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IF NOTHING ELSE could be said about her first encounter with Cray MacLeod, it was that he was absolutely right. She did rue the day she kept him away from one woman, let alone twelve. Now the devil had come to claim his due, and she had never been so terrified.
Or aroused.
She had developed an image in her mind of what he might look like, and it was nothing like the Adonis in front of her. He was supposed to be loathsome and beady-eyed cackling with crazed lust not designed to satisfy every woman’s best erotic dream. If possible, he was even taller than Ethyn and built like a linebacker with broad shoulders. Dirty-blonde hair framed a chiseled face complete with a cleft in his chin.
Then there were his striking, almost unsettling eyes.
What color were they? Light brown? Gold? Technically, they were brown because gold wasn’t a pigmentation. But she swore pale gold cut through the light brown like angry lightning. The shade suited him, only adding to his fierce, almost wild disposition.
“You really are a beast, aren’t you?” she whispered, stunned, already caught like a fly in his trap. A spider in his web. A bird in his cage. Caught in a way she loathed but craved all at once. He had just pulled her up from the ground but hadn’t let go.
“I am dragon,” he said, his alarmingly soft tone so full of sensual promise she knew she was in trouble.
While Ethyn looked at her one way, Cray looked at her another way entirely. Not with flattering desire but dangerous promise. There was nothing dashing or romantic about his intentions for her. No, he was set to have his ‘payback’ and see her make up for all he felt lost to him. All the women denied him.
At the time, she thought he was simply full of himself, which he truly was, and that women wouldn’t fall into his bed so easily, but she was mistaken. Sour mood and all, she imagined just about any woman he pursued would be there in a heartbeat.
So said the telling ache between her own two thighs.
When he inhaled deeply, and his pupils flared with approval, she knew he could smell her. That he was, as he claimed, very much something other than fully human. For a split second, like sunlight flickering through the trees on the highway, she swore red hazed her vision, but it must have been her imagination.
“Nay, ‘tis not your imagination, lass,” he murmured, his eyes searching hers. The moment seemed suspended in time. Crossing all barriers. Spanning some unknown distance. “But I think you know that. Or at least you once did.”
She blinked against memories that threatened to surface and shook her head. “No.” Finding more gumption than she knew she had, she yanked her wrist free and stepped away. “I’m not a dragon.”
“You are,” he countered, unwilling to let this go. But then she already knew how stubborn he could be.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“No.”
“Aye.”
“Och, enough,” Ethyn intercepted. He frowned between them before he looked down the drive. “What was that all about, Madison? Where did your friends go?” Baffled, he shook his head and looked at her. “’Tis one thing that they got by Cray, but how did I not see them walk to the car when ‘twas right in front of me?”
“I have no idea.” Having felt her cell phone vibrate with an incoming text a few minutes ago, she pulled it out and frowned. “Apparently, Destiny cut her hand on a bottle opener, and Alyssa’s driving her to a doctor.” She narrowed her eyes down the drive and shook her head. “Something’s definitely not right about that.”
“Nay,” Ethyn agreed.
She dialed Destiny’s phone then Alyssa’s. Neither answered.
“I’m starting to think there’s a whole lot more to Destiny than meets the eye,” she murmured, shooting off texts to them both.
When the men looked at her in question, she headed inside to dry off and explained.
“So she suffers a wee bit o’ premonition from time to time,” Cray said after she finished. “She is a witch, after all, whether or not she knows it yet.”
He hadn’t stopped looking at her once. His steady gaze followed her as she poured whisky for everyone, counting the glasses out of habit as she went. It was as if he tracked her, like a predator with his prey, watching her every motion. Sizing up how she moved. How fast she might dart away. Which was unnecessary considering how clumsy she could be, seen clearly in her fiasco outside.
Better to focus on Ethyn, who she had claimed was hers when faced with Cray as the alternative. Not to say she wouldn’t mind being with Ethyn. Just seeing him smile made her want to smile in return, which said something. Men rarely invoked such a response. Case in point, far too intense undressing-her-with-his-eyes-Cray certainly didn't.
“Nay,” he rumbled, again making himself at home in her mind. “But then I'm not here to make you smile.” The corner of his mouth curled up ever-so-slightly, his sensual warning crystal clear. “I'm here to put another look entirely on your face.”
If that weren't blunt enough, in typical Cray shock-value fashion, he made her freeze with a shot halfway to her mouth with his next comment. Said aloud at that.
“Can you blame me for desiring such when you want me to bed you enough times to have thirty-six bairns over fifteen years if they’re twins? Fifty-four if they’re triplets? Assuming, that is, they’re all one or the other and not a mix of twins and triplets.” He shot the couch a look that spoke volumes. “Or enough times bent over that in twenty years to give you forty-eight bairns if they’re twins and seventy-two if they’re triplets?”
What she wouldn’t do for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. She and her big mouth. What had she been thinking saying all that out loud? Giving him that kind of ammunition? Because she had. It was all over his face.
Regrettably, there was nothing she could do about it now but curse her nervous tongue and her obsession with numbers. That and try to ignore how arousing his using intimacy and numbers at the same time was. It might just be a form of flirting she could learn. Enjoy.
Ignore.
Rather than let him get her going, she downed her shot, handed another to Ethyn, and nudged Cray’s a few inches on the counter, insinuating he could get it himself. Naturally, he took that as an invitation to get in her personal space again. Cockiness oozing out his pores, his eyes never left hers as he stepped close enough to take the bottle from her, pour her another shot and down his.
“I don’t need anymore,” she muttered, though she seriously did. Bucket loads with him around.
“Nay, you probably dinnae.” His looking-for-trouble gaze fell to her lips, his words back to being atrocious. His brogue as thick as what hung between his legs. “But I like seeing your lips wet, and imagining them—”
“Imagining nothing,” she bit out, downing the shot despite herself, rambling because the man drove her off the deep end in no time. “Especially not my mouth around your cock!”
What had she just said? She slapped her hand over her mouth.
He released a deep-chested appreciative chuckle that vibrated straight down to her core, invoking a rush of sensual heat so strong she grew lightheaded. In fact, much to her mortification, she downright swooned, and the room tilted. Thankfully, Ethyn, gentleman that he was, grabbed her elbow and urged her to sit, tossing Cray a grim look.
Cray continued chuckling as he poured himself another, eyeing her with a look that told her he knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her. She could deny it all she liked, but undeniable attraction was there. It roared through her blood like wildfire, percolating beneath the surface of her skin like a volcano ready to erupt.
This is just simple chemistry, she assured herself. That’s it. Give it time. It would fizzle out. Nothing to worry about. Deny the flames oxygen and no more fire. Translation? Keep her thighs shut and deny the MacLeod.
“You’ll do well not to engage him, lass,” Ethyn counseled, pouring her water. “Especially whilst his dragon is repressed.” He shook his head. “Anytime, really.”
Cray’s dragon was repressed? What did that mean?
“She will engage me long enough for her debt to be repaid,” Cray stated, downing his shot. He rested his hand on the back of her chair as if claiming his territory. Because it couldn’t possibly be out of concern for her swooning. “’Tis best you both ken that now.”
Repay a debt? Her? To him? Not in this lifetime.
Ethyn spoke before she had a chance to but pretty much echoed her sentiments. The ones in her mind anyway. Her body, on the other hand, was clearly not to be trusted.
“She willnae be paying back any bloody debt of the flesh, Cray.” Ethyn shook his head, his eyes kind when they met hers but hard when they returned to his cousin. “Best that you ken that now.”
Amazingly enough, Cray offered no response but why bother when the knowing smirk on his face said more than words ever could. He liked what he saw and intended to have her before moving on. That was his math. His science. One woman equaled twelve missed chances. Normally, she might be flattered, but alas, this was Cray, so she knew better.
This was pure payback, however attracted he might seem.
While it was safe to say she’d never found herself so desired by one, let alone two men of their caliber, she wasn’t without pride. And right now, Cray was by no means catering to it. Ethyn, however, was a different matter. He might not set her blood on fire like Cray, but there was attraction. Enough so that she was sure she would feel more in time. Even if she didn’t, but she was still ‘destined’ for him, she would be perfectly fine with an agreeable man she didn’t bore to tears.
So she embraced a little backbone—or liquid courage—and reminded Cray MacLeod where things stood.
“Like I said when you showed up, I’m Ethyn’s Broun,” she stated. “At least for now.” Don’t leave it like that. He’ll pounce on a loophole. “Always.” She nodded, her tongue just wagging along as Cray’s magnetic eyes sucked her in. “He can just as easily repopulate the planet with me.”
Oh, dear Lord, what?
“Is that before or after you give me up to seventy-two bairns?” Cray chuckled again, just rolling with it, by all appearances not at all dissuaded. “Ye’ll have quite the sizable litter before all’s said and done, aye? Breeding like that.” He kept chuckling and poured himself another shot. “Ye’ll just fill Scotland with land loving MacLomain wizards and the sky with wee MacLeod dragons.”
She knew when his pour slowed that something about what he’d just said troubled him. Whatever it was, vanished in a flash, and he finished pouring his drink.
“I’ll be doing no such thing.” Besides, she had gotten the birth control shot, so she was good for a while. Not that it mattered because she had no intention of sleeping with anyone. Especially Cray. She would, however, gladly let him get back to whatever women he wanted. “Just get me out of your head, Cray, and go about your business of...indulging.”
By the sounds of it, over-indulging.
“You would already be out of my head if I knew how to do it.” A naughty gleam lit his eyes when they cut to her. “And dinnae worry, lass. I will be indulging.”
Her skin should be crawling at his thinly veiled threat, but no, fire returned, burning stronger than ever. Fire that at first aroused then terrified when it seemed to explode all around her. Over the ceiling, floor, every appliance then swoosh, it consumed the men before it burst inside her eyes and swallowed her whole.
Blinding pain tore through her before soothing relief.
What brought that relief, however, was the last thing she expected.
