Edge of Danger (17 page)

 
Fascinating.

 
“Three sons? That’s a genetic anomaly if ever I’ve heard one,” she murmured, distracted by the speed of her heart rate and the flush of her skin. Because he was watching her mouth she had to swallow before she managed to speak. “H-how far back?”

 
Sunlight tangled in his dark hair and made his eyes molten and intense. Her stomach felt all jittery and her pulse fluttered wildly. God, the attraction was powerful. The sooner she got the hell out of here, the better.

 
“Five hundred years.”

 
Her lips tilted, because he sounded not only serious, but—
beleaguered.
By what, she had no idea. But anything that could annoy Gabriel Edge, even a far-fetched family fable, was fine by her.

 
“I think someone is pulling your leg,” she told him dryly. “Five hundred years of only boys? No daughters?”

 
“Not just boys.
Three
boys.”

 
She glanced back at Janet’s mother-in-law. “Is that why—what was Magnus’s mother’s name again?”

 
“Finola.”

 
Eden stepped closer to the portrait of the older woman, eyes narrowed. “Is that why she’s wearing three pieces of jewelry? I noticed the same three pieces in other portraits as we were walking. One to give each son to pass down?”

 
“The jewelry was given to the oldest son. Magnus. The story goes that he first gave the ring, the bracelet, and the necklace to Nairne. The village girl. When he told her he was to marry the chieftain’s daughter instead, she threw them back at him.”

 
“And he took the same pieces and gave them to his new fiancée? Boy, talk about some tacky regifting. That was callous and unfeeling. No wonder the wife isn’t wearing them.”

 
“It was customary in those times to give your betrothed jewelry. According to the stories passed down, he’d given the pieces to Nairne and when she—
returned
them, in keeping with tradition he gave them to Janet. There was no sentiment attached. The jewelry was valuable.”

 
Eden stepped closer to better see the detail on Finola’s portrait. “Weird, my lucky ring looks a bit similar.” She glanced down the hall to where Gabriel had moved back into the shadows.

 
“Mine’s just costume, and probably of no worth in dollars and cents, but for me, the sentimental value is priceless.” She glanced down fondly at the little black ring on the pinkie toe of her left foot.

 
“My Grandma Rose gave it to me years ago.” She smiled. God, she’d adored her Grandma Rose. Her maternal grandmother had always been…
happy.
And bless her heart, Eden thought fondly, she hadn’t given a damn that her only grandchild was a little butterball of a misfit. A square peg in a round hole.

 
Rose had died when Eden was fifteen. She still missed her.

 
Gabriel walked toward her through the stripes of sunlight and shadow. He stopped about six feet from her, making Eden wonder what kind of problem he had that he couldn’t get near a woman.

 
Not that she cared. And really, she didn’t want him anywhere near her anyway.

 
Liar.

 
“Where’d she get it?”

 
“What? The ring? She bought it, or so she told me, from a gypsy at a carnival in Italy on her honeymoon.”

 
He gave her a strangely intent look. “Do you still have it?”

 
Eden held up her foot.

 
He glanced down, then back up. “That’s your lucky ring? Doesn’t look anything like the ones in the portraits,” he said dismissively, and walked off.

 
“I didn’t say it was
identical.
” God, the man was testy. Grandma Rose had told her the ring was silver, but really it just looked like a blackened twist of metal with two hearts on it to Eden. Not that she cared. She never took it off. Whether it was lucky or not wasn’t the point. The point was her grandmother whom she’d adored had given it to her, and she believed it was lucky.

 
Her host meanwhile had put more distance between them. She shook her head at his rudeness, and since she was standing there, and he was already twenty paces ahead, slipped off her shoes before following him. Much as she loved these sandals, they were meant for looking pretty as she sat at her computer, not for cross-country hiking. If push came to shove she could use them as lethal weapons.

 
The thought brought her up short. She had never—
never
—in her entire life
ever
thought of striking someone. Oh, she’d wanted to put fire ants in Adam’s shorts every time he told her she was packing on the pounds. She’d fantasized about supergluing his eyelids, lips, and fingers together when she first discovered he’d stolen credit for the mainframe reconfiguration she’d spent her last year at MIT perfecting. But the thought of physical combat had never occurred to her.

 
Right now, though, she was having some pretty violent thoughts about Gabriel Edge. The sooner the authorities figured out where she was, the safer he’d be.

 
The plush carpet cushioned her bare feet, but the corridor went on forever. More dark paneling, more gilt-framed paintings, more interesting-looking objects on tables and in glass-fronted cabinets. More stripes of sunlight and shadow.

 
And every woman in the portraits now had only three little boys with her. Eden backtracked a few portraits. How weird was that? From a certain point on, every woman with children had three almost identical sons. No wonder this guy believed in the family curse, looking at these family portraits every day. She turned around to see Gabriel turning a corner. She had to run to catch up with him. “Where’s this lab? Tibet?”

 
“Opposite wing.”

 
“Tibet it is.” Eden wondered darkly how hard it would be to get blood and brain matter out of fine-grained leather.

 
He walked faster. It was that or touch her, and touching her would be a bad move. An incredibly
stupid,
bad move. Unfortunately for him, the longer he resisted touching her, the more powerful the need became. Gabriel wasn’t a tactile man. Neither was he prone to obsessing, brooding, or fixating.

 
He was doing all that and more. And God! He wanted to
touch
her. Hell, yeah, he wanted to have sex with Eden Cahill. Hard and fast. Long and slow. Standing. Lying down—hell—sitting. Any way, any how, any time.

 
He enjoyed sex. Damn it, he
loved
sex. But if the opportunity didn’t present itself he was fine going it alone. His sexual appetite had never concerned him overly much. There were frequently ops that required months of undercover work, when sticking his dick anywhere but behind a closed zipper could prove fatal.

 
He was not going to have sex with the lovely Dr. Cahill. That was a given. As all-consuming as that imagery was, he was disciplined enough, strong enough, hell,
motivated
enough not to give in to the hunger. So all he could think about, all he
fixated
on, was
touching
her.

 
What harm could just one touch bring? He found himself desperate for a crumb, since he couldn’t have the whole meal.

 
Christ. Now he was making up excuses. One touch of Eden would never be enough.

 
That’s it, dickhead. Heart rate normal. Respirationnormal. Keep it that way.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Fat fucking chance.

 
Feeling grim, he turned down a side corridor, Eden close on his heels. While they walked, he conjured the lab she’d need to do her job in a distant suite of rooms. He’d made note of everything in her Tempe lab and duplicated it, right down to her ergonomic chair and oversized teacup with “IQ Matters” on it.

 
As she followed him, making her wry observations every now and then, Gabriel could smell the warm, heady fragrance of her skin, kissed with tuberose. She’d fallen silent about midway, and God, he was grateful. Every step he’d taken had ratcheted up the temptation to let her to catch up with him.

 
He wanted to turn, back her against a wall, a table, anything, and sink his fingers into those glossy dark curls. He wanted to feel the texture, he needed to stroke the softness of her skin, he craved inhaling her fragrance. Up close and personal.

 
He wanted to kiss her. Desperately.

 
He was a starving man presented with a banquet and then told to step away from the table.

 
The Fates must be laughing their collective asses off. They’d presented him with his perfect temptation.
Every
thing about Eden Cahill enticed him. From the lush look of her, to her wit, to her stubbornness.

 
Goddamn it!

 
Step away from the table.

 
“This is it.” He shoved open the door and preceded her, by a good ten feet, into the state-of-the-art computer lab. He glanced around. He did nice work.

 
The lab was a means to an end. He watched her openly as she walked in behind him, then did a slow circuit, seemingly oblivious to his presence in the room.

 
“Impressive.”

 
Gabriel heard the excitement in her voice, but he was distracted by her bare feet. He dragged his attention back to her face. She’d shown less interest as they’d passed priceless Fabergé eggs and Rembrandts.

 
Her eyes, those glorious big brown eyes, glowed with temptation as she walked around the room, touching objects as she went. “Who usually works here?”

 
“As of now, you do.”

 
If he could get her to lose control—twelve seconds was all the time he needed—he could extract the information she held in her subconscious. With that information he could conjure her robot with little difficulty. If he could do that, Gabriel thought grimly, watching the sunlight tangle in her hair, then damn it, he wouldn’t need her here.

 
Why did
she
have to be his Lifemate, the only person whose mind he couldn’t read? Hell, she wouldn’t feel him trespassing. She’d never even know he’d been there.

 
Extracting the data wouldn’t hurt her.

 
But if she stayed, it just might kill her.

 
There was a phone in the library. If either Gabriel or MacButler caught her skulking, Eden decided, she’d say she couldn’t sleep, and had gone down for a book.