Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thea came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs when she heard the sound of voices. Which, considering the digital clock on the nightstand beside the four-poster in her bedroom indicated it was after midnight, seemed an unusual time for Fergus to be having a visitor.
Unless Fergus had been lying and he did have a girlfriend after all?
One who had arrived to spend the night after Thea had gone to bed?
She had managed to sleep this afternoon after taking the first painkiller, waking up in time to eat the dinner of steak and salad Fergus had prepared.
He was a good cook, the steak juicy and perfectly grilled, the salad having a mustard dressing that he told her he had made himself.
There was something very sexy about a man who enjoyed cooking, for himself as well as guests.
After Thea had complimented him on the meal, their conversation had become… Stilted was probably the best way of describing their discussion of the attractions of Paris.
Neither of them seemed inclined to talk about what had happened earlier. Thea was avoiding it because Fergus was, not because she regretted it.
Kissing Fergus had been the single most erotic experience of her life. Creating a fierce need that had almost burned out of control.
But Fergus’s distant behavior during dinner told her it wasn’t going to happen again anytime soon.
She had made her excuses and gone back up to her bedroom shortly after they had eaten. She’d showered before going back to bed and finally falling into a fitful sleep. Only to wake up again a couple of hours later, unable to return to that disturbed slumber.
Coming downstairs in search of a glass of water, she hadn’t expected to hear Fergus in conversation with someone.
Thea slowly walked in the direction of those voices, realizing as she drew nearer, and the voices became louder, that they were both male.
Not a girlfriend, then.
Then who?—
“Mag, will you shut up and just listen to me! You don’t seem to be appreciating the importance of what I’m saying.”
“I accept it’s important to you.”
“Because I feel as if I’m losing my fucking mind! I have to be to have kissed the daughter of the woman who once tried to blackmail me into marrying her or paying her off.”
The harshness of his tone and the truth of his words made Thea wince.
“Thea was a child at the time, and she certainly isn’t responsible for the actions of her mother,” the other man reasoned.
A man Thea realized had to be Fergus’s twin, Mag nus Wynter. As far as she knew, Magnus was in England. Which meant the two men were talking on speakerphone?
“Exactly, ten years ago, Thea was a child of fourteen, whereas I was already a thirty-two-year-old man.” Fergus sounded angry at that being the case.
“Did you want her then?”
“Don’t be a fucking pervert!” Fergus snapped.
“Then I don’t see the problem.”
“I did notice her eyes then,” Fergus admitted.
Thea’s attention sharpened.
“Her eyes?” Magnus repeated.
“They’re a rich burnished gold I had never seen before or since.”
“Nice,” Magnus appreciated. “Well, those unusual eyes now belong to a twenty-four-year-old woman.”
“A woman I kissed earlier and now can’t stop thinking about,” Fergus admitted, the sound of his voice now seeming to be moving up and down the room rather than remaining in one place.
Did that mean he was pacing?
“Did she kiss you back?” Magnus probed.
“I… Well… Yes, she did…”
“Then she obviously isn’t bothered by the past or the age gap.”
“I kissed her after she’d been hit on the head by a blunt object,” Fergus grumbled.
“And after she’d been examined by a doctor who said she didn’t have a concussion. In other words, despite what I might think about her mental state for having kissed you, Thea one hundred percent knew what she was doing when she responded to you.”
“Maybe,” Fergus muttered. “You and Sapphie have the same age gap. Did it bother you?”
“Of course it bothered me. But not enough to stop me from asking her to marry me and making her my wife. Because, at the end of the day, I love Sapphie and she loves me. In those circumstances, age becomes just a number that isn’t really relevant to the feelings the two people have for each other.”
“How the hell did you cope with this?”
“Define ‘this.’”
“At ten o‘clock this morning, my life, apart from my annoyance that someone was following me, was the same as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.”
“Boring?”
“I’m not bored, Mag. At least, I don’t think I was… Whatever I was,” he continued. “Just hours later, after speaking with and kissing Thea, I want to protect her at the same time as I can’t stop thinking about throwing her down on the nearest flat surface and thrusting my dick inside her!”
“That sounds pretty standard for this sort of situation.”
“Define ‘standard’ and ‘this sort of situation’?”
“You’ve finally met a woman you want physically but also want to protect and take care of. A woman who, according to Declan, you are flying back to England with on the company jet tomorrow. A woman whose safety you have assigned to our best UK team.”
“I don’t?—”
“When I met Sapphie, I followed her to Scotland in the company helicopter. When we had to travel to the US on the company jet to resolve her situation, I assigned our best team over there, headed by Knox, to protect her. You know my aversion to arachnids, and yet I now have one living with me full-time,” Magnus added self-derisively.
“Does this mean I’m as fucked as you are?”
“I doubt Sapphie would like you referring to the two of us falling in love as me being fucked,” Magnus taunted.
“But you’re going to tell her I said it anyway.”
“Of course,” his twin assured with relish.
“You’re a bastard.” Fergus groaned. “And you still haven’t told me how I’m supposed to go to bed and try to sleep, knowing Thea is in the bedroom just down the hallway from my own.”
“Have you tried sleeping?”
“Of course I’ve fucking tried!” Fergus snapped. “I want her too much to be able to stop thinking about her, which stops me from falling asleep.”
“You’re thinking about all of her?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was her arse you wanted?” the other man taunted.
Thea’s cheeks bloomed with heat at hearing someone else make that same comment about her bottom.
“And what the hell is that all about?” Fergus fumed. “I’m a leg man, always have been.”
“Obviously not when it comes to Thea,” Magnus reasoned.
“I can’t believe I said all those things to her after only actually speaking to her for an hour or so,” Fergus groaned.
“But you told me you’d noticed her, and her arse, long before that.”
Two days and three hours before that, in fact, Thea recalled.
“I did, but…” Fergus made a huffing noise. “Dear God, I’m supposed to be the suave and sophisticated one.”
“And I’m the rough and gruff one,” his twin acknowledged without rancor.
“Well, my suave buggered off hours ago and took sophistication with it.” Fergus sighed heavily. “God knows what Thea must think of me.”
“For admiring and wanting her arse?” Magnus mused.
“I said I wanted to bite it, not that I want it, per se.”
“Don’t you?”
“Maybe,” Fergus conceded guardedly.
“Have you ever had anal sex?”
“No, have you?”
“I’m a married man, which means I’m not going to answer any questions about my sex life,” Magnus dismissed lightly.
Fergus gave a heavy sigh. “What the hell am I going to do?”
“Well, from the sound of it, after you fly back to England tomorrow with Thea, you’re going to hunt down the person who has been stalking her and has now followed and attacked her in Paris. While you’re doing that, you also seem to intend to fondle and bite Thea’s arse as often as she’ll let you,” Magnus added conversationally.
“Have I told you lately what a fucker you are?” Fergus grumbled.
Magnus’s chuckle completely lacked sympathy. “I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying hearing my little brother squirm.”
“I’m only five minutes younger than you, you old bastard.”
“Which makes you my little brother.” Magnus stated the obvious. “What was Thea’s reaction when you told her you want to bite her arse?”
“She—”
“She was a little disconcerted at first,” Thea said as she entered what proved to be a study, from the presence of the large mahogany desk against one wall, several files cluttering its surface, and the other three book-lined walls.
She had become increasingly uncomfortable about listening in on the brothers’ conversation—especially when so much of it was about her—without their knowledge.
“But now I’m more curious than concerned,” she added huskily.