncan's brows pinched together as they headed down the hall to the stairs. “I didn't think anything, or should I say
anyone,
would distract him from the film crew's business while they were here. Appears that a little red wolf has done the trick. Do you think he is still interrogating her?”

Cearnach shook his head. “What do you think?”

“I think he's working awfully hard at it, and if he doesn't get the truth soon, they'll miss out on dinner also. Maria Baquero isn't going away, though.”

“I'll speak with her again,” Cearnach said. “I've heard some ugly rumors I need to find out the truth about.”

“What's that, brother?”

“Basil Sutherland and his men have been added to the roster of fighting men for a couple of battle scenes. The scripted battles will surely take a turn for the worse, and Ian will be sorely vexed once he learns of the situation.”

Ian would kill Basil, Cearnach thought, if he learned Julia was playing Ian for a fool while working with their enemy.

“Och. Well, wait until after he's eaten.” Duncan glanced at Ian's chamber as they passed it by. “Or maybe after he emerges from his chamber. He should be in good form by then, don't you think?”

Once Ian learned the truth about Julia? Cearnach truly didn't want to be the bearer of ill tidings—
again
.

***

Ian appreciated his brothers' thoughtfulness in keeping their voices down as they passed his bedchamber. He assumed Cearnach had found Julia's journal. Now, he had to solicit his kin's help in locating the secret niche in the region of the living quarters, if such a thing still existed, and learn what it really contained. A betrothal contract? He didn't believe so. Something valuable, he assumed.