Chapter 20 #2
“Sure. Or we can walk home, and cool off.” He felt her go up on her toes, and her lips gently kissed his cheek.
He knew he should do it, walk it off, but it was all too much, especially now that he knew the man was working out a vendetta, well outside his capacity as a banker.
It had been too recent that he’d needed to defend his clan, and now again.
Mark tha’, he thought, as this was different.
This time the man threatening them was mortal.
“What is it with men trying tae take the things I love from me? What I’d give to be a lone sod in a cubical in the city with every evening filled with pizza, beer, and movies.”
He opened his eyes then as she responded with a wry smile. “Been there—not as amazing as it sounds. It ends in antidepressants and wishing for a life like this one. Well, maybe not exactly like this one, but one with a little more action.”
“Fine, just a week of pizza and movies.”
“Done. Walk through the forest with me. Ethel said I need to try emptying my energies; the forest is a good place to try.”
Rowan was about to respond when she continued.
“Well, she said to get rid of my excess magic, but I think my scientific brain is still wrestling with calling it magic.”
“Same beast, different name, aye?” If he hadn’t been raised with the curse as his daily bread, then the thought of doing magic in a kitchen off the coast of northern Skye would have him thinking the lot of them was bonkers.
If Ethel said she needed to expend her excess magic, it was wise to heed the request.
She was quiet for a moment, and then her green eyes returned to curiosity. “So, tell me, on a scale of one to pissed, where are you about the Rembrandt?”
“I’m not drunk.”
“No, pissed as in, never mind, how about one to homicide?”
“Multiple homicide.”
Cole grinned, her dark humor the match to his. “We have the entire walk back for me to get that down to ‘cursing his good name.’”
Rowan scoffed and looked back out at the ocean, but Cole’s gentle fingers hugged his chin, bringing his gaze back to her steady one. “You doubt me?”
“This time, love. Aye, I may well be beyond saving from my temper this time. This time it’s a mortal human who’s trying to destroy me.
” He felt his fist open and close. It had the feel of Kelly and his father all over again.
The two who tried to take Cole from him just last year after the gala thinking they were the rightful heirs to the MacLaoch seat.
And with Cole’s hand in marriage, they could end the curse and bathe in the perceived MacLaoch riches.
Instead, they got a Lady MacLoach–class lightning bolt to the head and he got a bullet to the shoulder.
“Destroy? I don’t doubt it feels like that, but because he’s mortal, he has to obey laws. Eventually. We’ll get him.”
Rowan gave her a look.
“Don’t look at me like that. Between the two of us, I’m the one with the temper problems.” She gave him a soft smile. “Come.” She tugged on his hand, and he let her drag him toward the far side of the property where the MacLaoch forest began.
She waved to her brother and Peabody and pointed toward the woods.
TJ called to her, jogging a few paces closer, “Throw me the keys!”
Cole fished the keys out of her pocket, and Rowan snatched at them. Cole yanked them away and, with a laugh and the arm of a cricket captain, whipped the keys to her brother.
TJ caught them easily. “Don’t fall off a cliff!” he said and went back to Peabody who was now talking with Ethel at the back door of the church. When Ethel turned and saw Cole, she relaxed her hands, palms down. Rowan caught Cole nodding.
“Cole…” he said to her. “This is different. There’s no amount of corporate punishment that is enough for what he’s done. And what if he’s destroyed it?” The thought made his guts twist; he needed to bash the man’s face in until he told him where it was.
“Rowan,” she said and walked backward toward the forest. A smile he couldn’t place was on her lips.
“No,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m getting back to the castle now, and it looks like without ye.”
“Nah, come,” and her gaze squinted as if she were trying something.
Her palm opened toward him, and just as he was going to turn from her, crashing waves blew through his body.
He staggered back, his arms going out to center himself.
As he heard waves crash around him, the memory of Cole in his arms, in the water, washed through him.
He was making love to her in the loch, calming the fire in her veins with another kind of fire.
Her legs had wrapped around his middle and with a grip on her thigh and the other in her hair, he drowned himself at the altar of her love.
It was intoxicating to his senses, the icy chill of the water and the warmth of her body against his, and he remembered the way her hand dove down between them and undid his fly.
He remembered the way he plunged into her, making her head fall back with a groaning gasp.
Then thrusting into her until— Then suddenly it was gone.
Cole’s hands in the distance were relaxing down.
Her eyes were on him, and he was woozy with the ride.
It took him a moment to return to the present, but what was left was a settling in his bones and the onshore misty gusts.
It was as if his mind was clearly focused and derailed from his dark tirade.
The earth was beneath his feet, the love of the ocean was washing up his backside, and beauty and love swirled in his guts.
It was as if the anger he had been nursing formed a woven tapestry, and the threads had rearranged to show a different picture.
“Did it work?” she called to him.
“Fuck” was all he could manage. “Ye did tha’?”
“Yeah.” Then she sobered. “Are you all right? You didn’t get zapped or anything?”
She made her way back to him.
“No, aye, I’m fine. But just a moment ago, I was fucking ye in the loch.”
Her eyes went wide with satisfaction as she flattened her palm over his jumper front. “Well, then, I’d say it worked.”
Rowan blinked to clear the last of the dream from his mind, but the desire to be calm with her, to place ocean-wet kisses on her lips, lingered. “Aye, but now I want tae fuck you in the loch.”
Her grin returned. She nodded to the trail. “Let’s go?”
“Let’s, but I have to warn ye. I’ll not make it back to the castle with these feelings in my belly. You’ll have to run, if getting home is your aim.”
His words did as he’d intended and sparked mischievous joy in her gaze. “Oh, really?”
“Run like the wind,” he whispered over her lips, “because if I catch ye, there’s a cove halfway down I’ve a mind to explore. And it will be without yer clothes on.”