Page 13

Thirteen

I drove home from my parent’s house with my foot on the pedal and the pedal on the floor. The intensity of my anger increased with every mile. Caiyan ruined my engagement announcement with a fake engagement announcement.

I’d dreamed of the day I told my parents I was engaged, in a few years, or ten. By the time I arrived home, I wanted answers, or Caiyan’s head served on a platter.

My inner voice complied with a vision of my dad serving up Caiyan’s head like the brisket. OK, it made me chuckle. I pushed the headshot away and focused on my fuming. How dare he tell my parents that we’re engaged.

Caiyan’s phone booth was in my backyard. He’d already gone inside. With his gift of opening locks, he’d have no problems with the sliding back door.

He stood in the kitchen holding a scotch. His face brightened, then drew back as he caught my scowl.

“Sunshine, ye made record time. I’ve jest arrived myself.”

I rounded on him without sliding the glass door closed. “What in the hell were you thinking, telling my parents we’re engaged?”

“I was thinking yer mom wanted us to be married.” Caiyan looked smug. “We were already engaged to be engaged, so why naugh?”

“Why not?” I dropped my Kate Spade leather bucket bag on the table, along with my keys, and a huge huff. “Because you haven’t been transparent with me.” I moved toward him.

He held his ground.

I stabbed a finger into his chest. “You’re harboring secrets.”

He didn’t deny it.

He took a step back. Sipped his drink and looked down at me like I was a complicated puzzle and he was missing a few key pieces.

“So, Ragina is mad because Darryl didnae ask her to marry him, and yer mad because I did?”

“You didn’t ask me. You told my parents you already had. There’s a difference.” Geesh! My hands flew into the air like a frustrated Italian cook watching a fly land in the pasta fagioli.

“Dinna fash, Sunshine, if ’tis a romantic setting you want?—”

“I don’t want a romantic setting. I mean, I do, eventually, but not right now. We need to save Marco. We need to find the King’s key. We need to have our heads examined for lying to my mother.” I took his scotch and threw it down my throat.

“Simmer doon. I dinnae see what the problem is.” He walked into the den, relaxed back on the couch, and remoted on the TV.

I followed, stopped in front of him, glared down at his blasé attitude, and blocked his view. “You don’t understand. My mom turns into MOBzilla.”

Caiyan crooked an eyebrow. “What’s a MOB?—?”

“Mother of the Bride combined with Godzilla. It’s a horror movie in the making. She’ll be over here tomorrow with bridal magazines. She’ll start a Pinterest board. She’ll schedule wedding dress fittings.” I paused. “She’ll tell my relatives.”

At this, Caiyan sat upright. “I see.”

Caiyan had had a few run-ins with my country relatives, including my kooky cousin Hildy, who wanted to lick him like sugar cane.

“The jump is on Tuesday.” I paced the room. “Maybe I won’t come back. Maybe I’ll get stuck with the pirates like Wendy in Peter Pan , and then you can deal with my mother.”

Caiyan stood and pulled me into his arms. “I dinnae want ye to go.”

I pushed back, giving myself some space. “Jake’s made me the primary.”

“The primary?” Caiyan’s forehead wrinkled like he was missing those puzzle pieces again. “What aboot yer defender? Isnae Brodie going? Or Gerry?”

“Nope. If you called your best friend occasionally, you’d know these things. He had a hard dismount from his horse that he wasn’t supposed to be riding, bummed up his bad leg, and the doctor suspended his return to work for two more months.”

“So, Jake is sending ye by yerself?” Caiyan scraped a hand over his face. “Unfuckingbelievable.”

“Not exactly. He’s sending Ace with me.”

“He’s aft his heid.” More face scraping. “Ace’ll stick oot like a peacock in a nest of crows.”

“That’s very unflattering. Ace can adapt.”

“Ace cannae adapt. He’s been arrested in more decades than I have digits. He’s a walking talking billboard for ‘I’m naugh from this time.’”

“Now, who needs to simmer doon?”

Gertie walked through the open door, slid it closed behind her, and frowned at us. “Since when are y’all engaged?”

I looked at my watch. “Since about five-thirty, and it’s not real. Caiyan made the whole thing up.”

“You told a whopper to Cousin Mary?” Gertie went hands on hips and gawked wide-eyed. “If she finds out, you’re gonna pay. You’ll have to give her grandchildren to make up for that lie.”

Caiyan gave a low, growl-sounding grunt at her, and I mentally recounted taking my birth control this morning.

“I can’t think about this right now. I’ve got to prepare for my jump.” I turned toward the stairs, and Caiyan followed me.

“Don’t make a lot of noise during your preparin’. I’ve got to be at work early, and I need my beauty sleep,” Gertie hollered.

I shut the door to my room. Caiyan moved toward me. “Jen, ye know I’d be happy to marry ye. ’Tis jest I’ve this thing hanging over my head and until I figure it oot, I need to keep ye safe.”

“Yeah, you’ve sung that song before. If you told me what the thing is, I’d be happier about our fake engagement.” Like hiding a map to the King’s key.

“I cannae. If yer privy to the details, harm may come yer way.”

“I don’t get it. If I knew the details, maybe I could help you.” I air-quoted details and added my version of his accent for effect, then waited for him to explain.

“Ye cannae. Naugh with this.” He sat on my bed, arms crossed over his chest, lips pressed into a tight grimace. “All I can tell ye is that before Rogue died, he gave me information aboot my grandfather that I’d like to sort oot before I risk involving you.”

I leaned my back against the door, giving us as much space as possible in my small room and waited. Nothing. He stared at me. He wasn’t going to share.

Fine.

He wanted time to sort things out. I needed time to sort things out too. With Marco. Fair is fair, my inner voice reminded me.

Fine.

He had information from Rogue. I knew where to go to dig around in that area.

Fine.

I focused on the other issue clogging up the gossip blogs. “What about the whole Mahlia Mafuso thing? She still claims you’re her baby’s daddy.”

He looked up at me. Eyes wide. And were those worry lines forked between his brows?

“Ye know ’tis naugh.” And with the speed of Shazam, Caiyan pinned me against the door. He tucked a stray hair behind my ear and ran his finger down my cheek. “I’d never lie to ye aboot such a thing.”

“I know.” The words escaped on a whisper.

His mouth pressed against mine. Our lips parted. The slight hint of sweet from the scotch tangled in my mouth. His tongue stroked mine, teasing, touching, torturing until pleasure overwhelmed me, and the questions drifted away. He was kissing me stupid. He was good at that—kissing me until I didn’t have a sane thought in my head.

I willed my knees to hold steady. Don’t buckle. Don’t buckle. He worked the strap on my sundress, replacing it with his lips, sliding it down my shoulder until his fingers skimmed beneath the cotton fabric and expertly found one of my traitorous perky nipples. He cupped my breast in his hand, and someone moaned. I think it was me.

I fumbled with his belt and murmured my approval when I found my way inside his pants. Caiyan caressed the swell of my breasts, moving his mouth to an area of intense pleasure. He whispered naughty words in Gaelic as I stroked his admirable length.

Scottish accent plus dirty talk equals me begging for more. I shoved his pants over his hips, gasping as he sucked my earlobe. I was buttery toast the moment his fingers dipped into my panties. “Stop.”

“What d’ye mean, stop?”

“I mean—” He kissed me again. “No. I meant…wait.”

He answered my protest with more kisses that trailed to my throat. His tongue played lightly across my collarbone.

“Do ye want me to stop?” He breathed softly into my ear, pressed kisses down my jawline.

Hell, no.

Hell, no.

Hell, no.

My heart beat the rhythm of my wordless answer. The previous problems pushed to the back of my mind but not forgotten. “Uhm, we can talk after, right?”

In one swoop he had my sundress pooled on the floor and me on the bed. He tugged his shirt over his head, finished the pants I’d started. Fully naked and glorious, I admired the man as he moved beside me. Would I enjoy being Mrs. Caiyan McGregor? Or maybe I could hyphenate. Jennifer Cloud-McGregor. Or maybe Jennifer McGregor-Cloud. I wasn’t sure how the entire hyphenated thing worked.

“Jen.” His voice grew smooth, sensual. His breath ticked that sensitive skin just behind my ear. “Where are ye, lass?”

Damn. I’d zoned out in the middle of foreplay. My favorite part. “I’m right here.” I ran a finger over his heart, and a surge of sorrow ripped through me. It felt like the most intense grief I’d ever felt. It stopped as quickly as it started.

“I’d die if something happened to you.” His words weren’t more than a whisper.

The same words I’d told Marco on the beach the night I left him.

“Caiyan?” I stopped his hands from roaming over my body. He held my shoulders. My hands wrapped around his wrists. His muscles tensed, and his fingers tightened against my skin.

He stared down at me. His green eyes smoked over with lust and something else. Fear. Remorse. He feared letting me in. He was sorry he’d dropped his block, let his emotions slip, opened himself, and let me inside. He touched his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry. I should be more careful, but the things ye do to me. The closer we get, the more I cannae control it.”

“Why can’t you let me know you? All of you.”

He placed a finger to my lips. “Later. I promise.”

He moved lower, doing that thing with his tongue that I loved. A twinge between my thighs. A low want that starts in my belly like a bubble of highly compressed air that expands until reaching equilibrium and then explodes.

My explosion came, followed by a lot of goose-tingling skin. I wanted to be in the driver’s seat, but he resigned me a satisfied passenger. He moved inside me, calling my name over and over and over again like he was lost in a dream, and I was the only one who could pull him to safety. I clenched around him, holding him so tight as the pleasure built inside me, thrust by thrust, breath by breath.

“Together,” he cooed in my ear. Caiyan had a way of knowing when I was close and he held on, waited until driving with just enough force to give me exactly what I needed.

“Together.” My vision turned brilliant white. My hands gripped his back. My body arched against him. I screamed his name, my pelvis rocked, and I trembled like a thousand seismic waves rippled through me. We moved together until he released inside me, and I lay spent, satisfied, and totally in love with my man of mystery.

A banging sounded against the wall. “For the love of us humans!” Gertie shouted. “Quiet down. Y’all are wakin’ the dead.”

A mortified giggle escaped from my lips. I looked over at Caiyan. His head rested on the pillow, and dark curls lay damp against his forehead.

“Did she just refer to us as inhuman?”

He propped up on his elbow. “Sunshine, after that round, I’d say we deserve it.”

Shazam!