Chills rippled across every square inch of her skin. Even the hair on her head felt as if it were trying to rise. “Really?” She nearly squealed the word, she was so delighted. The remnants of her hot temper collapsed into a pile of ash.
Oh, the things he might be able to tell her! Had the legendary King Cináed mac Ailpin been his contemporary? Had he lived through those mighty battles? Had he seen the unification of the Scots and Picts? Were those incredible wrists cuffs genuine ninth-century work? What were those tattoos, anyway? And those runes on the mirror—was it possible they comprised a previously undiscovered language? Holy shit! For that matter, was it really from the Stone Age? How could that be? Where had it come from? Who’d made it? What was it made of? Now that she’d conceded the reality of his existence, she had a gazillion questions about it. They all collided in her mind, getting tangled up in one another, and she ended up gaping at him in stunned silence.
It took her several moments to realize that he was regarding her with exactly the same expression.
As if he couldn’t quite believe she existed.
There they stood, in Professor Keene’s office, ten feet separating them, each eyeing the other with blatant incredulity and suspicion. Now, that was just silly. What could he possibly find hard to believe about her?
“Say my name, wench,” he thundered.
She shook her head, stupefied by all her questions, befuddled by his request. “Cian MacKeltar. Why?”
He looked mildly appeased. Then suspicious again. “Scratch your nose, woman.”
“It doesn’t itch.”
“Stand on one foot.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You stand on one foot.”
“Bloody hell,” he breathed, as if to himself, “it can’t be.” He gave her that intent scan from head to toe again, seemed to hold a brief but heated inner discourse with himself, then nodded toward the desk. “Go sit in that chair.”
“I don’t feel like it. I’m perfectly happy standing right where I am, thank you.”
“Moisten your lips?” His gaze fixed on her mouth.
It took considerable effort not to moisten them while he was looking at them like that. It made her fixate on his own incredibly kissable mouth, made her want to not only wet her lips but pucker up and hike her “sweet ass” right over there. Maybe even show him her breasts, after all. She was appalled at the indiscriminatory nature of hormones—how awful that it was possible to actively dislike a man, have nothing in common with him, including not even existing in the same world—and still want to tear his clothes off and have hot animal sex with him.
Stoically, she resisted. “What’s your deal?”
“Christ,” he whispered slowly, “I’ve been in there for so long, I’ve lost it.”
“ ‘Lost’ what? Oh, you mean your mind. Yeah, well, not going to argue with you there.”
He stared at her a long moment in silence, frowning. Then his brow eased and his eyes cleared. “Nay, my mind is still as extraordinarily superior as it has always been. No matter. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
God, he was arrogant. She marveled at the sheer, unmitigated cockiness of the man. Had all ninth-century men been that way?
In retrospect, it occurred to her that she should have seen it coming.
She was, after all, a fan of history, a studier of mankind, a ponderer of ancient civilizations. She knew what life had been like a thousand years ago for women.
Men had been Men.
And women had been Property.
And somehow, she still managed to be utterly unprepared when he ducked that sexy, dark head of his and charged her.
“Oomph!” Jessi grunted, as his shoulder made contact with her stomach.
Her feet left the ground, her world tilted precariously, and the next thing she knew, she was hanging upside down over his shoulder.
One of his muscle-bound arms banded her waist, pinning her to his shoulder. The other hand splayed firmly on her bottom.
She parted her lips and was just about to let loose a screech that would do a banshee proud, when his hand moved.
Possessively. Intimately. Dipping right between her legs.
He pressed strong fingers against the opening of her vulva through her jeans, his thumb expertly finding her clitoris at the same time.
Fire exploded red-hot inside her. Her mouth, open on an intended shriek of rage, released a soft, stunned exhalation of air instead.
His big warm hand rested there a moment, applying a firm but gentle, relentless pressure. Enough to bring every nerve ending brutally to life and awaken an aching hunger deep within her womb.
He said nothing. She said nothing, either, mostly because, at the moment, all she could think of to say was: Excuse me, but your hand seems to have slipped between my legs and if you’ll move it just the tiniest bit, I bet I could come.