Why did he have to remember that part? This was going to be more than a little embarrassing and slightly complicated. Not the discussion to have on the sidewalk of Peachtree Street on a busy Friday evening.
"This isn't exactly the place to discuss it. I'll explain on the way home."
They made it to the parking garage without running into anyone else Kate knew. She'd barely closed the car door, and hadn't gotten as far as the key in the ignition, when Darach said, "How could I have been the man you were meeting earlier since you had no inkling you were going back in time to Scotland? You had not even met me."
Torriwould've probably run with his assumption there was another man on the scene. And while it would probably be good for the arrogant laird ofGlenagan to think he wasn't the only man in her life, it wasn't Kate's style.
"Just listen for a minute, okay?" The dome light went out and she welcomed the dark as she brought him up to speed.
"I knew tonight was the last night before the exhibit closed. I felt foolish that I kept going to see your portrait, even though I was the only one that knew. I was in the doctor's lounge freshening up whenTorri came in. You've seen first-hand how catty she can be. She had an audience so she started needling me as to whether I was getting ready for a date, fully expecting that I didn't have one." God, she was about to sound truly foolish and juvenile. "I knew I was going to see you so you became my date. I told her you traveled and would be leaving town after tonight."
Darach stared at her for a moment and then he threw back his head and laughed. "Aye, Kate, you are a clever lassand a lusty wench. Let's go home."
"HERE WE ARE. This is my condo. Just a second," she said, fitting her key in the lock.
They'd taken that thing she'd called a car, which was a very elegant carriage that moved without benefit of horses, left it in a cave she called a parking garage, climbed flights of stairs and now they were almost in her home, a place inside a maze of a building.
'Twas not a minute too soon. Darach fair ached with the need to have her, especially after she'd confessed to visiting his portrait often, fantasizing about him, and then making him out to be a real man, her man, to that harridan they'd met outside. She had but to look at him to know he existed...somewhere. He had only to smell her scent, to feel a brush of her skin against his and he wanted her.
He cupped her buttocks from behind and squeezed. Not a grab as she'd done with him on the street corner, but slower, more of a caress. She slanted a glance over her shoulder.
"Icouldnae help myself," Darach said, echoing her earlier explanation for grabbing him.
"You'd use my own words against me." She laughed, an edgy breathy sound, and opened the door. "Here it is. Home sweet home."
He followed her in. At a glance, he took measure of the room. Pale orange, the sky's hue when dawn crept over the moor, washed her walls. Bookcases, full of neatly organized books, lined a wall. A desk boasting clean, simple lines stood in one corner and the wall opposite the door was naught but glass, the city glowing beyond. Worn wood covered her floor. 'Twas vastly different from his castle, yet he knew a sense of home, of recognition. It felt of Katie. It contained her scent.
"I leave a couple of lights on timers so they'll come on before I get home," she said, indicating a lamp that glowed in the corner of the room. "I hate walking into a dark room."
He dropped the satchel containing his kilt and boots on the floor. "Idunnae care about the lights." He wrapped his fingers about her arms and pulled her to him.
"Me either." Her keys and satchel joined his on the floor. She fitted her body against his, linking her arms about his neck. The feel of her in his arms fair drove him to madness. He buried his hands in her
curls and kissed her with a need bordering on pain.
He felt as if he'd lost a part of himself when he'd crossed to her time. A part that he'd find in her. He hadn't dared touch her since she'd kissed him on the street, but now....
She slid her hand between them and cupped him through his breeches. She broke the kiss. "I've got a reputation as a lusty wench to live up to," she murmured against his mouth.
He responded to her sexy teasing. "You are not angry about that are you, Katie-love?"
"Angry?" She laughed and pressed a kiss to his jaw. "Hardly. I should offer to pay you for saying it."
"Aye. I ken just the payment I favor...." He slid his hand beneath the hem of her shirt, over her smooth skin to the soft fullness of her breast. Her tip pebbled against his hand.
"Oh." She worked the front of his breeches open and slipped her hand inside, her clever fingers stroking his rod through his undergarment. "I always pay my debts."
Aye, she knew just the way to touch him.... "A lusty wench with honor."
She withdrew her hand from his breeches. "Come upstairs and I'll show you something you'll like."
He was perfectly happy right here. He rolled her nipple beneath two fingers. "I've found something I like here."
"Come on." She tugged him toward the stairs to the left. "I promise you'll enjoy this."
She flipped a switch and small lights lit up along the wall going up the stairs. 'Twas truly amazing that light appeared as though by magic. "We are going up there?"
"Uh-huh."
He reached out and swept her off her feet, holding her close to his chest. Kate laughed and looked up
into his face, but he didn't miss the heat and the flash of excitement in her green eyes. "What are you
doing?"
"I am carrying a lusty wench up yon stairs to collect my payment." In a fortnight he'd leave her behind and either save his people or die trying. But in the time between, he'd savor every moment with this woman he'd thought he might never see again.
"Because you're a bold brawny Scotsman from the wild Highlands?"
"Aye. We're a savage lot."
"And you're going to give me a Highland fling?"
"And then some, lassie." He reached the top of the stairs and she pointed to a doorway to the left. "In
there."
He entered, discerning the dark outline of the bed from the stairway lights. He tossed her atop the
mattress and she rolled over with a laugh. He loved to hear her laugh and he loved to know he was the one making her laugh.
A click sounded and her bedside lantern cast light over ivory walls and a pale coverlet on her bed. "Take your clothes off, Darach. I need you naked for your surprise."
"Youdunnae have to ask twice. I can finally...how did you phrase it...turn my big boy loose."
Her laugh, heated, breathy feathered over him. "There wasn't time to argue the point. You needed to get dressed and we needed to get out of there." She knelt on the bed and undressed. More than once he had to remind himself to quit looking and undress so they could get to what they both wanted.
She got off the bed, took him by the hand and led him into an adjoining room. "This is the bathroom."
Once again, as before, the room was lit. Stone-colored tile covered the floor and was cool beneath his bare feet. A large looking-glass reflected both the light and their image. A basin sat in the midst of a marble slab on one wall. A seat that appeared to be a cross between a chamber pot and a throne stood in one corner. A large tub, he assumed for washing, took up one short wall.
She turned him to look behind them. "And this-" she opened a glass door and tugged on a large button and a smaller one beneath it and water flowed through two devices coming out of the mirrored wall "-this is a hot shower."
She stepped inside. "Come on in. The water's fine."
He did her bidding. Warm water sluiced over him in a truly decadent pleasure. He sighed. "Aye. 'Tis like standing beneath a waterfall on a warm day-only better because even on a warm day, the burn runs cold."
"The previous owners were apparently shower enthusiasts. Most aren't this large." Water darkened her hair from flaxen to brown. Her skin gleamed alabaster with the water's sheen. "For the first part of my payment, I thought I'd bathe you."
Standing beneath the water was pleasure in itself. Add to that her hands on his skin. "You'll get no argument from me."
"I'll start with your hair." She picked up a bottle and eyed the shelf that formed a bench on one end of the enclosure. "And I think this will work nicely." She stood up on the tile seat."Voila."
Her perch brought her lovely breasts to mouth level. He grasped her at her waist, her skin soft and wet and warm beneath his hands. "Aye, this is grand," he said. He leaned forward and captured one perfect tip in his mouth.
"Darach..." She leaned forward, into him.
He suckled and the bud tightened against his tongue. He slid his hands up her water-kissed skin, over her middle to cup her globes, one in each hand. He moved his attention to the other one, sucking and licking until it too pebbled with need and Kate's sighs echoed off the tile and glass wall. Ah, this was one of the finer things in life, the dual sensations of warm water coursing over his shoulders and down his back, her breasts in his hands and mouth.
She pulled back. "If you keep that up, my legs are going to be too weak to hold me up."
He grinned. "Sorry, Katie-love, it's just that with temptation staring me in the face...." He flicked his tongue against one of her pink pearls.
"Then let's put temptation out of reach." She turned him around to face the mirrored wall and torrent of water.
"I would much rather be looking at your teats than at myself."
"Hush." She laughed and slapped him on his arse.
For one second he was stunned and then he laughed. "God's tooth you are bold, lass. Nary a man nor woman has slapped me on me arse since myDa when I was but a lad."
She smiled, full of sexy sass, over his shoulder at him in the mirror. "Then it's long overdue."
He pretended to scowl at her reflection. "Aye, you've fire enough when my back is turned."
Had he ever made light with a lass this way? Nay. He'd never been so inclined.
Kate buried her fingers in his wet hair and began to work in fragrant soap that smelled faintly familiar. It was her scent, the scent that clung to her skin and hair, the scent that heated him through. She rubbed and kneaded from the front of his head to the back and along his neck. Darach groaned aloud from the pleasure of her fingers dancing against his scalp. "Ah, you've a magic touch, Katie-love."
"I'm glad you like it."
He more than liked it. The warm water and the rhythm of her hands against his scalp and on his shoulders lulled him. Yet in another part of him, her scent and her touch and her very nearnessfueled his want for her and hardened his rod.
She kneaded and plied her hands along his arms. She stepped down from the bench and continued stroking his muscles down the length of his back. She worked her hands over his buttocks and the backs of his legs. The saucy wench reached between his legs and cupped his heavy sac and he shuddered at her touch. She stroked his member with her soap-slicked hands, rousing the interest of his rod.
"Mayhap we can run into another harridan of your acquaintance so I can once again earn your indebtedness. I've a definite liking for your payment."
She stroked him again and his cock surged in her hand. "I think that is a fine plan." She reached around him and smoothed her hands over his belly and up his chest, her bare breasts with their tight points pressing against his back. "You are without a doubt, the most perfect specimen of a man I've ever seen."
He knew women looked at him and the women he'd bedded had been free with their flattery. But there'd always been the knowledge, in the back of his mind, that he was their laird and as such, they had a stake in flattering him. But he was no laird to Katie.
He looked over his shoulder with an uncharacteristic self-consciousness. "Ye have obviously forgotten about my scar and my nose."
She traced the scar's path with one finger. "No. I haven't forgotten it at all. I think it's a mark of courage and honor." She turned him to face her and tilted his head back beneath the stream of warm water, rinsing the soap from his hair. "And what's wrong with your nose?"
"'Tis more of a beak than a nose." At least that had been his brothers' take on it when they were lads.
She cupped his jaw in her hand and peered at him, head cocked to one side. "It's strong, like you. I can't imagine your face with anything different. You'd look silly with anything less. As it stands now, you're gorgeous and extremely sexy."
Her words pleased him, warmed him, in a way that had nothing to do with sex. "Katie-love, you're a bit of a daft lass." He teased her to cover how much her words pleased him, but there wasn't much that got by Katie. Her eyes held a knowing look.
"Then I'm in good company 'cause you're one daft Scotsman."
He popped her on her arse. "'Tis bold and brawny, not daft."
She gasped and pretended outrage. "You're pushing your luck, Scotsman."
He hadn't made light like this since the day he'd traded his family and his childhood to theCampbells for the promise of a few more minutes of fun. Aye, his heart had not been this light since.
With a start he realized he'd thought of that time without a blackness settling over his soul. Did she but know it, Kate was a true healer, of not just body, but mind and soul as well.
He shifted closer and caught her up to him, savoring the slide of her wet skin against his. He pressed a kiss to her mouth, his tongue finding and toying with hers. He cupped her arse in his hands and pulled her tighter and harder against him, his cock unerringly finding the curls between her thighs. She wrapped her arms about his neck and pressed against him. With her bottom in his hands, he slid one finger against her slit. Ah, she was wet. Not the wet of streaming water, but the slicker, hotter wet borne of want. He eased a finger into her and she ground down on it, making small noises of pleasure.
"When I first saw your portrait at the museum it...affected me. I was more aroused by you in a picture than I had ever been by a man in real life. Every time I came home from the museum, a terrible lust came with me. But not just for any man. For you." She spoke the truth. She was wet and hot and slick against his finger. "One of my favorite fantasies about us was in here."
She scattered kisses along his jaw and to his ear. Her tongue teased his ear's edge and heat rushed through him. She edged away from his cock, replacing her mound with her hand. She wrapped her fingers around him and stroked while she swirled her tongue about his nipple.
Was there anything more potent to a man's libido than a woman whispering in his ear how much she'd wanted him before she'd even met him? He was more than willing to participate in whatever it was she'd created in her mind.
"And what would that be Katie-love?" He captured a drop of water on her shoulder with his tongue. "Tell me how to make your fantasy come true."
"In my fantasy, you sit here."
He sank onto the warm, wet tile that formed a seat.