CHAPTER TWELVE #3
He’d stepped into his jeans, and she saw that he hadn’t bothered with underwear. He gave her a suggestive look as he jerked the zipper up.
She swallowed. All was forgotten. The video and his reaction to it, his destruction of his own home theatre, his nastiness and anger. “Where are you going?”
“Downstairs.”
Jan would be waiting for him. “Why don’t you give her what she wants? I mean info.”
He stared and there was no mistaking what he wanted. “I don’t feel like talking with Jan. I need a drink.”
She bet he did. So did she. It had been a long night.
Sam slowly wet her lips, which felt full. She knew what would happen if she stayed. She wanted it to happen. “Okay.”
“Did I ask ye to join me?” He was wry.
“Yeah, you did, with those remarkable gray eyes.”
“Ye just gave me a compliment?”
“You know how hot you are.”
His gaze held hers. “But that’s the point—I’m no boy,” he murmured.
Jan appeared on the dressing room’s threshold and looked back and forth between them. “I need half an hour before you two go at it.”
Ian seemed amused. The facade was back. “In case ye’ve forgotten, I’m not one of your agents. I’m not answering any questions.” He shrugged on a T-shirt.
Jan stiffened. “Sam? You debrief him, then.” She left.
Sam saluted her. She didn’t take orders from Jan, and she never would. She loved that Ian had dismissed her as he had.
They walked out of the dressing room and then his suite.
His heat was scalding behind her. There was so much power and so much virility.
But she was surprised when he paused at the elevator, clearly intent on using it.
He’d avoided it the other night. As the door opened and they stepped inside, she tried not to look at him.
From the corner of her eye, she watched his hands.
He didn’t toy with the T-shirt collar. He kept both of his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
He was in control, she thought. After everything that had happened, she didn’t know how he’d managed it, but he’d gone from a skid on black ice to all-wheel drive on packed dirt. She was amazed.
He led her into a salon she hadn’t seen before and paused before an intercom. “Gerard, can you bring Ms. Rose and I something light to eat?”
“Yes, sir,” Gerard’s voice replied.
Ian gave her a sexy look and went to a red marble wet bar. “I can open up a fine wine, or would ye prefer something else?”
Sam walked over to the bar, sliding onto a leather bar stool with antique brass legs. “That scotch looks good.”
He smiled. “It is good.”
He never smiled like that, without pain, anger or mocking sarcasm. As if he realized the slip of humanity, he turned away, beginning to pour two drinks. Shaken, Sam said, “I just spoke to Brie. As it turns out, she’s in Edinburgh with your father.”
He handed her a glass. “I know.”
She hesitated. “Do you visit?”
“No.” He sipped, apparently unperturbed.
She hadn’t thought so. She hesitated. This was going to be a damn good night. She didn’t want to blow it. She had so many questions about the monk, but that might set off a firecracker or two. “Tabby’s at Blayde with her soul mate, Macleod—a Master.”
He drained his drink. “Will ye visit?”
“I don’t know. She’s old and gray now.” Sam hesitated. “It would make me sad.”
He started, his gaze slamming to hers.
Sam felt like a fool. Where had that stupid comment come from? She was big bad Sam, not into self-pity parties. “She’s had an incredible life. There are children and grandchildren. She’s happy and I’m happy for her.”
He poured himself another drink. “But ye’d visit if ye could go back.”
Sam looked at her scotch. “Yeah, I would.” She looked up. Their gazes met.
“Have Nick send ye,” he said abruptly.
Nick wanted her to work Ian and locate the page, at least. Sam finished her drink and handed him her glass for a refill.
Their fingers brushed. She shivered, tightening.
Tonight was going to be off the charts, she thought, and she was glad she hadn’t brought up the sore subject of the monk to blow it. She smiled slowly at him.
He smiled back.
“I do have a question,” she said. “Why haven’t you tried to use the power of the page of illusion to fight our enemies?”
He was unsmiling now. “Ye like warring with evil. I don’t.”
“You lured the demon off the Internet so you could kill him for preying on kids. I think it was revenge. I think it was about what they did to you.” The moment she’d spoken, she wished she hadn’t.
They were having a quiet drink. It had been a hellish day.
He was hot and so was she. Sex was imminent. She didn’t want to awaken the tiger.
But he didn’t take the bait. He sipped. “Ye can think whatever ye wish, Sam. I only want sex. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, from that day in Oban.”
Her tension was different now, as if it were dismay. But that made no sense. Sex was all she ever wanted from a guy, anyway. Wasn’t it? “And now you have what you want, don’t you?”
“I have everything I want,” he said, nodding at the expensively furnished room.
Sam drained her scotch, suddenly feeling empty and deflated. Wanting more from Maclean was insane. “Is the page safe, Ian?”
“Am I a fool?”
“Will you still hold that auction Friday?”
He looked at her. “I meant what I said earlier. I’m going to make some calls later and find a buyer. The page will be history by dawn.”
She trembled. He intended to cut and run. “Can you please tell me where it is and reconsider this insanity?”
“So ye can tell Nick?” He laughed and poured them both refills.
Sam had had enough. She pushed the drink back. “I don’t get it. You’re not evil, so it’s not the power, and you don’t need the money. You have enough wealth to go around for a few lifetimes.”
“No one ever has enough power or wealth,” he said flatly.
What the hell did that mean? “You never cease to amaze me, Maclean. Those layers keep peeling away, and I never find what I expect. How much wealth and power do you want?”
“He thinks that with enough wealth he will be able to keep his freedom,” Rupert Hemmer said.
Sam turned and her heart stopped.
Rupert Hemmer stood there and he wasn’t alone. The monk of Carlisle was with him.
She glanced at Ian as she leapt to her feet. He was pale, but his eyes blazed with fury. She did not have her messenger bag with her. She had a minidisk strapped to one wrist, and a small dagger in her boot. There was a tiny razor in her bra. That was it.
She looked at Ian again. He was angry but there was fear in his eyes.
Ian, she thought. We can do this.
He didn’t look at her but he flinched as if he’d heard her.
Hemmer walked inside first. “Did you really think to get away with all that you have?” he asked both Ian and Sam. “I did warn you about my special friends. But I forgot to add that I am never crossed.”
Ian trembled visibly. His face was so hard and set now, it looked as if it might crack.
Sam stepped closer to him. She looked back and forth between Hemmer, so suave and urbane in his suit, and the monk in his dark robes.
“I don’t recall crossing you, Rupert. Last I recall, you were threatening me. ”