CHAPTER SEVEN
TABBY CRIED OUT as she found herself in his embrace.
He was naked, she was dressed, and she felt every inch of his huge, hard and very naked body pressing against her.
His power, masculinity and heat made her feel dizzy and faint.
Instinctively she pressed her hands on his chest, and the moment she did so, she went still, giving up.
His hands closed on her waist, pulling her up tightly against him. “Ye willna have any regrets,” he said roughly.
His loins strained against her. Tabby felt herself move against him in response.
She cried out, meeting his searing eyes.
How could she be doing this? But she was trembling wildly now, every nerve she had begging for release.
Instead of protesting, she slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders, using her nails to dig hard into his flesh as she did so. His mouth curled in triumph.
“Damn it,” she said, breathing hard. She caught his shoulders and held him fiercely, his skin catching under her fingernails, and she moved her thigh up, over his.
He laughed. The sound was smug and triumphant. She didn’t care. Clawing him, she tried to climb up him, not even realizing what she was doing. When she did, she was horrified, but only in her mind. Because her body was determined to ride his.
She wrapped her calf around his hip, digging her nails in deep. As she did so, their eyes locked.
He caught her hair, using it as a leash, and twisted her head backward.
Then he whirled her around, until her back hit the door.
He shoved his huge thigh between hers, and Tabby moaned, throbbing wildly all over him.
Still holding her hair, anchoring her so she couldn’t move, pressing his leg into her, he brought his mouth down on hers.
His lips were hard and aggressive, possessive.
He forced her lips open, took them over, moved his tongue deep.
Tabby felt all those new pulse points explode and she surrendered.
She let him kiss her so hard he was probably drawing her blood.
It didn’t matter. She was in a vortex, spinning toward that usually elusive brink, shaking wildly in his arms, her blood roaring in her veins, her brain.
Every inch of her was on fire. Now, she clung and begged. “Oh, God, hurry.”
He wrenched down her track pants, ripped apart her panties. With one hand he lifted her leg and pushed his huge throbbing length hard and deep inside her. Then he paused.
Tabby gasped, the wave of rapture beginning.
He strained inside her, filling her impossibly, almost painfully, so much so that she couldn’t move, not this way.
It was too much to take—he was too much to take.
He wasn’t moving, but she felt him pulsing inside her, every single drop of hot blood roaring in his phallus, in her.
She was vaguely aware that he was watching her, but she didn’t give a damn.
She was about to break apart and she wanted to go there, as she’d never wanted anything before.
He began to move, slowly, sensually, once, twice, three times.
Tabby broke. She shattered, clinging to him, as he drove hard now, brutally, intently, and she clawed him, demanding more. She wept in more pleasure than she’d dreamed possible. Her back found the hard floor. He suddenly went still, buried deep inside her.
She was still spinning away. Her orgasm seemed to be impossibly endless. And then he slid away from her.
“Tabitha.”
It took her a moment to realize that something was wrong.
Tabby opened her eyes, a semblance of coherence returning, and glimpsed Macleod, starkly naked, impossibly hard and so beautiful, on his hands and knees, posed over her.
What was she doing? “What are you doing?” she gasped helplessly.
“Come back!” As she seized his arm, she became aware of the door buzzer.
His gaze turned cold. “Yer husband.”
His words were like ice water. All insanity vanished. Randall had come back? Tabby stared at him, aghast.
“He has keys,” Macleod murmured, but now he looked dangerously pleased.
And Tabby heard the locks turning.
“CLOSE THE DOOR,” Nick said.
Sam did so.
“How’s your sister?” he asked.
“Upset. Can you blame her?”
“She’s a lucky lady,” Nick said. “Imagine that, a Highlander showing up just in the nick of time.”
Sam scowled unhappily at him.
He knew why she was upset. “Jumping to conclusions?”
“What do you think?”
He stared. In September when he’d gone back in time with Sam, they’d bumped into her sister and her husband.
Tabitha had been living in the past for over two hundred years.
It was her Destiny to go back, and it would be very easy to conclude that the man she was meant to go back with had finally come to the city for her.
That would explain his sudden appearance, both in the Big Apple and at school.
“If Mr. Tabitha is our Highlander, there’s no stopping either one of them. ”
“I know. I’m cool.”
“You look like you’re losing your best friend.”
Sam’s face tightened so impossibly he expected her skin to crack. “If it’s Macleod, I am losing my best friend.” Then she shrugged, forcing a smile. “I fight better alone. I won’t have to worry about Tabby and her spells going awry.”
“Bullshit. And, kiddo? You’re not alone.”
She met his gaze. “Don’t bother feeling sorry for me. I like being alone.”
He liked the lip; it was better than her mourning her sister, who was going back in time sooner or later. “Why not? You’re feeling sorry as all hell for yourself.”
“Fuck you, Forrester,” she said. She turned and seized the doorknob.
“What do you make of Kristin Lafarge?” he said to her broad shoulders.
She opened the door, closed it and faced him. “Evil. But so is half of this city, and she’s not demonic.”
“Really? Because I’m not sure she’s human.”
“It’s one or the other.”
“Is it? I’ve been at HCU for a long time, Sam, and I’ve seen my share of twisted, strange entities…and things.”
Sam absorbed that. “What do you want to do? Today was Lafarge’s first day at school. The fire alarms were dismantled before the boys took Tabby and the kids hostage. They knew her by name. This was planned. The burnings are never planned.”
He’d already reached the same conclusion. “Why would some demon-run subs hunt your sister?”
“I don’t know. You think they’re hunting her?”
“Mr. Tabitha will protect her—if he is Mr. Tabitha. And I think there’s a big fat chance she is being hunted, but not by brainless subs.”
Sam stared. “You know, because of what we learned about my sister, almost anything from any time might be after her.”
“Yeah. She’s a bit of a sitting duck. Because she has no idea that her life teaching little kiddies in Manhattan is about to change…drastically.”
“Why don’t I bring Lafarge in?” Sam said furiously. As she spoke, there was a knock on Nick’s door. “I don’t mind grilling her a bit.”
He felt Kit outside and told her to enter. As she did, he said to Sam, “Let’s play this out, see if we can use her. But let’s play gentle. We’ll tail her twenty-four/seven,” he said. “Leave her be, see where she leads.”
“Okay,” Sam said. She smiled grimly. “Being as you are the boss.”
He didn’t mind the acknowledgment, not from her, because when she was in the field she often ignored his very specific orders. However, she had great instincts, and this far, had managed to avoid his wrath.
Nick looked at Kit, who was clad in black pants, a black turtleneck and black boots.
As always, her dark hair was drawn back in a ponytail.
She was very fair, and even without makeup, she was striking.
Now she was holding a huge stack of what seemed to be enlarged glossies under her arm.
“Boss, I’ve come across something really weird. ”
He had to crack a smile. “Life is weird.”
“No, it’s major. I’ve been going over the videotapes of last week’s Rampage, the one on Eighty-first and Madison,” she said.
He knew which Rampage she meant. “And?”
“I found someone—or something. Something was there, during the entire event. It showed up as a really small, grayish blip. I zoomed in and the shadow got larger—the size of a small person. When I zoomed into the center of it, I actually saw two eyes and a mouth. Human eyes and a human mouth.” Her green eyes were wide.
Sam came forward. “Demons don’t show up on any kind of film except as black shadows, that we know of. If you could make out features, it wasn’t a demon.”
Nick felt chills begin. “What’s with the photos?”
“I fed Big Mama the features, to see if she could come up with a composite.” Kit grimaced. “But she was in a creative mood and she came up with a million or so possible faces.”
Big Mama was the agency’s supercomputer.
Sam said, “Ghosts photograph really well with the film we’re using. If it was a ghost, the entire face and body would be visible, but you’d see right through it.” That was because ghosts were the energy of dead humans, and they were trying to slip back into their human forms and lives.
Kit said, “I know. I’ve seen ghosts now and then, and not just on tape. They’re pretty cool.”
Nick knew she was referring to her dead sister. He’d actually caught her talking to Kelly a few times. Still chilled, he said, “Let’s see the goods.” But he knew what he’d find.
She handed Nick the top photo and Sam leaned close to look at it, too. “Well? It’s not human and it’s not a ghost. It’s not a demon. It’s not a sub. Subs cast shadows, without the sun. What the hell is that?”
He stared at the malevolent eyes, which stared back at him. Even in print, the eyes were filled with energy and hatred. “Oh, it’s a ghost, all right,” he said. “But not a human one. Just what we need—a demon that forgot to go bye-bye.”
TABBY JERKED to sit up, overcome with dismay. In that exact moment, she realized that she was half-naked on the bathroom floor, having just had sex with a stranger. No, with a medieval barbarian. Shock paralyzed her.