As many nights as he could beg, borrow, or steal from her until he was naught but dust blowing on a dark Scots wind.
“Where is she?” The mirror still hadn’t reclaimed him. It had been imperative he lay the warding, but now that ’twas done, he wasn’t about to fritter away another precious moment of his time free of the glass.
As Gwen opened her mouth to reply, the library door eased open and Jessica poked her head in.
Her broody jade gaze fixed on Gwen. She didn’t see Cian at first.
Faded blue jeans cased those sexy legs that had so recently been wrapped around his ass, her ankles locked in the small of his back, while he’d pounded into her. They hugged low on her hips, revealing the creamy sun-kissed skin of her belly, upon which he’d spilled drops of his seed. A soft, dainty, lacy-woven pale green sweater was buttoned over her heavy, round breasts.
It seemed an eternity since he’d touched her.
“I was wondering where— Oh!” The words died on her tongue when she saw him. “There you are.”
Cian assessed her with the instincts of a hunter born for the kill. He’d slammed up against that sleek cool wall inside her skull so many times he no longer bothered trying to read her that way. He read her body instead.
So that was the way of it. The same way it was for him. Mindless, thoughtless need. It had her by the balls too. So to speak.
He devoured the space between them in a few aggressive strides.
Her eyes widened. She wet her lips and they parted—not in protest, but in instinctive preparation. Her eyes dilated, her legs moved slightly apart, her breasts lifted. Christ, he felt just the same way.
He saw her—he needed her.
He closed a hand on her shoulder, opened the door, backed her out into the corridor, and yanked the door shut behind them, dispensing with the MacKeltar with a single slam. Just like that, they ceased to exist.
There was only Jessica.
The corridor was long, high-ceilinged, lit by pale yellow wall torches and the fiery glow of a crimson sun sinking beyond tall mullioned windows. He backed her across the hall, pushing her up against the wall. He could feel the heat rolling off her, knew it was coming off him too. He could smell her arousal, could smell his own. What was between them was quite simply a force of nature.
As she hit stone, she gritted, with a little oomph of breath, “You son of a bitch!”
“You said that yesterday. I heard you then.” If he’d had enough time—like a lifetime—to do things differently, he’d never have given her a reason to call him such a thing. If only he’d met her when he’d been but a score of years, or nay, if they’d been betrothed at birth, grown up together, hand in hand in the Highlands, his life would have been so different. He would have been a deeply contented man, and on that snowy night Lucan had knocked, he’d have been in bed with his wife. With a babe or two nearby. A sorcerer’s spells and enchantments would have held no lure for him. Nothing would have, not beyond this woman. He would never have accompanied Trevayne to Ireland, would never have ridden beside him for Capscorth on a sweet spring day, only to usher in the night with the blood of an entire village on his hands.
“You ruthless bastard!”
“I know.” There was no denying it. What he’d done was wrong. He should have told her from the beginning. He should have given her the choice to decide whether she was willing to give any part of herself to a man condemned to die.
“You heartless prick!”
“Aye, woman. All that and more.” He’d known who she was all along. He’d known from the moment he’d first laid a hand on her, back there in the office of her university, when he’d swept her behind him to protect her from Roman.
He’d felt it right then, in the marrow of his bones.
That thing he’d waited so damned long to feel, that had never come. He’d thought thirty years so unbearably long to wait. He’d never have imagined it might take him 1,133 more years to find her, and then he’d only get twenty days into which he’d have to cram a lifetime. Och, aye, he’d felt it that night. His hand had closed on her upper arm and his entire being had hissed a single, silent word.
Mine.
He’d blinded himself to the truth, all the while determinedly pursuing her, because if, at any moment, he’d admitted she was his one true mate, he might have wavered in his resolve. And he was a man who never wavered. He decided. He committed. He paid for what he purchased. For this sin, he had no doubt he would pay with his soul.
And consider it worth it.
“I can’t believe you lied to me!”
“I know.” Knowing she was his mate, knowing she would live on after him, and undoubtedly find a husband and make a family with some other man, he’d tried to burn himself into her, to conquer some small corner of her heart.