Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“What are you reading?” Duncan rubbed a towel over his head as he walked back into the massive bedroom in the house outside Canterbury where they had returned after leaving Joshua’s cottage.
Carys lifted two books. “I found a copy of the Bible and the Quran in the library, but the moment I opened them, I started falling asleep.”
She’d collected a massive file of notes over the past couple of weeks, from the translation of the manuscript that Dr. Beck had given them in Oxford to a copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that she’d found in a bookshop in Scone.
She picked up Laura’s mobile phone. “I went online and found some information about Oshun because it’s been years since I took a class in African folklore, but I can’t print anything out and my eyes are so tired.
” She pressed the heel of her hand into her right eye.
“Maybe I can find a printer in the morning.”
“Carys.” Duncan wrapped a towel around his waist and sat on the edge of the bed. “What are you doing, lass? You don’t need to study; you need to rest.”
“This is all I can do though.” She stacked the books in a pile since her brain was too tired to read.
“I don’t have any superpowers in the Brightlands.
Cadell can’t help me be special here, so all I can do is research stuff.
” She threw up her hands. “And obviously I’m not even very good at that right now. ”
“You don’t need a dragon to be special.” Duncan’s voice was hoarse.
He lifted a hand to the small of her back and rubbed small circles.
They hadn’t made love since Jack Green’s cottage. And since then, they’d met an angel, chased off a bear, met a thatch-repairing messiah who doubled as a forest ranger, and nearly been trampled by a herd of bison.
Carys’s mind was a whirl of conflicting emotions, but after her breakdown in Joshua’s cottage, she was clearer about a few things.
“I’m in love with you,” she blurted. “You are kind and generous and strong. Physically, yes, but mentally and emotionally. You feel… solid. In the best way.”
His voice was soft. “Thank you, lass.”
“And you have this life that feels… massive—and I’m not talking about your money because I feel like that’s not something I should be thinking about even though it’s kind of right there and it’s hard to ignore, but that’s like… maybe the fifth most interesting thing about you.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “I cannae lie, I’m curious what numbers one through four are.”
She looked straight into his eyes. “Why do you love me? Because I honestly can’t figure that out.”
Duncan frowned. “Carys, what?”
“I’m not special.” She cleared her throat.
“I mean, it’s been made clear that on some kind of genetic level I am unique because of who my parents are, but if you take away the magic—because it doesn’t exist in our world—I’m just a somewhat cute adjunct college professor at a moderately ranked state college with no family and a Subaru in desperate need of new tires. ”
Duncan was still frowning. “If you need new tires, we’ll get you new tires. What are you even—”
“You’re special in the Shadowlands and in the Brightlands, Duncan. And you look like an advertisement for Visit Scotland too. I mean, you’re just…” She looked him up and down. “It’s almost ridiculous how sexy you are.”
There were drops of water on his shoulders, reddish-brown hair curled on his neck, and his arms looked like they were chiseled from marble. Carys had never seen a man as perfectly made as Duncan Murray.
“Why the fuck are you talking about the Scottish Tourist Board?”
“I just need to know that when all this is over…” She felt her heart racing. “I love you, and I need to know that you’re not going to fall out of love with me when I’m just my regular boring self.”
Duncan’s mouth fell open. He stood up, dropped the towel, and walked to the duffel bag on the settee.
His ass was glorious, and Carys was very afraid that this was the last time she was going to see it naked, so she made no attempt to hide her stare.
“You’re pissing me off.” He pulled on a pair of grey flannel pants and dug around in his plaid duffel bag. “Stop this nonsense.”
Murray plaid, of course. Because he was the freaking laird.
“I am not trying to piss you off, I’m trying to—”
“Are you fucking daft?” He spun on her, his face red and angry. “Are you really that fucking daft, Carys?”
Her stomach dropped, but her anger piqued.
“Apparently yes! You are an aristocrat who owns half of Scone and restores castles, Duncan. You know people who” —she looked around the room— “I mean, I’m fairly sure that this house belongs to James Bond or at the very least a British spy who travels all over the world. ”
“It belongs to my friend Jeffrey, and he’s a stockbroker in the city.
” Duncan threw his duffel bag on the ground.
“You are a college professor from California who was so determined to find her missing boyfriend that you crossed a fucking ocean and walked into a parallel fucking world.” He pointed randomly at a window.
“You have taken on a dragon, stood up to fae kings and mad queens, survived a kelpie attack, learned archery, and you know how to scare off bears, for Christ’s sake. Are you absolutely fucking daft?”
When he listed her accomplishments like that, Carys didn’t sound as boring as she had in her mind. “But those are all…”
“All what?” Duncan spat out.
“None of that stuff would have happened if Seren hadn’t died,” Carys said. “All the interesting things in my life happened because my Shadowkin died and Lachlan came looking for me.”
“And Frodo was just a hobbit until his uncle gave him a ring!” Duncan put his hands on his hips and glared at her. “Superman wasn’t super on his home planet, was he? He was just an ordinary guy. Alien. Whatever.”
Carys froze, and all the anger drained out of her. “You think I’m Frodo?”
“In the sense that you’re a small man with hairy feet?” Duncan growled. “No. In the sense that you’re a hero who stepped up when the world was in danger, absolutely.”
There were moments in life that Carys knew she would remember forever, and this was one of them.
Angry Duncan Murray, shirtless and superhot, standing in a bedroom straight out of a spy novel—she was not wrong on that one; the stockbroker story was a cover—had just told her she was one of the most heroic figures in modern fantasy.
“When I defeat the Morrígan,” she said softly, “and life can go back to normal, I really want you to move to California and maybe marry me. Or I could move to Scotland if you really can’t move to Baywood.
I’m pretty sure your mother is not going to like me, maybe ever, because I’m American, but if you’re okay with that, we’ll work through it. ”
Duncan walked over to her. “She’ll love you if you give her grandchildren.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you want children?”
“Yes. In fact, I was an only child, so I want more than one.”
“Brilliant. We’ll work out the details later.” He dipped down, lifted her in his arms, and walked her to the bed. “Right now I think I have to remind you why I fucking love you and think you’re the sexiest thing on two legs. ‘Somewhat cute,’” he spat out. “Are you fucking daft?”
“Are you still mad at me?”
“Yes,” Duncan growled. “Boring fucking college professor, Dr. Morgan? Did you really say that?”
She clung to his neck and peppered kissed on his shoulder. “But then you called me Frodo.”
He tossed her on the bed. “You’re going to have to drop that when I get you naked.”
She wiggled out of her sweatpants. “I can be Sexy Frodo.”
“Please.” He nearly snorted. “Please no.”
She quickly took off all her clothes and pulled Duncan onto the bed with her. She fell back into a mountain of pillows and then was covered with a mountain of a man.
A still slightly grumpy man who had decided to take out his frustration with her by pinching her very bare ass.
“Ordinary?” He pinched her and spread her legs, slapping the inside of her thigh lightly before he bent down and gave her a biting kiss. “I’ll show you ordinary, Professor Morgan.”
If the ferocity and focus of Duncan Murray between her thighs could only be provoked by anger, she was going to have to figure out how to make him angry on a semiregular basis.
He scraped his teeth up the inside of her thigh, from the knee to the soft swell of flesh just beneath her sex, then laved his tongue over her skin and sucked the tender flesh into his mouth, finally releasing it with a pop that Carys suspected was going to leave a bruise.
Then Duncan went and did the exact same thing on her other thigh, marking her with his mouth.
She was squirming under him, but he’d planted his elbows on either side of her body and had both his hands on her breasts, teasing the nipples to the point where she was practically weeping from frustration.
He lifted his head. “Tell me you love me.”
The words burst from her mouth. “I love you so much.”
“Good.” He gave her one long, slow lick up the center of her sex. “Now tell me you’re the sexiest woman in all the worlds.”
“Oh my god, I can’t.” Tears leaked from the sides of her eyes. “Duncan, please.”
“Yes, you can.” He murmured the words against her softest flesh. “Daughter of two worlds,” he whispered, “queen of my world. Tell me.”
“I’m…” Her entire body was shaking. “I’m sexy.”
“Fucking right you are.” His hand left her right breast and slapped the side of her hip lightly. “Tell me to make you come with my mouth.” He licked her again. “With my tongue.”
She was going to die, and then the bad guys might win, but she’d be dead, so who cared?
“Make me…” She arched up when he slapped her hip again and pinched her left nipple. “Oh God, make me come!” she yelled.
He gripped her ass, lifted her body to his mouth, and feasted on her.
The orgasm that ripped through Carys was so intense she felt her entire body seize, her muscles quaked, and her toes curled so hard she was worried she was going to break her foot.