The Witch of Stonecliff (16 page)

“You!” A deep voice, heavy with accusation dragged his gaze from Eleri. Warlow glared down from the stairs’ landing. “You’ve a bloody nerve coming here. You might have lied your way into the lodge, but I’ll not have you in
this
house.”

“I’m here to see that Eleri’s alright, and given what I’m hearing, she’s far from it.”

“Like hell.” The butler stormed down the rest of the stairs, nearly stepping on Eleri in the process. Only a quick jerk to the side saved her from being trod on. “I’ll not have you here to fill your paper with lies about this family.”

The man closed the distance between them in three short strides, his face mere inches from Kyle’s. Kyle held his ground. He was as tall as Warlow, but the butler’s frame was wider, trim and hard despite his age. Still, if the man put his hand on him, Kyle would lay him out without a second thought.

“I want you out.” Warlow turned to Harding. “He’s not welcome here. He’s trespassing. Take him in if he won’t go.”

Kyle looked at Eleri, small and bruised and utterly alone with these two shitheads. He couldn’t leave her here. They didn’t believe her, so how in the hell would they keep her safe from the mess he’d created.

“Come back to the lodge with me.”

Eleri met his gaze and blinked. “What?”

“Come with me. I don’t want you left alone here.”

“She’s not alone,” Warlow growled.

“She might as well be.”

“Get. Out!”

“You heard the man.” Harding’s brows knit together as if some part of the scenario perplexed him.

Damn it. Kyle took a step back toward the door, but held her gaze. “Eleri?”

“All right.” Her soft words boomed in the quiet hall. “I’ll go with you.”

Chapter Twelve

Eleri woke slowly, stretched. A sense of warmth and well-being wrapped around her as snug as the blankets she slept in. She teetered on the edge of waking and sleeping for a moment with enough self-awareness that she could either open her eyes and wake or keep them closed and drift back into oblivion.

She swallowed and her throat ached. Dark memories tumbled through her head and all that warmth and well-being vanished. Tight knots tangled her insides. Her eyes popped open, and she propped up on her elbows.

Kyle’s room, which had been bright with morning sun when she’d fallen into his bed, had turned dull and shadowy with fading daylight. How long had she been out?

When she and Kyle had returned to the lodge, he’d insisted she rest first.

“You’re dead on your feet,” he’d told her, and while she’d wished he’d used less morbid phrasing, she’d merely yawned in response.

She’d let him guide her to his bed and had drifted off nearly the moment her head had hit the pillow, wrapped in his clean, spicy scent.

She pushed back the blankets and padded across the room to the door, which was a few inches open. The hall was the same shadowy gray, except for a square of pale light spilling out from the spare room. The clack of fingers on a keyboard was the only sound in the otherwise silent house.

She crossed the hall and stood inside the open doorway. Kyle was hunched over his computer, his attention fixed on the screen while he gnawed at the cap on the end of his pen. Looking for clues, or writing a book?

“Hiya,” she said, trying to keep her voice light despite the faint rasp. The painkillers had worn off. Speaking hurt, although not as bad as earlier, but her throat still ached.

Kyle looked up from the screen, shot her smile. “You’re awake.”

She nodded, trying not to be so pleased that he made no effort to cover whatever it was he was working on. “How long was I out for?”

He frowned, gaze narrowing. “Going on twelve hours. Does your throat hurt?”

“A little,” she admitted. “Not as badly as before.”

“Right,” he pushed back from the desk and stood. “Let’s get you something for the pain. Are you hungry?”

“Famished, actually.” Her stomach felt hollow and gurgled as though it was slowly eating itself. “What are you working on?”

“Researching the other house and the Worthings’. I haven’t found much, unfortunately.”

She followed Kyle to the kitchen. While he started filling the kettle, Eleri stood by the door, uncertain what to do next.

“Can I help?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Have a seat. I’m only going to throw together some pasta.”

“With the kettle?”

He chuckled. “No. A warm drink will help with your throat, and so will these.” He plucked a bottle of ibuprofen from one of the cupboards and set it on the table.

Eleri sat down, popped open the cap and shook two into her hand. She considered dry swallowing, but would probably wind up choking on them if she did. Her throat felt tight and swollen.

“I can’t promise you anything terribly gourmet,” Kyle said, setting a pot of water on the stove to boil. “But it’ll be a damn sight better than Mrs. Voyle’s cooking.”

“That’s not saying much.” She smirked. “
I
can cook better than Mrs. Voyle.”

He grinned in return, and something low inside her pulled tight. She quickly dropped her gaze to the table. There was no point in letting irrational attraction take root. He was a partner in this mess, on the outside a sort of friend. So she needed to stop imagining that there was something more between them.

Even if the sight of those snug jeans hugging his backside had her mouth drying up. Or that her finger itched to push back the hair falling across his forehead.

“Where did you learn to cook?” she asked, struggling to sound as normal as possible.

“No formal lessons or anything. I’m from a large family, both my parents worked and so we each had to cook dinner one night a week.”

She tried to imagine Kyle part of an average suburban family with brothers and sisters and chores, but couldn’t quite manage it. “How large?”

“My parents and four kids. I have an older brother and sister and a younger sister.”

A flicker of envy lit inside her. “That must have been nice, growing up with all those siblings.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think so at the time. I was an ungrateful shit most of the time. “

“Most teenagers are ungrateful,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m sure you weren’t as bad as you think.”

His brows lifted. Maybe he was as surprised as she was to hear her reassure him. She frowned, dropped her gaze to the table and traced a crack in the wood with her fingertip.

“I was
that
bad, believe me. My mother was a schoolteacher and my father a vet. They’re both retired now—the term applied very loosely to my father. Raising four children, they had to be very frugal, and, spoiled shit that I was, I resented every hand-me-down, every minute spent at my part-time job and every time I couldn’t have what my mates had.

“I remember saying to my father once he shouldn’t have had more children than he could afford. I’ll never forget the hurt on his face.” Kyle focused his attention on the sauce simmering in the pan. “I wish I could call back every word. Hell, there’s so many things I wish I could undo.” He lifted his gaze to hers, mist green eyes dark with regret. “If I could take it back, Eleri—”

“I’m sure he knows you didn’t mean it, that you were just angry.” She knew he wasn’t talking about his father anymore, but didn’t have a clue how to respond. Sometimes it was too easy to forget he and Jamison Peirs were the same man, to forget how damaging those articles had been. She didn’t want to remember it all now.

“Before the attack, everything I did was excess. Money, success, sex, I couldn’t get enough. But when I was tied up at The Devil’s Eye, none of it meant a damn thing. It was all so bloody useless. And in spite of years of behaving like an absolute prat, it was my family who saw me through this,” he gestured to the scar at his throat, “and everything that came after. I know you said I was the same person I’ve always been, but I feel like Jamison Peirs died that night.”

Maybe be was the same man, maybe he wasn’t, but was she in any position to judge? She’d lied to her sister to bring her to Wales, and Brynn had nearly been killed. All because Eleri had been desperate to clear her name. “Maybe you and I are more alike than either of us realize.”

The kettle whistled and moments later Kyle set a cup of tea in front of her.

“Thank you,” she said, but he didn’t move away. Instead, he squatted in front of her, hooked one finger into the cowl-neck of her sweater and gently tugged the rough wool away from her throat. His intense gaze studied the bruises on her neck, and she swallowed hard under the scrutiny, her mouth suddenly dry.

“Does it hurt?” Light fingers skimmed the column of her throat. Invisible energy shivered over her skin, tiny flutters tickling low in her belly.

She nipped her lip and shook her head. “Not so bad now.”

Doubt clouded those light eyes. “I still think you should see a doctor.”

“No.” She pulled back from his touch. Deal with Dr. Howard’s scowls and tuts of disapproval? No thanks. “I’m fine.”

Kyle’s straight brows knit together. “Why won’t you see a doctor?”

“There’s only one doctor in the village, my father’s, and he doesn’t like me very much.”

Kyle sighed and eased back on his haunches. “There are other doctors, Eleri, that operate outside of Cragera Bay and have no interest in the goings on here.”

She bristled at the faint impatience in his tone. “I realize that. I’m not a child, after all.”

Kyle eyed her sceptically—apparently unperturbed by her snapping at him. “If it’s still hurting tomorrow, promise you’ll agree to see someone. Hell, I’ll take you to my doctor in Dorchester.”

She sighed loudly. “Fine.”

He grinned and tucked her hair behind her ear, leaving a warm trail on her skin. Heat built low inside her.

She gave herself a mental shake. He was just kind, his concern nothing more than he’d show anyone else.

Still, Eleri couldn’t smother those warm flutters tickling inside her while she watched him finish preparing dinner. His low-slung blue jeans and T-shirt emphasizing broad shoulders and narrow hips really weren’t helping matters.

What would it be like to peel off that shirt, let her fingers run over his lean chest, his flat stomach?

“Eleri?”

She blinked. He’d asked her something. What? Her face heated. “Sorry, my mind was somewhere else.”

He grinned, and she really hoped he hadn’t guessed where.

“Wine?” he asked.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He poured them each a glass, then set down two plates of spaghetti served in a light pesto sauce. Eleri lifted her brows and shot him a sceptical look. “You’re a much better cook than you let on.”

He grinned and sat across from her. “You haven’t tried it yet. You might not think so once you do.”

Somehow she doubted it. She forked a mouthful between her lips and nearly groaned. It was as good as it looked.

They settled into comfortable dinner conversation, easy and light, staying away from The Devil’s Eye and the murders. Outside, the wind whipped around the house, whistling through unseen cracks around the windows, while rain pattered against the glass, turning the kitchen cozy, intimate.

Conversation tapered off and a comfortable silence fell between them. Kyle broke the quiet first.

“What happened last night?”

A chill blew through her, chasing away the warmth. “I told you, someone was in my room and he tried to strangle me.”

“God, Eleri,” Kyle muttered, his face as pale as she felt. He stood and took a step toward her, but she jumped to her feet.

“I’ll clear this away,” she muttered, gathering dishes, willing Kyle to step back, give her space.

Instead, his fingers curled around her wrist. Everything inside her jolted.

“Put down the plates.” The soft rasp of his voice shivered over her skin.

She didn’t want to set down the dishes. She wanted to hold them up like a shield and push him back. Still, as if his words were hypnotic, she did as he asked. He drew her against him, arms closing around her. Heat radiated through the thin cotton of his shirt.

“I’m sorry, Eleri,” he murmured.

Sorry? For what?

He tilted her head back and his lips brushed hers.

Warmth surged between her legs and her head swam as Kyle’s mouth drew on hers. Softly, at first, almost tentatively, then growing more insistent, hungrier. His teeth nipped at her lips, demanding entrance, and she conceded, allowing his tongue to sweep inside, slide alongside hers. He tasted of wine.

His hands slid up her shoulders, over both sides of her neck until he cupped her face. His touch left trails of shivery heat. She melted against him, blood simmering below her skin, dull ache throbbing at her core.

She wanted more. More of his mouth, his touch. She wanted to feel his hot flesh against hers while he moved over her, inside her. A groan tore free from her lips, and she wrapped her arms around his neck pulling tighter against him.

He trailed kisses along her jaw and throat, while his hand slid down her side, curled around her bottom and squeezed. He pushed her tight against the hard ridge straining his jeans. Fire licked at her frayed nerve endings. She gasped, hips jerking.

Instantly, he lifted his head and pulled back from her. His chest rose and fell, but his eyes remained fixed on the floor.

“Shit.” The word scraped from his throat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

Of course, he’d be sorry. Maybe he’d only meant to comfort her. Or maybe he’d been worried she’d back out of their arrangement after someone attacked her. He’d played with her attraction before, and if it worked once, why not again?

“You don’t have to keep doing this.” He frowned and opened his mouth as if to respond, but she cut him off. “I’m not backing out of our plan.”

“Doing
what,
precisely?”

Her face burned hotter. “Kissing me, pretending you’re attracted to me. I need answers as badly as you, maybe more.”

He snorted and took a step toward her, smoke green eyes raking her from head to foot and back up again. Her skin tingled under his predatory gaze.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You believe I stopped kissing you because I don’t want you.”