Courting Carolina (13 page)

Talk about heavy baggage; Christ, could he pick his sweethearts or what?

Chapter Seven

The second full day of his salacious dream began when Alec woke up to find Jane sprawled on top of him, her unconfined breasts nestled into his groin, her mouth apparently drooling all over his chest because his shirt felt wet, her hands tucked into his armpits, and her hair tickling his chin as it tumbled out from under his jacket that he’d thrown over her sometime in the night.

Okay then, it would appear the princess preferred sleeping on a hard—in some places uncomfortably hard—body as opposed to a bed of soft, malleable sand. But if all of Jane’s wonderfully sexy body parts were accounted for, then what was wafting the smell of fish over—

Alec snapped open his eyes with a silent curse.

For christsakes, Kit was using his head for a pillow!

Alec carefully slid his hand from under Jane’s fleece and took a swipe at the wolf, making Kit scramble away in a shower of sand. Not that any landed on Jane, though, because she was still snuggled under his jacket, completely oblivious. Alec wiped the sand out of his eyes and Kit’s drool off his
forehead, and grinned out the shallow cave at the puffy white clouds lazily marching toward the rising sun.

Oh yeah, he really didn’t want to wake up anytime soon.

He slid his hand back under Jane’s fleece while also moving his other hand to palm the sides of her luscious breasts—that were doing a fine job keeping his groin warm—not at all contrite to be copping a feel off the sleeping woman. Because hey, permission had been asked for and granted—and acted on—last night across the fiord.

Lord, he hoped he caught her acting clueless or looking embarrassed or grateful today so he could make good on his threat to take her right on the spot—assuming he could catch her after running flat-out for four miles setting two bridges. He should probably position her at the second drop site, he decided, so she wouldn’t try to keep up with him—assuming he could persuade her there wasn’t a big old bear hanging around.

Alec wondered yet again how he felt about Sam telling Jane to seek him out if she ever got in trouble. But probably more disconcerting, Waters knew who he was—or rather, who he’d been. And that had him wondering if the bastard might try to blackmail him into
remaining
Jane’s champion, figuring even
the Celt
wouldn’t dare retaliate against the father-in-law of a powerful wizard.

Alec frowned at the clouds. Mac was probably the least of his worries, though; because if push did eventually come to shove, Titus would likely be the one chopping him into tiny pieces and feeding him to the orcas.

Unless he could find some way around the old man’s magic.

Yeah. Everyone had an Achilles’ heel, even demigods. So what was Titus’s weakness—other than loving his daughter so damn much that he was determined to see her happily producing heirs for some power-hungry bastard?

Alec blew sand off his lips with a stifled snort. Christ, it would appear Jane really had come up with the easiest way to trump her father. Well, except for the poor schmuck she eventually conned into devaluing her, when the guy found
himself standing at the altar with a shotgun at his back and then had to spend every night of the rest of his sorry life in Jane’s bed.

Dammit; he didn’t want an ordinary schmuck to get Jane, especially not some idiot who couldn’t stop ogling her long enough to realize there was a sharp, inquisitive mind hiding behind those sexy bedroom eyes. Jane needed a man who saw her haughtiness for the defense it was, who liked that she dared to lie right to his face, and who didn’t mind that she came with a whole bunch of baggage. At the very least she deserved someone who wanted her
despite
who her father was, and who would willingly step in front of a goddamn bus if that’s what it took to prove her value.

Basically, someone like…him.

Except she couldn’t have
him
; partly because he couldn’t give her a house overlooking the ocean and filled with babies, but mostly because he simply wasn’t that cruel. Messing with Jane for a couple of weeks was one thing, but giving any woman happily-ever-after had ceased being an option nine years ago. Hence the vasectomy, for in case he ever forgot what a cold-blooded, murdering bastard he was.

Alec sighed when he felt Jane suddenly stiffen, guessing that not only was she trying to figure out how she’d ended up on top of him, but also how she was going to extricate herself from the decidedly provocative position. So of course, being the bastard he was, he brushed his thumbs along the sides of her breasts—only to jackknife upright with a grunt when she scrambled off him. He managed to keep from being emasculated, but wasn’t quite quick enough to catch Jane before she landed on her lovely backside with a yelp of surprise.

Kit, however, was more than fast enough to jump between them with his hackles raised and his lips rolled back—which the scowling princess didn’t seem in any hurry to squelch. Half-tempted to finally establish his position in this ragtag little wolf pack once and for all, Alec instead rubbed his face in his hands. He then rolled to his knees and stood up, walked over to Jane, and lifted her chin. “Morning, sweetheart,”
he murmured, giving her a kiss before turning away to hide his grin when she started spitting sand off her lips. “It’s a good thing you woke up when ye did. The tide’s coming in, and I really wasn’t looking forward to carrying you through two feet of ice-cold seawater.”

His grin widened when Jane stood up and silently marched toward the end of the crescent-shaped cliff, Kit dutifully trotting behind her. Alec picked up his jacket and followed. “I’ve been thinking,” he said to her ramrod-stiff back, “that since ye seem to be pretty well recovered from your kidnapping, it might be time I put you to work.”

That turned her around. “Women’s work?” she said ever so softly. “Like cooking your meals and washing your clothes and polishing your boots?”

Alec continued past her, deciding it was too early in the day to be walking behind that lovely backside. “No, I was thinking more like having you hike the trail I’ve already marked out and deciding where to place the next shelter.” He glanced over his shoulder to see she’d stopped and was gaping at him, then continued along the point of land toward the boat he’d beached several hundred yards up the shore. “Assuming ye have a good sense of distance, as I’ve been trying to keep them spaced between four and five miles apart.”

He heard her running to catch up and let her pull him to a stop and turn him around. “You want
me
to choose the next campsite location?”

He nodded. “If you’re feeling up to it. But if you’re still too sore to be hiking that far, then I guess you’ll just have to spend another day hiding from the helicopter.”

“But I don’t know any— What?” she said when he suddenly narrowed his eyes.

Alec pulled her into his arms and kissed her quite soundly before heading for the boat again. “I warned you what would happen if I caught you acting clueless.”

He heard her footsteps in the gravel rushing up behind him, only this time she poked him in the back. “That wasn’t cluelessness, it was surprise.” She pulled him to a stop again and Alec turned to see Jane’s eyes had narrowed. “You can’t
just kiss me or do that…other stuff whenever you merely think I’m acting a certain way,” she ended in a whisper, her gaze dropping to his mouth and her entire face turning a dull red.

Well, it appeared she wasn’t saying he couldn’t follow through on his threats, only that there needed to be some ground rules. “Okay then,” he said just as softly. “What’s your definition of acting clueless?”

Apparently hearing the amusement in his voice, her gaze snapped to his and her eyes narrowed again, even as the beginning of a sinister little smile tugged at her mouth. “Well, I suppose I will have to catch
you
acting clueless or embarrassed to give you an example,” she said, pivoting away—and taking the lead again, he couldn’t help but notice. “Why do you set the shelters only four or five miles apart?” she asked, a decided spring in her step, which sent several of his foolish blood cells heading south. “Surely hikers would travel two or three times that far in a day.”

“I’m assuming there’s going to be more than one party of guests using the trail at any given time, so there need to be plenty of campsites. But bunching them together sort of defeats the wilderness experience, wouldn’t ye say?”

She glanced over her shoulder with a frown, only to catch him lifting his gaze to her face. She marched back and palmed his cheeks, and being so tall was able to kiss him full on the mouth—rather robustly—before heading down the beach again. “I’ve decided that when I catch you ogling me, I’m going to kiss you,” she declared with an imperial wave over her shoulder. “Now, about where the next shelter should be placed; do you swear you’re not just humoring me, and that you’ll simply change the location if you don’t agree with where I think it should go?” She stopped and marched back to him again. “Because if I suspect that’s the case,
my
pants are staying on and
yours
are coming off next time,” she growled, poking him in the chest for emphasis—which she completely ruined by blushing.

“Ye certainly have my permission to try,” he said cheerily, taking the lead again.

*   *   *

Alec MacKeage was a scoundrel, Jane decided later that morning as she and Kitty ambled down the trail looking for the next perfect campsite. Oh, the man might be fast and strong and brave, which was nice if she happened to need rescuing, but that certainly didn’t make him condom-worthy.

Not for the first time, Jane wondered why Sam had been so adamant that she run to Alec if she ever got into trouble. Because honestly, the guy didn’t seem all that bright. Well, he might be smart about anything to do with the outdoors, but he hadn’t even found it strange that she had suddenly shown up in his woods with no reasonable explanation as to how she’d gotten here.

He didn’t appear very motivated, either. According to his driver’s license, Alec was thirty-two years old, and yet he was a self-admitted ski bum at his family’s resort—he certainly hadn’t gone far looking for work—and took any old odd job he could find during the summers. And she really couldn’t understand why Sam had repeatedly warned her against making Alec angry, considering the rake seemed more interested in kissing her than taking her own warnings about her father seriously.

So what made Sam think an underachieving, oversexed scoundrel could be her champion? Well, besides his being a MacKeage, which meant he understood the magic. And Alec was big and strong and apparently good in a fight. But the man was much too handsome—in a grizzly bear sort of way—and far sexier than any of the full-of-themselves buffoons she’d dated over the last two years. Heck, one of the self-important jerks had actually taken her out into the Mediterranean on his yacht for their very first date, popped the cork on an expensive bottle of champagne at dinner, and boldly stated that he expected her to “put out or get out.”

She’d given the jerk a toe-curling kiss for dessert, sent him to his mirror-clad stateroom with instructions to get ready to experience a night in heaven, then jumped overboard and swum back to Monte Carlo—making his night
and ensuing days sheer hell as he tried to explain to the authorities why he’d called in a distress signal when Jane Smith was seen all over town shopping with friends the very next day.

Yes, she’d kissed her share of frogs without finding one who even came close to deserving her. So what if she was being too fussy—although she preferred to see it as discerning; shedding her virginity didn’t have to be at the expense of her dignity.

But after she’d awakened in Alec MacKeage’s sleeping bag wearing only his T-shirt, and considering how he’d gallantly come to her rescue and fixed her hair and given her his bed, Jane had thought she’d finally found a man she could trust not only with her body but also with her tender feelings. Only he’d turned out to be nothing more than a scoundrel; first for making her want him with every fiber of her being, then for giving her a taste of unbelievable pleasure—only to then tell her he was keeping his pants on until she wanted him
for all the right reasons
.

Sweet Athena, this was the twenty-first century; what more reason did a woman need than simply being attracted to a man? If she’d wanted a noble atavist, she would have spent the last two years searching
previous
centuries.

Jane stopped at the brook cutting across the trail, slid off her backpack, and knelt down to cup her hands in the crystal water. She splashed some on her face but stopped short of taking a sip, remembering Alec’s warning to drink only from a bubbling spring if she didn’t want to find herself spending the night making several trips to the privy.

“Kitty, no,” she said, pulling him away when he started lapping the water. “There might be tiny bugs in there that could make you sick.” She sat down right in the middle of the trail and hugged the wolf, rubbing her cheek on his fur. “You are such a good friend, Kitalanta, for leaving your watery world to come keep me safe in mine. But just think of all the wonderful tales you’ll have to tell your pod-mates when you return,” she murmured, giving him a squeeze. “And I will make sure your heroics are known far and wide
throughout all the oceans.” She gave him a kiss and straightened away with a laugh. “And all the lady orcas will be vying for your attention, and you’ll turn into a vainglorious old lug just like Leviathan.”