Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Sephie had previously only ever caught glimpses of the imposing Ranulf Drake. Usually when he was on his way to or from the village shop. The first time she’d seen him striding purposefully—and majestically—through the village, she had gasped and then hadn’t been able to breathe again.
Because both those words, imposing and majestic, accurately described this towering and ruggedly beautiful man.
He was six and a half feet of pure muscle: wide shoulders and muscular arms in a black leather jacket, defined chest and abdominal muscles beneath a black T-shirt.
He also had narrow hips, with long, long legs shown to advantage in fitted and faded denims, with black biker boots on his huge feet.
His slightly overlong hair was mid-brown mixed with gray streaks, his eyes a deep and piercing green, with a thick beard covering the squareness of his jaw.
Sephie had never really been attracted to older men, and Ranulf Drake looked to be in his midthirties, which was at least fifteen years older than her own age of twenty. He was also over a foot taller than her own height of four inches over five feet.
And yet…
From the moment she’d first seen him, Sephie had been drawn to him in a way she could never remember having been to any other man. He was so mesmerizing to watch, his movements both graceful and controlled, despite his size, that she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
There was also the fact that he was so handsome, he almost seemed unreal, those rugged good looks making Sephie’s mouth water and setting her pulse racing.
But there was something else about Ranulf Drake that made it impossible for her to look away from him. A compulsion that warned her if she looked away for even a second, he might disappear.
Which she knew was slightly ridiculous, but the feeling persisted anyway.
Her parents had only moved from Glasgow to the inn they’d bought in this quaint village in the Scottish Highlands the previous summer.
They had moved here after Sephie had returned to Oxford for her last year of studying European art at the university.
Which meant she had only managed to visit them in Scotland for the first time shortly before Christmas.
She’d been in the village for only a little over a week when she first saw Ranulf, along with his two brothers, when they had gathered in the inn with the other villagers about to go looking for a girl who had gone missing in the mountains.
Even then, standing with his two equally tall and compellingly handsome brothers—there must be some really powerful genes in the Drake family to have produced three such gorgeous and imposing men!—Ranulf had been the one whose appearance most called to Sephie.
Like a siren song, but to her, it was coming from a six-foot-six man whose height and build, along with those sharply etched features, most resembled those of a Greek or Roman god.
That compulsion to stare at him, out of fear he might simply disappear if she didn’t, would fade the moment Ranulf was out of her sight. At which time, Sephie would mock herself for being so melodramatic.
And yet the moment she saw Ranulf again, that same fascination to watch his every move would invade and take over all her senses. It was like an obsession. A gnawing hunger inside her that wanted to claim this man for her own.
Which was really odd when she had earned the affectionate nickname Snow Princess from both the male and female friends she’d made at university. They didn’t mean it in a derogatory way. In fact, her female friends tended to say it admiringly.
Sephie had shown she had absolutely no interest in dating any of the students, male or female, who had invited her out. She had no problem with going out with them in a crowd, but dating someone specifically had never appealed to her.
That disinterest had completely evaporated the moment she became aware of Ranulf Drake’s existence.
She had even walked through the snow one day to take a look at Drake House after her father had told her where the three brothers lived. She’d had no intention of actually knocking on the door and speaking to any of them. She had just felt the need to see the house Ranulf called home.
Except…to Sephie, it had looked more like a castle than a house, with turrets and towers and battlements along the top of the high stone walls. There was no moat surrounding it, but it was partly built into the huge mountain behind it, adding to its fortification.
She had easily been able to envisage Ranulf striding along those battlements, sword in hand, lord of all he surveyed as he fought off any and all intruders.
Even now, when there were so many other more urgent things for her to deal with, Sephie could feel that same compulsion to continue looking at Ranulf’s chiseled features.
She gave herself a mental shake, knowing she had been staring at him for far too long. “I was told to give you this, Mr. Drake.” She held out the sealed envelope she had been clutching tightly to her chest this whole time.
“Ranulf will do,” he stated in a gruff voice that sounded as if he didn’t speak often. It sent rivulets of ice-cold awareness coursing down Sephie’s spine. “Told, not asked?” he prompted shrewdly as he took the envelope from her.
Sephie instantly felt a tingling sensation where Ranulf’s fingers had briefly come into contact with her own.
A tingling which increased in heat as it traveled down her limbs and body before centering at her core.
The following fierce and pleasurable explosion of heat made her draw her breath in sharply.
Between her thighs now felt wet, the lips of her channel swollen, the nubbin above throbbing.
Dear God, she felt as if she was about to climax from just that briefest of Ranulf’s touches!
That feeling deepened as she stared at his large hands.
She was easily able to imagine how firmly they would grasp her curvy hips as he pulled her against his thick thighs.
No doubt she would then be able to feel what she was sure would be a cock that was fully in proportion to the rest of this enormous, muscular man.
Heat suffused her body at these uncharacteristic erotic thoughts.
She fought against those feelings as she swallowed before answering him. “Told,” she echoed.
Ranulf arched one dark brow. “By whom?”
The man who currently has my mother locked in the cellar of the inn and has tied my father to a chair in the bar with the ropes he brought up with him from the cellar. He’s threatening them both with bodily harm if I don’t do exactly what he told me to do!
But she didn’t say any of that out loud. Or, more accurately, she daren’t say any of it. Mainly because she knew the cold-eyed and unemotional man holding her parents prisoner meant every word he said, and she couldn’t risk Ranulf doing anything more than what this letter instructed him to do.
“I suggest you take the letter out of the envelope and read it so that I can take your answer back to the man who’s waiting in the inn,” she encouraged.
Ranulf’s head tilted slightly as he studied her with those deep green eyes.
For a second or two, just a brief moment, Sephie could have sworn she saw glints of silver flames flash in their depths. Which was ridiculous. Eyes of any color didn’t have something as ridiculous as silver flames glinting in them.
“How could you possibly know I would be walking through the village at this time of day and so be available to deliver the letter to?”
Sephie felt the heat bloom in her cheeks. “I’ve seen you walking to the shop or just through the village most days at this time.”
His eyebrows rose. “You have?”
She avoided meeting his gaze. “Yes.”
“Interesting.”
She kept her lashes lowered. “Is it?”
“To me? Very.”
“Why?”
“It just is,” he dismissed. “But you also shared my habit with whoever wrote this note?”
“Yes, and I’m really sorry I did.”
“You have yet to tell me your name.”
To Sephie’s chagrin, he’d still made no effort to open the envelope and read the note inside. “Sephie. It’s Persephone, really. Persephone Malcolm. But I prefer just Sephie.”
He tilted his head as he studied her more closely. “The queen of the Underworld.”
Her mouth twisted. “I prefer her other title, the goddess of spring.”
“Is that why you smell like strawberries and colored your hair the same pink as wild roses?”
Her hand lifted to self-consciously touch those shoulder-length pink tresses visible beneath the blue woolen hat she was wearing.
Along with a puffy knee-length coat in the same color that had looked good when she bought it in Oxford, but which really wasn’t doing very much to keep out the icy cold weather that she had quickly learned was normal for the Scottish Highlands in winter.
She had no idea how Ranulf managed to look so unconcerned by the coldness, considering he was only wearing a leather jacket over a T-shirt.
“I’m not wearing any perfume, least of all one that smells like strawberries.” She frowned. “You don’t like my hair this color?”
“Am I right in thinking that its natural color is what is called strawberry blonde?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, as if she had confirmed something relevant to him. “I don’t think my liking or disliking the color of your hair is of any importance, do you?” he dismissed.
The throbbing heat between her thighs began to fade, and her hand dropped back to her side as embarrassed heat suffused her cheeks.
What the hell was wrong with her? Even her body knew this wasn’t the time to feel so aroused by the man she found so dangerously attractive.
Dangerous?
Well, yes. Because, as well as knowing of her uncharacteristic reaction to this man, she had also very quickly realized there was something feral about Ranulf and his two brothers.
A wildness inside them, despite their aura of control, that seemed to be lurking just below the surface of their otherwise civilized appearance and behavior.
Right now, it felt as if that something was looking at her through those dark green eyes rather than with them.
Which, she told herself, was utterly ridiculous, even as the disquieting feeling persisted.
Ranulf’s chiseled lips now curved into a half smile. “Either way, the name suits you.”
“I—” What was she supposed to say to that? “Thank you,” she added awkwardly.
“As does the scent of strawberries,” he added in that gruff voice.
“I told you, I’m not wearing perfume.” She frowned. “I’m allergic to most of them, so I prefer not to bother.”
Ranulf made no comment on that remark, but his dark green gaze stared at her so intently, it seemed as if he was looking into her very soul.
She gave an impatient grimace. “Would you please read the letter I just gave you!” She glanced behind her toward the inn.
She couldn’t see, but definitely knew, that those narrowed and cold pale gray eyes would be watching her every movement from inside the inn. The notice the man had pinned to the outside of the door earlier this morning that read CLOSED FOR FAMILY EMERGENCY was clearly visible.
“Please,” she encouraged again urgently.
Ranulf continued to look at her even as one of his large fingers slipped beneath and broke the seal of the envelope before he took out the single folded piece of paper.
“Aren’t you going to read it?” Sephie prompted restlessly when he made no move to open the sheet of paper.
He arched one dark brow. “Do you know what it says?”
She winced. “Not exactly.”
“How not exactly?”
She grimaced. “I can maybe guess some of it.”
“Tell me.”
Tell him?
Sephie had no idea where to even start!