The Dark Highlander

Page 33

And all the devil ever wants in exchange, a small voice inside her purred caustically, is a soul.
She ignored it.
“Plus the skean dhu?” she clarified hastily.
“Aye.”
“Why Inverness?” she asked breathlessly.
A shadow flitted across his gorgeous face. “ ’Tis where my brother Drustan, and his wife live.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “He collects texts as well.”
And if she’d been wavering before, that clinched it for her. His brother and his wife; they would be seeing his family. How dangerous could a man be if he was taking her to his family? It wasn’t as if they’d be alone together all the time. They’d be with his family. If she was clever, she’d be able to insulate herself from his seduction. And to spend a month with him! To get to know him, learn what made such a man tick. Who knew what might happen in a month? And the prince fell in love with the peasant girl …
Her heart was hammering.
“Say aye, lass. You want to, I see it in your eyes. Choose your pieces. We’ll drop them off at your place before we leave.”
“They’d never be safe in my apartment!” Even she knew how feeble that protest was.
“Then in one of those boxes. … One of those . . .” He glanced askance.
“Safety deposit boxes at a bank, you mean?”
“Aye, that’s it, lass.”
“And I get the key?” she pounced.
He nodded, the light of victory glittering in his predatory gaze. In a movie, the devil would wear just such a look before he said, “Sign here.”
“Why are you doing this?” she breathed.
“I told you. I want you.”
She shivered again. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Mayhap ’tis soul-alchemy. I doona ken. I doona care.”
“I won’t sleep with you, MacKeltar,” she said suddenly. She didn’t want him expecting that, needed it spelled out very carefully. If, at some point, she decided it was something she was willing to risk, that was one thing. But he needed to understand that it was not part of their bargain. Such things couldn’t be bargained for. “Your artifacts purchase only my company as a translator. Not sex. That’s not part of our deal.”
“I doona wish it to be part of our ‘deal.’”
“You think you can seduce me,” she accused.
He caught his bottom lip with his teeth, released it slowly, and smiled. It was such an obvious thing, that gesture, Chloe thought irritably, deliberately designed to focus her attention on his lips. She saw through it, she did—but that didn’t stop it from working every darned time he did it. From making her self-consciously moisten her own. Damn and double-damn, she thought, the man was good.
You’re already seduced, Chloe-lass, Dageus thought, watching her, ’tis but a matter of accepting, a mere matter of time now. She wanted him. ’Twas no one-sided heat. Theirs was a dangerous attraction that defied logic or reason. She was as helplessly fascinated by him as he was by her. Each knew they should walk away from the other: he, because he had no right to corrupt her; she, because on some level she sensed that something was wrong with him. But neither was able to resist the pull. Devil and Angel: he, seduced by her lightness; she, tempted by his darkness. Each drawn to what they lacked.
“Well, you won’t succeed,” she said stiffly, piqued by his smug masculinity.
“I trust you’ll forgive a man for tryin’, lass. A kiss to seal it?”
“I mean it,” she pushed. “I’m not going to be just another one of your women.”
“I doona see any other women around here, lass,” he said coolly. “Do you?”
Chloe rolled her eyes.
“Have I asked anyone else to go to Scotland?”
“I said okay, all right? I’m just making sure you understand the terms.”
“Och, I understand the terms,” he said in a dangerously soft voice.
She thrust out her hand. “Then shake.”
When he raised it to his lips and kissed it, Chloe felt suddenly light-headed.
The moment felt, well … positively momentous. As if she’d just made a decision that would forever alter her life, in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine. The Greeks had a word for such a moment. They called it Kairos—a moment of destiny.
Giddy with excitement, she rose and, with a connoisseur’s eye and no mercy for the devil’s wallet, began selecting her treasures.
• 8 •
The man had never really tried to seduce her, Chloe decided the next morning when she raced down the steps and ran smack into him as he was stepping out of the first floor bathroom at the base of the stairs.