The Pleasure Master (6 page)

Ian shook his head to clear it. He could only deal with what was happening now, and not worry over-much about possible conspiracies. “What does this New York look like?”

She blinked at him. “It has buildings that reach into the sky, millions of people, and traffic jams that give me migraines.”

He didn't believe there were buildings that reached into the sky, but then lasses often enlarged things beyond the limits of truth. Had not rumors spread about the size of his—?

“So, I guess you've never spent any time in the Big Apple.”

Big apple? Where might they grow a fruit large enough to shelter a man? And what was a traffic jam? Mayhap she meant only to mock him.

“Ye want proof that this be 1542? Come wi' me.” Frustrated, he spoke more harshly than necessary. “Then I'll have yer true story, not the tale ye've told me.”

Her eyes widened. “You don't believe me?”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Ye name me a brain-blip and say I dinna exist, yet ye expect me to believe ye've traveled from some future time.”

She seemed to wilt before his eyes. “Right. You have a point there.”

“Still, I will give ye the proof ye crave. Mayhap ye werena sent by the Mackays.”

She pursed her lips, and her gaze grew puzzled. “Who are the Mackays?”

He forced his attention from the ripeness of those lips. “Fiona, the sister of Gordon Mackay, desires me. She doesna want to share, but the Pleasure Master canna belong to only one woman.” He shrugged. “Gordon willna accept that. He is ever plotting to capture me for her.”

“I feel your pain. Hey, sticking with just one woman would be a real bummer. So many women, so little time.” She narrowed her eyes to blue slits of contempt.

“Dinna judge. Ye're strange to the ways of the clan.”

“But not to the ways of men with testosterone overload.” She glared at him. “And don't ask what testosterone is.”

Enough.
“We'll leave as soon as I don my plaid.” Drawing the wool around him, he rose, then turned his back on her as he finished. He felt her gaze touching him, moving across his shoulders, down his back, leaving a trail of phantom fingertips that drew a shiver from him.

He strode toward the tunnel, but stopped when he reached the spot where Malin still lay atop the strange toy. He grinned. “Wi' only one front leg, Malin canna leap verra high. Yer toy suits him.”

“Great. Peter lives to please.”

Her grouchy sarcasm widened Ian's grin. Women he knew were always sweetly compliant. A touch of sour intrigued him.

Wordlessly, she followed him back down the dark tunnel and out into a now sunny day. He sensed her pause, her startled gasp.

“'Tis beautiful when the mist clears and the sun shines on the mountains and burns.” Startled, he realized he was speaking to her as he would any stranger to the Highlands, not the trickster he half believed her to be.

She took a deep breath. “I can smell the sea.”

“Aye.” The sea. He'd often stood gazing at the gray endlessness of it and wondered what lay beyond. He knew something did because of the tales passed down from his great grandfather. If he accepted those tales as true, that men could travel to strange places across a sea that seemed to have no end, could it not be true that men might travel across a sea of time? But he could see the water, he couldn't see time. And so he didn't believe.

He walked at a slow pace, allowing her to keep up with him.

“I don't mean to sound nosy, but . . . Okay, I'm nosy. It's a weakness.”

He exhaled a sigh of resignation. She wasn't going to leave him alone.

“How does this pleasure master job go? Do you work a forty-hour week, with an hour for lunch each day? What about overtime? Oh, and do you have health insurance and a retirement plan? Hmm. I guess you have to have malpractice insurance
too. I mean, what if a client doesn't attain her desired level of joy? Do you just give her money back, or does she get credit toward her next shot at joy? Do you advertise in the yellow pages, or—”

She tripped over a small rock and fell against him.

He drew in his breath at the searing connection. Her small gasp as she righted herself assured him she'd felt it also. And wanted it no more than he did.

Somehow, that annoyed him, and he took it out on the ridiculous things she wore on her feet. “Can yer King Clairol not put something on yer feet that will allow ye to walk a short distance wi' out falling all over a man?” He would have to get her something to . . . No. She wouldn't be here long enough for him to need to worry about her footwear.

“Falling all over a man?” He heard the anger in her voice and immediately felt better. “Look, buster, if I were going to fall all over a man, it wouldn't be you.”

He was annoyed again. Why wouldn't it be he? No man could bring her the pleasure he could. He smiled at her, a practiced smile that he long ago had learned softened women, made them open to him. “A night on my furs would cure yer shrewish nature.”

“It'll never happen. I'm one hundred percent seduce-proof, mister.”
Ignore the way he made you feel when he touched you, looked at you. This isn't real, so the feelings aren't real.
“The only thing a night on your furs would bring me is a sore back.”

Okay, so she wasn't being fair. No man could bring her pleasure. Her ex had huffed and puffed like The Little Engine That Could, and gotten zip for his trouble. “You haven't answered any of my questions about your work.”

She looked up at Ian Ross in time to catch his take-off-your-clothes-and-we'll-do-it-right-here smile. “I dinna
understand
any of yer questions. The Pleasure Master isna about
work.
'Tis a sacred duty.”

Kathy sighed. “Sacred duty. Gotcha.”

He frowned, reminding her once again that she was alone in a strange place with a man she didn't know. It paid to watch what you said, even to a brain-blip.

“Look, I'm sorry. When I get upset, I get sarcastic. I guess it's sort of a defense.” She smiled weakly.

He nodded. “What do ye care about, Kathy of Hair?”

She blinked, surprised by the question. “I . . . care about being a good person and raising women's self-esteem by giving them great hair. Why?”

“Then ye must understand what
I
care about, lass.” He paused at the top of a low hill where a sudden cold wind whipped his hair away from his shoulders in a dark cloud. “My great grandfather was carried off by pirates while still a lad and taken to the East, where he was sold to a powerful woman who kept many men for her pleasure.”

“A male harem?” Intriguing concept.

“I dinna know what ye call it. My great grandfather was her favorite, and she taught him the secrets of the Pleasure Master. At her death, my great grandfather was freed. He returned to the clan wi' a bed, two cats, and a knowledge of how to pleasure a woman like no other man.”

A hard smile touched his lips. “The duty of Pleasure Master falls to the first-born son. My brothers would deny it, but I am the first-born.”

His smile softened, warmed. “'Tis a duty I enjoy.”

“I bet you do.” Kathy drew in her breath. Wow, he was good. A five-alarmer with barely a lift of his lips. No false alarms here.

His smile faded. “My father has fallen in love and married. 'Tis forbidden. Now I am the Pleasure Master.”

“Right. Don't want any pesky love and commitment getting in the way.” She suspected her smile was bitter.

“Ye dinna understand. The Pleasure Master belongs to the clan. He canna serve the clan wi' a jealous wife getting in the way of his duty.”

“Well, pooh on her for not understanding. Jealous wives are the pits.” Ian Ross was
not
endearing himself to her.

His smile returned. “Ye must try me before ye mock.”

Try me.
Even the thought sent shocking ripples of heat to an area her ex-husband had left ice cold. “Think I'll pass on the offer. So, if your father is
the
official
Pleasure Master, why've you been doing his duty?”

He shrugged. “A Pleasure Master must prepare for years, know all there is to know—”

“Got it. Practice makes perfect.”

“But now my brothers have convinced the laird that they also have a right to the title, and though my father favors me, he must agree to a trial to see who is most worthy.”

“Sure. Gotta have the most worthy.” Kathy was barely listening as she processed the information and came up with a startling conclusion. “I think I missed something here. Your father has just now married for the first time?”

“Aye.” He lifted his gaze to the darkening sky, his hair tangling around the face of a dark angel. “I am a bastard, as was my father before me.”

“And how do you feel about that?” God, she sounded like her ex-husband in his sex counselor mode.

Ian stared at her. “'Tis expected.”

“Oh.” This whole thing was growing more bizarre by the moment. “So, do you have a son to—”

Suddenly, his attention shifted to the path behind them. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her behind several large boulders. “Someone follows us.”

No, no. She'd wanted him to keep talking. Somehow, it was important to know—“Following us? Who'd want to follow us?” Lost in his story, she'd forgotten for a while where she was, what had happened. Now the fear rushed back.

He put a finger to his lips, and they waited.

It didn't take long. Over the rise of the hill came Peter with Malin stretched majestically across his top. Peter's three short legs propelled him along at a surprising speed. When he finally reached the spot where they hid, he stopped and his amber lights blinked a welcome.

“'Tis magic,” Ian whispered.

“No, it must be some sort of tracking system.” Sighing, Kathy walked over to Peter. “My . . . kingdom makes toys that react to light and motion. Peter's pretty sophisticated. I'm surprised I got him so cheap.” She glanced nervously up at Ian, who'd emerged to stand beside her. “But it's not magic. No sorcery here. And I'm not a witch. Wouldn't recognize a witch if she whacked me over the head with her broomstick.”

A smile touched the corner of Ian's mouth, whimsical and totally sincere. And totally take-meto-bed dangerous. Kathy stomped down hard on all and sundry soft feelings toward him. Sacred duty, my foot. Nice life. Pass on the secret of joy, make a child, then move on. After all, Pleasure Masters don't marry. Convenient.

“Dinna fear me, lass. I wouldna care if ye had a caldron tucked beneath yer arm and a familiar attended ye.” He cast Peter a thoughtful glance. “My great grandfather told of many things that couldna be explained.”

He continued his trek down the path. Kathy followed wearily behind him, Peter chugging along cheerily by her side.

Where was Ian Ross going, and why was she going with him?
Because he's the only person you know, and what else do you have to do?

Now on top of everything else, she had to put up with a tiny tin man following her.
No Emerald City down this path, Peter.
Maybe he was looking for a heart. Maybe she'd give him Ian Ross's. Oops, mistake. Ian Ross didn't have a heart either.

Engrossed in her thoughts of doom and gloom, she smacked into Ian's solid back with a grunt. “Hey, give me a break. Warn me when you decide to stop.” Okay, she was being bitchy, but this situation called for a little bitchiness.

“Ye have a sharp tongue on ye, woman. I meant only to show ye the proof ye've demanded.”

He'd stopped at the crest of a hill, and the wind plastered his clothing against his hard body. His wide shoulders seemed to dare the elements as the gale swept his hair in dark streamers from his face. A face that matched the grim beauty of the stark hills surrounding them and the roiling storm clouds gathering overhead.

The primitive power of man and nature frightened her, and she looked away, down the hill to—

No.
It couldn't be. But it was. A village of stone cottages that could have burst from the pages of a history book. The few men visible wore the same belted garment as Ian Ross. No cars. No wires proclaiming electricity. No sign announcing:
HISTORICAL REPRODUCTION. AUTHENTIC PRIMITIVE SCOTTISH VILLAGE. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.

“Does yer New York look as this does, Kathy of Hair?”

Inexplicably, Ian's soft question acted as the lit match held to the powder keg of her denial, her brain-blip theory, her belief she'd wake and everything would be as it was before.

The trembling began in her soul and worked outward. Panic she'd managed to control behind a wall of logic exploded in waves of nausea. Her legs refused to support her and she sank to the rocky ground, still staring at the scene below. Tears streamed down her face, and she didn't care—not about the puffy eyes she'd have later, nor her loud embarrassing sniffles.

She sensed him. His heat, his scent. His arms wrapped around her, and he pulled her back against his chest. She heard the scrabble of his knees on the ground behind her, and her misery lifted for a minisecond while she worried about the pain of bare knees on pebbled earth.

The agony returned, and she clenched her arms tightly across her chest and rocked back and forth. She felt him move with her, then he turned her into his embrace and pressed her head to his chest as he sat back on his heels.

She burrowed her face into the rough wool and sobbed loudly, uncontrollably. Slowly, she slid down his body until her head rested on his lap. His voice murmured husky words of comfort in a language she didn't know.

And when she lay exhausted, drained of all the
tears she felt she could ever shed in a lifetime, he wiped her eyes with a cloth.

Only when she felt bare skin beneath her head did she realize he'd hiked up his wool garment, then used it to dry her eyes.