Starry Knight (16 page)

A gasp behind him made him freeze. Oh, fuck. Whoever it was had seen much too much. He pulled out, sucked his fangs back in, and zipped up his fly.

“What’s wrong?” Vanessa asked, starting to turn.

He held her where she was, sorted out her dress, and whispered near her ear, “We’ve got company. Get in the car and let me handle it, eh?”

He fished out the clicker, unlocked the car, and, as Vanessa got in, he rounded on the voyeur. His gut fisted when he saw it was the gold-digging clerk from the lingerie boutique. What the fuck had her name been?
Monique
.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked, fixing her with a contemptuous glare.

“That depends.” She held up a fancy cell phone. “How much is it worth to you to keep the video of what you’ve just been doing off the internet, Lord Lyon?”

Callum swallowed, tasting stomach acid. “How much do you want?”

“Enough to open that second shop I told you about.”

Judging by her smug expression, she believed she had him by the bollocks.

“Will you take a check?” he asked. “I don’t carry that much cash around nor will an ATM dispense as much as I presume you’re hoping to collect.”

“A check’s fine,” she said, regarding him suspiciously, “as long as it’s good.”

“It will be,” he assured her. “Besides, you’ll have my address on the check, so, if it should bounce, which it won’t, you’d ken where to find me, eh?”

“That’s true.” Hope was breaking through the clouds of skepticism in her pale-blue eyes.

He opened the passenger door and reached past Vanessa to retrieve his checkbook from the glove compartment.

“You’re not actually going to pay her off, are you?”

“Wait and see.”

After shutting the door, he opened the checkbook against the side of the Land Rover, unclipped his pen, and wrote in the date. “Whom do I make it out to and for how much?”

The lass came closer and looked over his shoulder, just as he hoped she would.

“Monique Sinclair,” she said, “And I think fifty thousand pounds ought to keep me quiet and cover my start-up expenses.”

He frowned and arched an eyebrow. “Any relation to Alasdair Sinclair?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. He’s my father.”

Fuck me.

Kicking himself for being so reckless, Callum filled in the blanks just as she’d instructed, tore the check free, and held it out to her. When she made to grab the note, he pulled it back.

“Not so fast, Miss Sinclair. First, I’ll have your phone so I can erase the evidence.”

With a superior smirk, she handed over her smart phone. As he let her take the check, he dropped her phone on the ground and stomped it into debris.

“Hey,” she complained, frowning hard, “that was an iPhone.”

“Ask me if I give a fuck.”

In one fluid move, he pinned her back against the Land Rover and drilled into her mind through her scheming eyes. “This never happened,” he said in a hypnotic monotone. “You never saw me or the lass I’m with. And if you should ever meet either of us again, it will be as strangers. Nod if you understand me.”

She dipped and raised her head like a robot, her glassy gaze locked with his.

“Good.” He snatched the check from her hand. “Now fuck off and don’t look back.”

He crumpled the check into a wad as he circled around to the driver’s side. Vanessa looked as pale as milk, had tears in her eyes, and was wringing her hands in her lap.

“What’s the matter?” he asked gruffly, climbing in beside her.

“You’re not really going to do that to me, are you?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m still thinking it over.”

She offered him a feeble smile. “Thanks for the lingerie, by the way.”

“My pleasure,” he said, sincerely hoping it would be.

“Do I get to keep it?”

“I haven’t made up my mind.”

The brine of bitterness pickled his heart. If only he could wipe his own memory of her when she left. He knew himself, knew he’d pine for her, worry every moment what she was up to and who she was with, and generally drive himself around the bend.

As he started the engine, he said a silent prayer to whoever might be listening:
Please, if there’s a way to make this work, show it to me, because, for the life of me, I can’t see it.

* * * *

Vanessa woke shivering. She’d been napping in Callum’s bedroom, worn out from shopping and frequent lovemaking. She was naked atop the covers and the room felt like a bloody refrigerator. Shivering, she sat up, rubbed her gooseflesh to warm herself, and cast around. Though Callum wasn’t in the room, Vanessa wasn’t alone. Sorcha’s shimmering visage loomed at the foot of the bed.

“Why are you still planning to leave here?” the spirit demanded, dispensing with pleasantries. “I thought we agreed you would stay.”

Caught off guard, Vanessa sputtered as words escaped her. After a few moments, regaining her wits, she said, “We agreed to no such thing.”

“He’s your Knight of Wands. Your one true love. Surely that’s worth staying for.”

“True love is a myth for women who can’t stand on their own two feet,” Vanessa returned with a scowl, “which isn’t me. I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

Even if so-called true love did exist, which she doubted, men couldn’t be trusted. Just look at her father—or worse, Prince Charles. At least her father truly loved her mother once upon a time while the prince only played a part to his poor duped first wife.

“Besides, I’m moving to America in a few days,” she added. “And even if I weren’t, I haven’t the slightest interest in binding myself to someone I hardly know.”

“I told you he’s a good man,” the ghost returned. “What more do you need to know?”

“Lots of things.”

“I don’t understand,” Sorcha said. “Callum and I were married after speaking only a few words.”

“And just look how well that turned out,” Vanessa muttered, hoping the ghost wouldn’t hear. “There’s also the issue of compatibility. He and I are opposites in many ways. Temperament, diet, and lifespan, to name a few. There’s no way it can work, Sorcha—even if I wasn’t moving to New Orleans to take a new job, which I absolutely am.”

The apparition gave Vanessa a hard, apprising look. “Those are your reasons for abandoning Callum?”

Vanessa huffed, exasperated. “I’m doing no such thing. He wants me to go. And to forget him. End of story.” As an afterthought, she added, “Besides, even if we wanted it to work, there are too many obstacles in the way.”

“What if some of the obstacles were removed? Would you try to work it out?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. If he stopped being so bloody minded about erasing my memory.” Vanessa regarded the shimmering specter with suspicion. “Tell me something, if you would. Why are you so bloody keen on getting me and Callum together? What’s in it for you?”

Rather than answer, Sorcha started to fade, infuriating Vanessa.

“Oh, no you don’t. Get back here and answer the question. What do you gain from getting me and Callum together?”

The apparition grew denser. “When I threw myself from the tower, I expected to find my husband waiting for me at the gates of Heaven, but he wasn’t there. I knew then he hadn’t been killed at Flodden Field, as I’d been told, so I came back to Barrogill to wait for his return. I waited two hundred years, during which the castle fell into the hands of Clan Sinclair, but by and by Callum returned—with a new wife. I could see at once that she didn’t deserve him or make him happy, so I vowed to keep watch until he found someone who could make him happy.”

“And what makes you think I’m that person?”

“Because you’re the first lass he’s brought to Barrogill since Deirdre ran away,” the spirit said. “And because of the Knight of Wands.”

Vanessa eyed the apparition narrowly. “That reminds me, how did you know about the card?”

“In the space between the realms, one knows all there is to know.”

When approaching footsteps sounded in the hall, the specter vanished, leaving Vanessa alone, her attitudes unchanged.

True love was total bollocks. Even grand passions eroded over time into barely contained bitterness. Some couples stuck it out for the kids, the security, because they feared being alone, or because they’d given up the dream of finding something better. Others threw in the towel at the first sign of trouble and went off to chase some new fantasy to fulfill their starry-eyed vision of perfect love.

Well, not her, damn it. Not her. She was a strong, independent woman. She didn’t need a man to fulfill her and make her feel valuable. Not even a man as wonderful as Callum Lyon.

Vanessa must have dozed off again while having a think because she awoke sometime later from one of those dreams in which she searched everywhere for a loo, but couldn’t find one in working order. Throwing back the covers, she climbed out of bed and padded toward the en suite lavatory.

After doing her business, she washed her hands and face and brushed her teeth. Just as she was rinsing her mouth, the bedroom door opened and closed.

She spat in the basin. “Callum? Is that you?”

“Nay,” the intruder replied in Callum’s burr. “It’s the bogey man.”

He appeared in the doorway wearing jeans and a button-down shirt with the tails tucked in. A smile bowed his lion’s mouth as he studied her. Modesty scorched her face. While he was fully dressed, she was still starkers.

“Where’d you go?” she asked, twisting out of his full-frontal view.

“I was just speaking to Duncan on the telephone.” His gaze moved up and down her body like a paintbrush.

“What did you tell him? About Parliament, I mean.”

He shrugged, arms still crossed. “I told him I’d think about it and let him know when I’d made up my mind.”

She left it at that, not wishing to pursue the matter further. For the time being, anyway. Neither did she want to bring up her encounter with his dead wife’s ghost, as she could see no way to bring up the tarot card without wading in much deeper than she was prepared to go. Besides, she was hungry—and not only for food. When she moved toward the door, he caught her in his arms and kissed her soundly.

“Feel like going back to bed?” she asked against his mouth.

He rubbed his pelvis against hers, letting her feel his hardness. “I might be persuaded.”

“Should I put on some of my new lingerie?”

He swept his tongue across her lips. “That would go a long way toward convincing me.”

As if the man needed coaxing. He had the sex drive of an inmate during a rare conjugal visit. As she pulled out of his arms and ducked around him, he followed her into the bedroom and took a seat on the chesterfield at the foot of the bed.

Failing to visually locate her bag from
Indecent
, she asked where he’d put her new underthings. He motioned toward a highboy on the opposite wall.

“Top drawer on the right.”

Crossing to the tall chest, she picked out a corset, a matching thong, and a pair of thigh-high stockings. As she put everything on, he watched with a scorching gaze that made her feel like a gazelle in the sights of a hungry lion. It also made her feel incredibly desirable.

Deciding to put on some high heels to enhance the effect, she went to the armoire, pulled out an especially slutty pair, and slipped them on before parading past him like a runway model.

“Well?” she said, turning to show him all angles. “What do you think?”

“Nothing,” he said, pulling her down on his lap. “I can’t think when there’s no blood left in my brain.”

Vanessa laughed and wiggled on his lap, confirming his statement. Callum let his head fall back against the couch, his eyes smoldering with passion for her, his hair spilling around his shoulders like spun sunlight.

Slowly, seductively, she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it aside, exposing his sculpted chest to her view. She ran her hands over his muscled plains, thumbed his tender nipples, and fingered his coarse hair, which looked brassy in the light pouring through the bedroom window. Repositioning herself, Vanessa kissed his neck, his jaw, his chin, and his lips—but only for a glancing moment. She nuzzled his ear, licked his neck, and nibbled his collarbone. She worked her way down, planting soft kisses as she went. When she flicked the tip of her tongue against his nipple, it hardened instantly. He moaned and petted her hair. After teasing his nipples for several seconds, she moved on, slipping to the floor between his knees as she kissed her way down to the waistband of his jeans. Rather than open his fly, she nibbled his bulge through the denim. He groaned and rolled his hips, forcing his erection against her teeth.

“I wonder if this is how a flower feels,” he said with a wistful expression, “when a butterfly sucks the nectar from its stamen.”

“I don’t know,” she said, fighting a grin, “but it might explain why flowers are so cheerful.”

Ever so slowly, she unbuttoned his fly, freeing his erection, which she peppered with kisses before taking his knob into her mouth. As she licked and flicked with fervor, she attempted to tug off his jeans, but couldn’t get them to budge. To make it easier, he lifted his ass off the couch, inadvertently driving his cock deeper into her mouth. Taking advantage, she dragged her tongue and teeth up and down the length of his shaft, causing his breath to hitch. Releasing her oral hold on his sex, she peeled off his jeans and tossed them aside.

Getting to her feet, she met his gaze, which was smoky beneath hooded lids. God, he was sexy. Too fucking sexy for words. And so much more than that, too. If only Sorcha was right. If only he was her one true love. On second thought, he couldn’t be, because there was no such thing. Even if there was a seed of real feeling taking root in the soil of their passion, he would pull it up like a weed and throw it away when he took her memories.

The thought gave her pain, so she blinked it away, not wanting to spoil the mood of the moment. She planted her knees on either side of his hips, bent over him, and stared into his eyes, willing him to see her as more than a sex object. She didn’t know what she wanted or how this could work; she just knew she didn’t want to forget him. He gazed back at her in a way that almost made her believe he did feel something for her. And then, he closed the distance and kissed her softly, tenderly—a brush of the lips, a tiny nip of the fangs.