In the Heat of the Bite (15 page)

“That’s just it, Miss Sinclair,” he said quietly, as he came and stood within a hairsbreadth of her, his front to her back. “I
do
want you. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

That certainly wasn’t what he’d said to Eynsford, was it? She spun back to face him. “Ye doona need ta lie ta save my feelings.”

“You scare me, Miss Sinclair.” The intensity of his dark gaze bore into her. “You positively terrify me.”

“Ye’re a dolt, Lord Blodswell.”

A smile tilted one corner of his mouth. “In more ways than one,” he agreed. “And it’s Matthew. Call me Matthew.”

“It doesna matter what I call ye, seein’ as how I willna be callin’ ye a blasted thing after tonight.”

“May I call you Rhiannon?” he asked as he slid one arm around her waist, his hand flattening on her back like an open fan to draw her to him. “That’s how I think of you.”

Rhi pushed back from him, but his chest felt like a granite wall beneath her fingertips. “Let me go,” she breathed quietly, but she was certain he heard her when he shook his head.

“I can’t.”

“Of course ye can. I ken ye doona want me,” she cried.

Rhiannon squealed as his hands slid down over her bottom and raised her to meet him. The evidence of his desire pressed against her belly. His voice deepened, suddenly seeming to be almost as dark as his eyes. “Does it feel like I don’t want you?”

Not giving her a moment to reply, he simply smothered her shocked gasp as he pressed his lips to hers. They were soft but demanding. Supple but strong. He took her mouth with amazing slowness that sucked the very breath from her body. Rhiannon felt lost in that instant, as though she were floating among the clouds. The scent of sandalwood enveloped her, and tingles raced across her skin.

She’d never felt so alive, so utterly wanted, so soft or feminine. She’d never had someone’s complete and total attention, not as she did the earl’s at that very moment. He was hers. And she was everything he was thinking about as his mouth consumed hers, absorbing her gasps and whimpers. He tasted her. He wanted her. He wanted more of her. She knew it and felt a supreme sense of power because of it.

When Blodswell lifted his head, amazement graced his features. “You’ve never been kissed.”

“No’ like that,” she said, her breathing labored. Of course, that could be because he still held her bottom in his hands, his fingertips gently clenching and releasing her, pressing her tightly against the ridge of his desire.

His lips dropped to trail along the line of her jaw, sending delicious tingling sensations to places she didn’t know she had. “I have tried so hard to be honorable with you,” he said, his voice tortured and raspy. His lips pressed against a sensitive spot below her ear that made her belly flip. She squirmed in his hold, trying to press herself more firmly against him. The ridge of his desire moved against her belly as he groaned. It was a torturous sound. Much like the whimpers that were leaving her own mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I dinna mean ta do whatever I did.”

He chuckled as he lifted his head to look down at her. “The truth of the matter is, Rhiannon,” he said, her name tumbling over his lips like water over the falls, “I want you so badly I can taste you. You’re all I think about. In all my lifetimes, I have never felt this way. Not ever.”

He teased her lips again with his own. She tipped her head back to meet him. When his tongue slid along hers, she gave back to him as much as she received. He pulled back with a harsh oath, but his eyes were still on her as he brushed a lock of hair from her face and looked down at her. He wanted to say something else, but she had no idea what it was.

Rhiannon lifted a hand to his face. “But those things ye said ta Dashiel,” she started.

“Were because I am afraid of you, Rhiannon.”

A powerful vampyre? That was the silliest thing she’d ever heard. “My gifts are no’ that great, my lord.” Certainly not in comparison to his.

“Oh, they are,” he affirmed. He squeezed her lightly. “Look at me.”

Rhi looked up into his obsidian eyes and saw something she didn’t quite understand staring back at her. Then he smiled. His incisors were fully distended. But he didn’t frighten her at all. In fact, she was intrigued. She stood on tiptoe to kiss the corner of his mouth and then licked across his extended tooth with the tip of her tongue.

Abruptly, he set her away from him and turned to face the other direction.

She wavered on her feet for a moment before she could gather enough wits to address him. “Did I do somethin’ wrong?” she finally asked when he didn’t turn back toward her.

“You do everything perfectly. That’s the problem,” he said quietly. “I can’t offer you anything, Rhiannon. I can’t offer to take you as my wife. I can’t offer to give you a family. Because I can’t do any of those things.”

She wanted to ask why not, but she refused to beg him for his favor. He did look a bit tortured, however, standing there with his clothes sopping wet, his hair sticking out at all angles where he’d shaken it.

“But I can pretend.” He nodded, as though coming to a decision. “I can
pretend
to court you, make your aunt happy, and then send you safely back to Edinburgh.”

Her heart rejected his words. How could he kiss her like that and only want to pretend? “And that’s all?”

“That’s all I have to give you.”

Rhi nodded briskly. She’d take it. For now.

Matthew sank into a chair across from the Lycan and longed for the ability to imbibe the blood-red claret the marquess seemed to be quite fond of. It would be delightful to drown his problems in a bottle of spirits. He remembered that much from his previous life. But, unfortunately, he couldn’t partake of the mind-numbing beverage. He could only smell it. And dream of it. Just as he could smell and dream of Rhiannon. He sighed loudly.

Eynsford chuckled softly across from him. “Blasted you with a good one, did she?”

Matthew rubbed the side of his neck. He was still smarting from that blast, which hurt like the devil. “She did,” he grunted. He’d tried to sneak out of the courtyard after they’d made their arrangement, to avoid having to talk with anyone else, but Eynsford had come upon them and requested Matthew’s presence in his study. Fortune was not on his side.

“As a recipient of one of her bolts of fury, myself, I offer you my deepest sympathies.” He chuckled again. Blast and damn. The man was having a grand time at Matthew’s expense. “Although mine was just a small one. By the sound of your curses, you weren’t quite so fortunate.”

“I assume you Lycans hear everything,” Matthew groused.

“The whole damn household heard it, Blodswell.” Eynsford tilted his head and regarded him with amusement. “It’s not easy to miss a boom of thunder that originates indoors and the squeal of a man who has been hit by lightning.”

“I didn’t squeal,” Matthew growled as he crossed his ankle over his knee. “I cursed. And my apologies to the rest of the household.”

“Consider yourself fortunate that my brothers weren’t in residence at the time.” The Lycan was enjoying this way too much.

“Did you need me for something?” Matthew asked, noting the impatience that coated his own words. He didn’t particularly care if he offended the marquess. In fact, he’d like to throttle the Lycan just for giving him such a difficult time.

“We didn’t quite finish our conversation before you had to go chasing Miss Sinclair down the corridor.” Eynsford’s eyebrows pushed together. “Dreadful misfortune there, Blodswell. You should have stopped talking about five minutes prior to her arrival.”

Matthew lifted his gaze quickly to meet the Lycan’s and saw that Eynsford’s eyes twinkled with merriment. “You knew she was there!” Matthew said as he jumped to his feet and began to pace. “And you let me continue on like an idiot.”

“You were playing the idiot part so well, that I had no desire to stop you.” Eynsford shrugged. “No doubt you would have heard her footsteps, too, if your mind hasn’t been clouded with thoughts of how to get beneath her skirts.”

Matthew stopped his pacing and spun to face the marquess. “I don’t have any desire to get beneath her skirts.” He attempted a careless snort, but it came out more like he was choking on his own lie.

“Certainly, you don’t.”

“And I don’t appreciate you speaking of her virtue in such a cavalier way.”

“You don’t? Interesting.” The Lycan let his statement linger in the air.

“You are a bloody nuisance, Eynsford. It’s a miracle you talked your wife into taking your hand in marriage.” Any other woman would have run quickly in the opposite direction. Of course, Lady Eynsford had probably thrust herself right into his path, knowing her own destiny. “Your wife is much too good for you.” Two could play at this game.

“Oh, I’m quite well aware of that. But one cannot fight love at first sight.”

“There’s no such thing,” Matthew grunted.

“I beg to differ,” Eynsford said. “I was well and truly caught the first moment I saw her.” He got a faraway look in his eye for a moment and then sobered and sat forward. “So, what’s your plan with regard to Miss Sinclair?”

“For all intents and purposes, I plan to court her.” Matthew nodded as though by doing so he could reassure himself along with the Lycan.

“To court her? Flowers delivered at random? Sonnets to her beauty? Attempting to fill her dance card at the next ball?”

“Smelling that intoxicating scent day after day after day…” Matthew said quietly, though, of course Eynsford heard him.

“Scent? She has a scent?” He looked upon Matthew as though he’d grown two heads.

“A most delightful one,” Matthew said begrudgingly. “Don’t act as though you can’t smell it.” Though the thought of Eynsford putting his snout anywhere near Rhiannon made Matthew see red.

The Lycan shrugged. “My wife’s scent is the only one I can smell. Or at least it’s the only one that matters. What does Miss Sinclair smell like?”

“Gardenias,” Matthew grunted.

“Beg your pardon?” The Lycan sat forward again to hear him better.

“I bloody well know you heard what I said. She smells like a bouquet of gardenia blossoms.” And sin. She smelled like gardenia blossoms and sin. No. Heaven. She smelled like gardenia blossoms and heaven. For nothing as beautiful as she was could be sinful.

“Gardenias are used to soothe the anxious,” Eynsford said. “It’s no wonder Sorcha gave her that scent as her signature.” Matthew must have looked flummoxed because Eynsford continued to explain. “Sorcha’s the youngest of the coven sisters. She can control plants and their growth. She gave my Caitrin the scent of honeysuckles, which suit her perfectly.”

“And I need to know this because?” Matthew prompted.

“
Because
,” the Lycan said loudly, “Miss Sinclair is very special to my wife, as are the rest of them. They’re one big family, and they’re fairly charming once you get past the lightning, fire balls, and creeping vines, and never having a single secret that you can call your own.” He took a deep breath. “But because these women are like family to my wife, I feel the need to warn you.”

Matthew’s hackles rose. He couldn’t help it.

Yet the Lycan continued. “If you sink your teeth, or anything else, into the fair skin of Miss Sinclair, I’ll gladly help those women plan where to hide your body after they kill you.” He sat back and regarded Matthew stoically.

“That you’d leave such a monumental chore for five young ladies doesn’t speak well of you, Eynsford,” Matthew said. “A noble man might take me on himself, rather than simply coming in to help clean up the damage five ladies might do.”

The Lycan laughed. He laughed until tears rolled from the corners of his eyes. “Oh, that was amusing, Blodswell.” But then the Lycan sobered. “Those witches are a formidable force. It would be amusing to see you try to best them. Hence my warning. Take it as you wish. But do not cross that coven. Because if you cross that coven, you also cross me. And I’ll not allow them to be hurt, not a single one.

“While you’re plotting to
help
Miss Sinclair, keep that in mind. There will be no drinking of her blood. There will be no improper behavior. And there will be no interesting forays up her skirts. Unless, of course, you do the honorable thing and marry her first. And at this point, I’m not certain I’d give my blessing for that.”

Marry Rhiannon. He couldn’t possibly do such a thing. He’d live forever, while her days would end. She would grow older while he looked exactly the same. Eventually, he’d have to either leave her or take her from everything she knew so he could continue his ruse and appear human. And, while he wasn’t a pauper and could care well for her needs, he would never be able to provide her with a family. Didn’t all young women dream to cuddle babies in their arms?

“I have no plans to dishonor her. Nor do I plan to foray up her skirts, as you so indelicately put it. She has asked for my help, and I shall provide it. Then she will return to Edinburgh. End of story.”

“End of story,” Eynsford echoed.

“If you are done with your warnings of doom and gloom, I’ve business to attend to.”

“Thirsty, are you?” the Lycan asked.