Climbing the rungs of the ladder up the harbor wall, he followed her back to solid ground and resisted the urge to kiss the asphalt.
Her ponytail left a damp trail down her back that made her look vulnerable. She must be cold.
“I’ll walk you home.”
“No, I’m fine.” Sorcha backed away.
He followed. “I insist. I’m going that way anyway. I’ll even carry your bag.” He took the plastic bag from her fingers.
“Okay.” She finally laughed, her face lighting up as though she’d swallowed starlight.
And if he could get on her good side, get her to open up to him, he’d be way ahead of the game. It was a good plan. Better than watching the waves every day.
“That guy in the bar called you a witch…” he started.
Sorcha flinched, then began walking toward the main street with brisk strides.
“Hey.” He laughed at her suddenly grim expression. He was having a joke, sharing a smile, working her. “Come on.” He raised a palm upward.
She whirled, walking backward, crossing her arms tight. “You’re in Scotland now, and the funny thing is, they burned witches here in the seventeenth century.” Her eyes were full of pain. “And that doesn’t seem so very long ago to me.” She turned and kept going without looking back.
Jogging, he caught up and snagged hold of her arm. “Sorcha.” His voice was soft, gentle even. “For God’s sake, it’s the twenty-first century.”
She jerked out of his grasp and strode away, forcing him to move faster or get left behind.
“Tell that to the ten-year-old girl they tied to a stake and tried to burn.”
***
No matter how fast Sorcha walked, she just grew colder. A chill caressed her shoulders, fluttered across her skin, and she shivered. Ben shadowed her, making no further effort to speak and she was grateful.
The apparition of her father had led her to the edge of the cemetery where he was interred, but she’d lost her nerve at the thought of entering the graveyard. Too wired to sleep, she’d gone to make sure her yacht was ready for tomorrow’s excursion and had heard the panicked cry of someone falling into the harbor. She’d been half afraid she was hallucinating again and would find nothing beneath the surface except the gossamer-thin entreaty of a familiar ghost.
Ben might think it was funny, but she had no doubt that if she’d been alive in the seventeenth century, she’d have been fried to a crisp before she’d hit puberty. Hunching her shoulders, she put her head down as she passed the Raven pub, vowing to avoid Duncan Mackenzie’s lair in future. The town was dark now. The haar had lifted to reveal an argent moon that cast thick shadows across narrow streets.
At her front door she stuck her hand in her pocket and dug for her house keys. “Crap.”
Ben touched her shoulder. “What’s up?”
She turned and slid her shoulders against the smooth wood, pressing her back against the door. He stood close. Too close. She could smell the harbor in his hair, mixed with the heat of his skin. His expression was cloaked, giving nothing away. She didn’t trust him. Or maybe it was herself she didn’t trust. Not anymore. Not after her disastrous relationship with Bruce. Not after chasing shadows for so long.
“Carolyn had my keys.” Sorcha lowered her voice, not wanting the whole street to hear her business. “She’d lent hers to Kevin.”
“Ah. Kevin.” There was a thread of amusement in his voice.
“Met Kevin, did you?” The stab of disappointment was tempered by irony. The guy hadn’t got off with Carolyn, so he jumped in the harbor. Figured.
He stared at her as though he could read her mind and she shied away from the thought.
Then he leaned closer and whispered, “You could stay at my place.”
Okay, so he was a man, not a mind-reader. What did she expect?
His breath brushed her cheek. She closed her eyes for an instant, startled by the realization that this heightened sense of awareness, the way she tensed with anticipation whenever he came near, meant she was attracted to him.
And she
really
didn’t want to be.
“I don’t do consolation prizes.” Sorcha smiled tightly.
“What?” Confusion snapped his brows together.
She didn’t buy it. Ben Foley was a sharp guy. She didn’t have to spell it out for him.
She turned back to the door. Knocked quietly at first, getting louder with each determined bang. The scent of him wrapped around her as he leaned in close and whispered, “They’re probably too busy to hear.”
A coil of sexual awareness exploded through her body.
No kidding, they were too busy.
She propped her forehead against the coolness of the door. He didn’t touch her, didn’t connect physically, but the heat of him behind her was overwhelming. Sensations flowed through her body as she imagined him pressing against her, wrapping her up in those strong arms. Full body contact for a woman who’d gone too long without.
Bloody hell.
She sighed. “I’ll go back to the boat.”
“I’m five houses away.”
“I have spare clothes on the boat,” she insisted.
He held up the plastic bag full of her things, raised his brows. “I have a spare room. And clothes.”
She had no arguments left, except he was a stranger and she didn’t really know him.
A door slammed, loud male voices bouncing down the empty street like a drunken warning. All she needed was to bump into Duncan Mackenzie and his cronies at the witching hour.
She avoided Ben’s eyes by looking at his T-shirt.
Her
T-shirt.
At this rate they’d swap wardrobes in about a week. The idea made her smile and she looked up to find his intense eyes ablaze, as if her compliance was crucial. Her breath caught.
“Right.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. The fluttering in her tummy was excitement. Even though she was exhausted, even though she had to get up early the next day, and even though she knew better. “Okay.”
She followed him down the street and he waved her inside old Maggie Johnstone’s cottage. Ten minutes later flames bit into kindling and a blue-edged glow warmed the night, as it had the first time they’d met.
And again, the man with jet-black eyes prowled, restless and on edge.
An old upright piano stood against one wall. He lifted the casing and keyed a couple of notes. It was out of tune and they both winced.
“Always wanted to learn how to play,” he told her, not looking up from the battered instrument.
“Why didn’t you?”
He shrugged, his shoulders straining the seams of her old T-shirt. “No cash for lessons, I guess.”
She nodded. Money had been tight for her growing up too.
Silence stretched between them. Awkward. The fire spat and a spark flew onto the rug. Sorcha grabbed the fireguard and placed it in front of the flames. It would be just her luck for the place to catch fire. She shuddered.
He’d gotten her something to wear for pajamas and a big fluffy towel, and she clutched them uncertainly to her chest.
Should she feel disappointed or relieved he hadn’t made a move on her? She knew what she should feel, but disappointment won anyway. Had she misread that whispered heat? Probably.
Hell.
When it came to men she was more than blind. She was deaf, dumb and stupid.
Curious, she glanced around, taking in the computer, telescope and notebook. She had no clue what he did. “What exactly are you doing in Anstruther?”
For the first time, he looked self-conscious. Uncomfortable. “I’m a writer.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows stretched wide in surprise. “I would never have pegged you for a man of the arts.”
He stopped moving, the utter stillness of his body requiring absolute self-control. It was a little unnerving, like watching someone turn to stone. He stared at her with eyes so dark they didn’t even shine.
“Why not?” he said finally.
“You seem too…I don’t know.” She laughed, suddenly uneasy. “Too practical? Too
grounded.
”
“How’d you feel if I said you seemed too flighty and fanciful to be a scientist?” His tone held censure, as though she’d done him a disservice.
It was a fair point.
She frowned. “How do you know I’m a scientist?” He knew a lot about her, whereas she knew almost nothing about him.
He put his hands on his hips and examined the floor, raised his eyes to look at her from beneath heavy brows. “I asked Carolyn.”
She shouldn’t be taken in. She shouldn’t be so ridiculously pleased, but her ego had been obliterated during the past year and she was helpless against the tiny thread of pleasure that snaked inside. “You asked Carolyn about me?”
“What did you think we’d talk about?” He studied her without blinking.
Not her, that was for damn sure. She pressed her lips together. Thank heavens Carolyn didn’t know about her ghost or the voices in her head. She knew about Bruce, sure…“What
exactly
did she tell you?”
He walked toward her, his face unreadable despite the flickering orange firelight. A chill ran down her spine, and her body coiled in anticipation. He stopped an arm’s length away, and even though she tried, she could not look away.
“That you found your last boyfriend in bed with another woman.” His voice was soft, tender even.
“Ah.” Heat flooded her cheeks and she hid her face in the bundle of clothes she held, her nose brushing the softness of the towel. Honesty forced her to mumble, “They weren’t exactly in bed.”
She didn’t want to remember Bruce or how she’d naively told him her secrets, and how much she’d loved him. The sound of his hoarse cries as he came in another woman’s body still reverberated around her mind. The memory of smug satisfaction on the other girl’s face when Sorcha had confronted them still contained the power to stab deep and hard.
“Losers like that aren’t worth worrying about,” he told her.
“You had a lot of boyfriends cheat on you?” Her humor was weak even to her own ears, though his lips quirked
She
liked
that smile.
He lifted a finger to graze her cheek and softly stroked her jawline, a sensual journey that made her skin tingle and her pulse zip. He dragged his thumb over her bottom lip and drew it down. She held her breath.
Then he dropped his hand.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. A very long time ago, and right now she wanted to forget all her problems and kiss Ben Foley, and he sure looked as though he wanted to kiss her. But he didn’t move. Didn’t dip his head. Instead, he took a step back.
“You can shower first.” He walked over to his laptop and booted it up, putting the sofa and dining table between them. “Doesn’t matter what time I get up in the morning.” His cool smile was totally at odds with the heat of his touch seconds earlier.
Self-conscious, she ran a hand over her frizzy hair and grimaced, feeling as if she’d jumped him and he’d turned her down.
Maybe she had?
And he was letting her down gently.
Nice.
She wanted to kill him.
“Right. Thanks.” She walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, leaning on it until she regained her composure. It felt strange to be with a man she found attractive, and not even have the nerve to kiss him.
At least she’d learned something from Bruce.
Her watch said 12:30 a.m. She closed her eyes and groaned. She needed sleep, not kisses. God save her from men and hormones.
Ben stared at the door Sorcha Logan closed, squeezed his eyes shut and rested his forehead on the table. Using guile and seduction to obtain information was one thing, banging her was quite another.
It was not a line he could cross.
Hissing through clenched teeth did nothing to relieve the pressure that gripped his chest, nor the strain against his zipper. He’d been within an inch of laying one on her. An inch from blowing his career for the sake of a quick and easy screw. What was he thinking?
Ben smacked his fist down on the desk and even that didn’t convince him he’d made the right decision.
The sound of the shower captured his attention, and God help him, all he could do was stare at the bathroom door.
Jesus.
Now he got to picture her naked.
He put his hand over his face. Was it the thought of immediate sex that scrambled his brain? Or her sad eyes? Better yet, her do-me lips?
He jammed his fingertips against his temples. This was the perfect opportunity to investigate and get closer to her.
Remember?
That was why he’d invited her here. Not for sex.
He shifted uncomfortably and wished…what? That he was screwing her? Screwing his career?
One of the things he’d always prided himself on was his self-control. He was a loner. He didn’t need sex. He’d didn’t need relationships. He sure as hell didn’t need this complicated attraction to a woman who might have caused a bloodbath that killed his best friend and marred a perfect law-enforcement career.
He closed his eyes. There was a thump in the shower followed by a curse. Why the hell had she been the one to rescue him? And who’d pushed him in the harbor in the first place?
Did they know he was DEA?
And how had anyone in Scotland or Santayana’s compound known Jacob was DEA? That was one question that jabbed at Ben’s conscience. Had he inadvertently given Jacob away? Was it his fault that Jacob, surveillance geek—who’d never even entered Santayana’s mansion before that fateful day—had ended up riddled with hot lead?
Ben didn’t know.
Questions bombarded his brain until he wanted to hit something in frustration. Desperate for a distraction, he looked around the small living room. Spotted the bag of clothes he’d propped beside the front door. Sorcha’s gear.
Crouching besides the bag, he pulled out her long black cardigan and delved into the pockets. Found a small red wallet.
Rifling quickly through her bank cards, he noted there were no foreign cards. A British driving license, an Australian driving license. But no car.
Nuts.
Delving into the back pockets of the wallet he pulled out a couple of passport-sized photos. Sorcha with sun-bleached hair and some guy with a big stupid grin on his face. Probably the Australian loser.
Okay. Nothing.
He fingered the photographs for another second. Put the wallet back, searched deeper through the bag and came up with a Filofax. A small blue leather one. He flipped the diary to this
week and went through the entries. Nothing except school schedules. He froze, the sinking of his stomach colliding with the sound of the shower turning off.
Damn.
Tomorrow she was going out to the Isle of May to check up on her research project.
Double damn.
He stuffed the diary into her bag and moved back to his chair beside the window. Sat staring at the moonlight bleeding across the ocean as sweat glued the clothes to his back. Tomorrow, he was going to have to do a little phobia desensitization work. ’Cos it looked like he was going on a boat ride.
***
The bastard hadn’t drowned.
Unadulterated fear had been the only emotion to slip past the American’s impenetrable guard as he’d stared at the water. But he hadn’t drowned.
Sorcha had gone and saved the guy.
Shadows flared in his vision as he tried to contain his agitation. He was being forced to take risks he never usually took, and he still hadn’t found those journals.
Thrusting open the door of the squalid little building, he stormed through, slamming it behind him. He thundered up the first flight of stairs, immediately regretted warning the girl in the flat above.
The musty smell of damp and decay seeped into his senses, as much a part of the people who lived here as the crumbling walls and rotten carpet.
Cautiously, he pushed open the door to the apartment, listened to make sure they were alone, then closed it and slid the bolt home. He didn’t sense anybody else here, but not everybody was as transparent as little Evie.
Reining in his fury, he took another deep breath before getting his temper under control. Control was the key to his life.
“Honey, I’m home.” He nearly cooed with pleasure as inside his mind he saw her whole body tense up with agitation.
His baby. Picky little bitch.
He moved silently through the living room, then walked down a small unlit corridor to the bedroom. A low-wattage bulb illuminated the room with a cold white light.
A mattress sat on the floor in the corner and Evie lay shivering on top of a single sheet, a thin blanket drawn up around her scrawny shoulders. Black hair. White skin. Wide eyes surrounded by thick smudged eyeliner that hid the lost innocence of childhood.
“I wasn’t expecting you.” Her voice was reed thin, as though it might snap under his will alone.
He liked that idea. “Busy?” Prostitution wasn’t big in a fishing village like this, but she had her regulars.
“N-no.” Her body shook forcefully under his gaze. “Not tonight, I didn’t feel like it.”
Good. He wasn’t big on sloppy seconds. He shed his coat, unbuttoned his shirt, and her eyes skipped across his scars.
“I said I didn’t
feel
like it!”
He stilled his fingers as his mood sharpened. She was so dumb she didn’t know he controlled every decision she’d ever made, from spreading her legs for her first customer to smoking a joint to numb the experience.
Hard to stop being a whore when there was nothing else you were good at. He smiled as she started to tremble. That’s what he’d made her believe. Since she’d been a timid twelve-year-old servicing him with blowjobs every time she was too scared to go home.
Well, he’d protected her, hadn’t he? He’d got her brother to walk under a bus just by planting the thought inside his thick skull.
Ungrateful little hussy.
Narrowing his gaze on her emaciated frame, he realized it wasn’t cold that made her shake. She had the DTs. Weak. So friggin’ weak. She needed control.
He owned it.
Picking up his jacket, he retrieved a small baggy from his pocket, rubbing the silky package between thumb and forefinger.
“Trying to kick your nasty habit?” He gave her his angelic smile and her eyes lit up with a mixture of despair and longing.
“N-no.” She licked her lips and her eyes followed the white powder the way iron filings tracked a magnet.
Power made him hard and he laughed louder.
“Do you feel like it now?” Not that he cared. He tilted his head as if her answer mattered.
Hysterical laughter rose within him as her head bobbed eagerly, even though her thoughts told him a different story.
She dropped the blanket from her shoulders. Two small white inoculation scars stood out against pale skin. Uglier scars lined her forearms, but something about those innocent childhood marks of protection made him want to close his eyes and pretend the world wasn’t a dirty, dangerous place where only the pitiless survived.
She held out a shaky hand, almost begging for the oblivion a little bit of blow would provide.
He palmed the bag.
Almost
wasn’t good enough.
“Take off your clothes.” He catalogued her thoughts with ease, anger burning along his veins because she wasn’t as meek and obedient as she pretended to be.
I’m cold! I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to touch anybody ever again. Ugh, that dirty old man this morning. God! I can’t get the taste out of my mouth. But coke…Aw, I don’t want it, but it’ll warm me faster than any blanket. And it won’t take long.
“Not long, darlin’, not long at all.”
She raised a pair of thinly plucked brows at him. She’d never figured out he could read every thought in her little head.
Eyes locked on the drugs, she slowly pulled her vest over her head. Turned away to unbutton her jeans and dropped them and her panties to the floor. He moved behind her. Put his hand across the base of her spine and forced her to bend further. Unsteady, she grabbed the bedside table while he unbuttoned his jeans and pulled out his cock. He probed the head of his penis into her dry folds and pushed.
“Aow!” she cried out as he thrust forward. Grabbing her shoulder and hip to stop her getting away from him, he dragged her back and ignored her shrieks.
“Get off me!” she screamed.
Slick sensations of pure need swamped him. He squeezed her breast and pumped away from behind.
Jerking free, she fell to the floor and turned toward him on her knees. Her arms covered her small white breasts. Rage made him want to lash out, smack her on the side of the head, but he held it all inside.
“I don’t like it from behind.” Her voice was threadbare. She paled visibly when he shrugged and started pulling his trousers back up.
“Where are you going?” she asked, as if she had a right to question him.
Stupid slut.
Darting back and forth, she searched for the coke. Panic stretched the skin around her eyes wide, her eyeballs bulging in frantic desperation.
He reached for his shirt. She lunged for him, her small fingers clutching his wrist.
“Don’t go.” Her eyes were frenzied now. “I can do something else.”
His hands stilled as if he was listening to her words rather than the thoughts that scattered inside her dimwitted skull. She licked her lips, distaste barely hidden in her eyes.
He let her unbutton his fly and slip her hand around the length of him.
Give me that coke! I need it. I want it. Nothing else helps…Oh God, Oh God. I hate it. I hate men. I hate—
Blanking his thoughts, he smiled into her eyes. She hesitated, her lips an inch from his cock, and he twitched at the image.
Christ! For once in his life he wanted somebody to actually want him. To really
want
him. What was wrong with women? If they knew how rich he was, they’d be all over him. Women were lying whores, and if they weren’t lying whores they were vicious hags.
Finally her lips opened and she took him inside her moist little mouth. But he could feel her reluctance in every professional sweep of her tongue. Every hard suck.
Why couldn’t somebody love him the way they were supposed to?
With a growl, he thrust Evie away and she sprawled onto the mattress. He shucked his jeans, pulled the baggy of coke from his pocket and watched her makeup-blackened eyes follow it to the bedside table.
She was too stupid to know real fear. Needed a fix more than she needed her soul.
“Get on all fours,” he commanded.
“I told you, I don’t like it from—” Furtively she glanced at the baggy, sweat gleaming on her temples despite the temperature of the room. Without finishing her sentence, she turned on her front and crouched on her knees like a dog.
Maybe he could get her to bark.
He came up behind her, wrapped his fingers in her greasy hair and tipped her head back to look at him.
“If you say one word, one single word, you don’t get anything, understand?”
She nodded, dislike overwhelmed by desperation. He nudged her knees wider apart and pretended she was somebody else. He rammed into her and took her hard, nearly shoving her head into the wall. His hand tightened on her hair. She tensed and panted, but didn’t say a word.
Despite her silence all he could hear were her internal shrieks and moans. Complaints. Christ almighty. Pumping viciously, he tried to ignore the noise.
Aow! Bastard! Get it over. Please. I’m cold. I need a fix. I’m going to be sick. I can’t stand this. I’ve earned it, you tosser.
“Shut. Up.” He pushed her face into the pillow, tried to drown out the noise, the screams, the ridicule. Her hands started to flail, one fingernail scoring a line across his knee.
I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.
Finally, finally, his lust drowned out the tirade of criticism and noise. Excitement took over. Breathtaking tension spread from his tight balls to his clenched teeth.
The sweet, sweet, promise of release filled him, pounded into him, a blast of white-hot energy that purged his mind of every other thing. And finally he was alone, finally it was just him and pleasure and the single-minded fervor of sex. It rocketed through his dick, spread out until sensation filled his whole body and he came in a glorious scream that echoed throughout the quiet room.
Slowly, after a few seconds of enjoying the moment, enjoying the peace, he realized the silence was total.
He looked down.
“Shit.” The stupid bitch was dead.
***
Sorcha’s eyes opened instantly.
Where am I?
The drumbeat of her heart was so loud it bounced off the walls. Damp fear coated her skin in the chill morning air. Her mouth was dry, her breathing jerky and shallow.
Then she remembered. Ben Foley. The cottage.
Slowly her fingers relaxed.
She’d been having the same dream for months now, of burning in a sea of flames, but somehow the threat seemed more real this morning. She’d felt her skin melt, her flesh char, the delicate tissue of her lungs sear. And no matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t escape.
Cold now, she shook the sensation off. It was only a dream. She wouldn’t let it scare her.
The dreams, combined with her father’s ghost, made her feel as though she was losing her grip on reality. Being accepted into the graduate program at St. Andrew’s University had seemed like fate. She’d thought maybe her father wanted her to come back to her childhood home, to learn about her roots. So she’d come home. But his ghost hadn’t disappeared and she didn’t know what to do. Being haunted had her strung tighter than a gallows’ rope.