Cian opened his mouth to use Voice again, but Jessica was already handing the man something. He had no idea what it was. He shrugged. He didn’t mind letting her feel useful. He knew women liked to feel important too. ’Twas but that he preferred to make them feel important in other ways.
Like as women. In his bed. While he was inside them.
And this one, och, this one did something strange to him. A subtler version of that electrifying jolt he’d felt the first time she’d touched him had been happening each time he touched her. It made it nigh impossible to keep his hands off her. The entire time she’d been over his shoulder he’d felt a gentle current sizzling through the length and breadth of his body. Wherever their bodies were touching, he felt as if heat lightning crackled just beneath his skin.
And he knew, though she pretended otherwise, that she felt it too. When he’d put his hand so blatantly on her woman’s mound, he’d been prepared for indignation, outrage, a fierce tongue-lashing. He’d deserved it. He’d never treated a woman in such a possessive fashion—at least not until after they’d become lovers—bypassing any pretense of civility or seduction entirely. And yet somehow, at the same time, he’d known she wouldn’t lambaste him.
It was as if his hand simply belonged there on her. And she knew it too.
You’re getting fanciful, Keltar. Next you’ll be thinking she’s your one true mate.
According to Keltar legend, each Druid born into the clan was destined for a soul mate, a perfect match in heart and mind, as well as body, coming together with an explosive, incendiary passion that could not be denied. If the Keltar male exchanged the sacred Druid binding vows with his true love, and his mate willingly returned them, they could bind their souls together for all eternity, in this life and forever beyond. The vows linked them inextricably. ’Twas said if a Keltar gave the vows and they were not returned, he would be forever incomplete, missing a part of his heart, aching for the love of a woman he could never have, eternally bound to her, through this life and all his future existence, whether in the cycle of rebirth, heaven, hell, or even an eternal Unseelie prison. If aught must be lost . . . the legendary vows began, ’twill be my life for yours. . . .
He snorted derisively. He had no life to give.
Very little left of a soul.
Not much honor, either, if one wanted to go further into the oath. Which he didn’t.
“What?” she asked, wondering why he’d snorted.
He looked down at her. She was glancing askance up at him, her head tipped back. Her short glossy black curls glistened beneath the hotel lights, her creamy skin glowed with a kiss of sun-gold—the lass liked the outdoors—and the expression in her eyes managed somehow to be curious, irritated, worried, and determined, all at the same time.
Just looking up at him like that, she took his breath away. And he wasn’t the kind of man that happened to easily. It was more than what she looked like that did it to him—it was the woman inside the lush package.
Jessica St. James was a handful of a woman; precisely the kind he’d so long ago hungered to find. Scholarly, learned, she possessed spine and sauciness and independence of will. In the ninth century it had gotten to the point where he would have positively welcomed a temper tantrum from a woman, even if it had been completely unfounded—he would have appreciated any show of backbone—but as laird of the castle since birth, and heir to the ways of Druidry, virtually all he’d gotten from the lasses from a tender age on was obedience, deference, and awe. Aye, milord. If it please you, milord. How may I serve you, milord? Is the wine to your liking, milord? May I fetch you anything—anything at all—milord? And it had only worsened as he’d aged and become a formidably powerful man, sorcerer, and warrior.
He’d found himself increasingly drawn to more mature women, like this one. He suspected she had a good quarter century to her name. In his century she would have, like as not, had three or four babes and lost a few husbands by this time in her life. He preferred women who’d lived a good bit, women whom the passage of years had deepened and made more interesting. He liked to toop—bloody hell, did he ever!—but he also liked to be able to talk when the tooping was at a temporary hiatus.
This woman was certainly interesting. Beyond his compelling. Feisty and sexy and looking up at him with an enticing sheen on her plump lower lip.
He ducked his head and tasted her.
She was soft, silky, and utterly delectable. He nipped her lower lip gently, then brushed his mouth lightly against hers, savoring the sweet friction. He didn’t push to deepen the kiss; there would be time later for scorchingly intense kisses. He contented himself for the now with a purely hedonistic, lazy taste of her. Moving soft and slow, lulling her into him. When he felt her body melting forward, he pulled away with a slow, erotic tug of her lower lip.