“I’m not a coward,” she said from the bathroom, finding it as luxurious as the other that she’d used when she shifted and dressed in the borrowed clothes. This one was all in black and white streaked marble, the counters and the floor in solid black stone, and the shower in white. She ran her hand over the cool, sleek marble.
She peered out of the bathroom at him as he now sat on her edge of the bed, smiling at her in the most wicked way, his chest and legs bared, his erection outlined as it stood at attention underneath the satiny fabric of the boxers.
She said, “I’m trying to protect your reputation.”
“My reputation,” he said, his voice taking on an even huskier tone.
“Oh, aye,” she said, attempting to copy his delightful brogue.
“It’s already in tatters.” He smiled at her.
She chuckled. “Which has nothing to do with me, and I want to keep it that way.”
He cocked one brow. “It has all to do with you.”
“It has all to do with your cousin Flynn.” She glanced around at the bathroom and realized she didn’t have any clothes with her here. She would need to either get them out of the guest bedroom and return here, or shower over there.
Flynn wouldn’t bother her now that it was daylight, she assumed. If he had meant to get her and Cearnach together, he’d already done so.
She left the bathroom.
Cearnach stood in front of the bed, stretching his muscles, his brows raised as he watched her, probably wondering what she was up to. She tore her gaze away from his muscled chest and arms, perused the bulge in his boxers with interest, and curbed a smile. He was just too sexy for a morning wake-up vision in the flesh.
She waved to the guest room across the hall. “I’ll use the one in the guest chamber since my clothes are there.”
“Ah,” he said, giving her rumpled appearance a long, fascinated look. “I’ll escort you down to breakfast as soon as you’re ready to go.”
At least no one was about when she left his room and rushed across the hall to her chamber.
She closed the bedroom door, then hurried into the bathroom to take a shower. The guest room was well equipped with travel-sized soaps and shampoos, packaged guest toothbrushes, and mini tubes of toothpaste, perfect for a guest whose kin had stolen her suitcases. After brushing her teeth, she pulled off the gown and tucked it over the gold bath towels on the towel rack, then entered the glassed-in shower stall.
She was in the middle of soaping her hair with the sweetest-smelling lavender shampoo, the hot water sluicing down her body making her nearly moan with pleasure, when she felt a hand brush across a nipple.
She screamed, opening her eyes at the same time, and realized too late that the soap was running into them. She saw no one in the second of reprieve she had before her eyes filled with tears mixing with shampoo.
Rubbing frantically to get the burning shampoo out of her eyes, she heard the door to her chamber open.
“I’m all right,” she called out to whoever it was, suspecting it was Cearnach since his room was so close and he was so protective.
Footfalls moved across her chamber, headed for the bathroom anyway. She still couldn’t see, her eyes tearing up as she continued to try and wash the soap out of them.
“Elaine,” Cearnach said, standing outside the glass door of the shower stall.
She shook her head, barely able to see him through her stinging eyes. He was wearing a towel, soap in his hair and a scowl on his face. She shoved the door to the stall open. “Come in.”
“What happened this time?” Cearnach asked, sounding annoyed with what he suspected was his cousin’s unsettling her, but then he caught sight of her naked body covered only in a light coating of soapy water. He dropped his towel on the countertop, then stepped into the shower and closed the door.
“I don’t think he wants me here. Not the way he keeps hassling me.”
Cearnach moved in behind her and began to wash the shampoo out of her hair, gently, lovingly as if they were already mated. He didn’t say anything as she continued to try and wipe the soap out of her eyes. They felt better, but they still stung and tears reappeared as they tried to wash away the sting.
Yet something about his protectiveness, his wanting her—his pheromones were so hot she could smell them over the scent of the shampoo, the water, him—the way he was declaring his interest, yet not pushing until she agreed, and his tenderness touched a need so deep that she couldn’t deny she also wanted him in a desperate way.
“What did he do?” Cearnach sounded angry, although he was attempting to couch that anger.
His voice broke the magical spell he’d cast over her.
She hesitated to tell him, afraid he’d be so furious that he’d want to exorcise the ghost, and she didn’t want that. She supposed, as far as spirits went, Cearnach and his kin were family and Flynn deserved some happiness. Not that she wanted him touching her.
“Elaine?” Cearnach wasn’t saying her name as a question but more as a command. “Tell me. What did Flynn do to you?”
“He touched my breast.” She was thinking that Flynn had to be a breast man. Or… had been. Well, still was.
She heard Cearnach gnash his teeth. He didn’t touch her, beyond rinsing out her hair, and she finished washing, then cast a look over her shoulder to see him watching her, rinsing out his own hair, looking primal, but not with regard to her, she didn’t think. More that he was ready to kick a Highland ghost’s butt.
“Thanks, Cearnach. Sorry,” she said. Then she frowned. “No one heard me, did they? I mean, they were probably miles away in the kitchen.” She hoped.
“I met Ian in the hall and told him I had this under control.”
While Cearnach had been naked, wearing only a sheen of soapy water, shampoo in his hair, and a towel around his waist? Not that she’d want Ian to come to her rescue in the state she’d been in.
She groaned and left Cearnach to finish washing by himself, grabbed a towel from a rack, and wrapped herself in it. There was no going back. One little near car collision had changed her life. No—the first time she’d met Cearnach, she’d felt the intrigue, the desire, the need. He had been like a dark wolf angel when she first met him, although she was not sure of his intentions. Yet deep down she had known he was the kind of man she needed in her life.
Looking like a man with a mission, his brown eyes nearly as black as coal, Cearnach exited the shower stall, water dripping all over his skin. He retrieved his towel off the counter and wrapped it around his waist, his gaze fixed on hers. “I believe we have rather a situation here.”
“Situation,” Elaine said, leaning back against the counter, holding her towel closed, and observing the intense look on Cearnach’s face.
“Aye.” He was studying her, watching her expression closely, which meant he was coming to some sort of conclusion that he was worried she wouldn’t like, she thought. “I believe Flynn wants me to stick close to you. For whatever reason.”
“Ha!” she said. “I’ve never heard of anything so crazy in my life. Your dead cousin is trying to matchmake from the grave?”
Cearnach smiled a little at her words and shrugged. “Maybe. I can’t think of anything else. When he’s bothered the other lasses and they bring it to Ian’s attention, Ian threatens to exorcise him. It always works. Flynn lies low for days, weeks, months even. Sometimes he goes somewhere else to dally with the lasses. He’s never continued to pester the same woman right after we’ve taken him to task for it. Certainly not twice in a night, and then bright and early the next morning. Not like this.”
“What if he’s doing so because he wants you to leave me alone since I’m kin to your enemy? Maybe he’s really concerned for you and wants to chase me off.”