Highland Protector (MacCoinnich Time Travels Book Five) (19 page)

“Someone in the room is kidding
herself. I don’t buy that, do you, Amber?”

Amber shook her head with a laugh.
“Nay.”

Selma stood and waved them off. “You
guys are crazy. Jake thinks I’m a crazy witch, nothing more.”

“You’re not a witch,” Amber told her.

“I know that. Whatever. I’m sure he
won’t kiss me again. Ever.”

Amber?
Gavin called her name.

She stood and started for the door.

“Hey, where are you going?” Helen
asked. “It was just getting good.”

“Continue without me. Gavin’s waking.”

Amber turned to leave the room and
heard Selma say, “Wow, that’s some serious bond.”

Amber slid into her bedroom to find
Giles asleep in the chair. When the click of the door sounded in the room, his
feet slid off the bed and onto the floor, waking him.

“Kincaid?”

“’Tis Amber.”

Giles glanced at the bed. “He’s not
awake yet.”

“Almost,” she assured him. “Would it
be too much to ask for some tea when he wakes?”

“Tea? Yeah, sure. Though I know he
likes coffee.”

“That may be, but tea, something weak,
would be best after so many days of not eating.”

Giles shook his head. “Of course.
I’ll make it.”

He moved to the door.

“Helen and Selma are downstairs. They
can help you find what you need in the kitchen.”

He looked at Gavin again. “You sure
he’s waking up?”

Amber sat on the end of the bed,
rested her hand on Gavin through the covers. “Aye, I’m certain.”

Giles left the room without any more
questions.

I’m here.
She told Gavin through their bond.

His eyes fluttered open slowly. His
gaze found hers, and his dry lips moved into a grin. “You’re alive.”

“I told you I was.”

He moved his lips together a few
times, frowned. “Water?”

Amber jumped off the bed and rounded
it to help with his request.

He inched up to lay against the
headboard as she brought a glass to his lips. After a few sips, she sat the
glass back down. “How do you feel?”

“Like I took the wrong end of a
blaster.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

“Yeah. How long—”

“Three days. One day longer than I.”

Gavin reached out and touched her
cheek. “I thought I was too late. I thought you were gone.”

“You didn’t have to bond with me.”

“I couldn’t let you die.”

Aye, you’re too honorable for that.

“It’s more than that,” he said aloud.

A knock on the door saved her from
further conversation and offered a distraction. “Come in.”

Giles walked in with a tray and set
it on the dresser across the room. “Decided to join the living, Kincaid?”

Gavin stretched with a wince. “Not
sure how alive I am.”

“More than you were a few minutes
ago. Gave us all a good scare.”

“I hope you and Simon can hold
everything down for a little longer. I think standing is going to be a
challenge.”

Giles lit the room with his smile.
“We will. Damn good to see you awake, mate.”

Amber busied herself with Gavin’s tea
once Giles left them alone again. “Sugar and cream will help replenish your
system,” she told him. When she turned she paused. His stare moved through her.

“You didn’t have to bond to me,” he
said in a soft whisper.

“I couldn’t let you die, either.”

Chapter Twenty

With the excitement of Kincaid waking
and making his way downstairs the next morning, Selma was able to slip out of
Mrs. Dawson’s home without any fuss. She knew the moment Amber and Helen
remembered their conversation about her concerns about lover-boy with love
potion number nine gone wrong, they’d be on her about staying at the manor.

She pulled into her parking spot,
looked around the lot, didn’t see anything out of place, and walked to her
apartment.

Her apartment looked exactly as it
did when she left the day before. The light on her answering machine told her
she had a message, but instead of listening to it, she tossed her purse on the
kitchen counter and worked her way to the shower.

With her favorite satellite radio
station filling her room with music, Selma managed a pair of panties and a bra,
and then remembered she left the hamper with her clean clothes in the living
room where she’d folded them the day before. She was towel drying her hair as
she walked around the corner.

The man standing in the middle of her
living room brought a scream to her throat. “Son-of-a-bitch.”

Jake’s eyes ran down her nearly naked
torso with an appreciative smile.

Selma pulled the towel to cover
herself. “What the hell are you doing here?” Her heart lodged in her throat.
“How did you get in here?”

“I have my ways,” he told her with a
grin.

“Touché.”

His eyes were still taking her in. He
dressed in jeans and a tight fitting short-sleeved shirt. The stubble on his
chin was shaved bare, and damn it, she could smell his clean skin from where
she stood.

“W-why are you here?”

When he stepped closer and dropped
his smile, she moved away. She didn’t have far to go before she felt the wall
at her back.

“I didn’t kiss you because Lindsey watched
us.”

He towered over her now, his
expression unreadable.

“Temporary lack of good judgment
then?”

He moved within an inch of her and
slid his hand into her wet hair.

Selma sucked in a sharp breath.

“Maybe.”

He was going to kiss her again. She
saw his dedication to the task in his eyes. Before she could remind him they
didn’t like each other, the towel in her hand was yanked free and his lips
covered hers.

Every reason to push him away churned
through her mind, but she couldn’t do it. Jake had one hell of an intoxicating
kiss and she forgot to breathe, forgot to think. That had never happened
before.

I must be crazy horny.

From the bulge pressing into her
stomach, she wasn’t the only one.

She considered saying no for half a
breath, and then she reached up to his shoulders and hopped into his arms, her
legs circled his waist. He chuckled under his kiss and pushed against the wall.
She was wet, instantly, and her mouth opened to feel the length of his tongue
aside hers.

Breathless, she motioned toward her
bedroom with a nod.

Without words, he carried her inside
and fell onto the bed with her.

Jake’s fingers made quick work of her
bra, his mouth captured her breast in a near painful, but oh so enjoyable bite.

Selma rolled him over, tugged his
shirt off and tossed it on the floor. He was not a doughnut-eating cop, or if
he was, he worked out enough to keep himself in shape.

She found herself under him again, and
her panties met his pants on the floor. With her heart racing in her chest, she
couldn’t think beyond how amazing Jake felt pushed against her bare skin.

They rolled on the bed so many times
she wondered if they were fighting for dominance.

There was no talk, no chatter between
lovers. It was raw, urgent, and when he finally pushed into her, fully naked
and completely focused on bringing them both pleasure. Selma felt a little part
of her hard edge toward the man soften.

She came three times before he called
out her name as his release gripped him.

Too stunned to speak, she sucked in
one breath after the other.

Jake collapsed on top of her, his
lips pressed against her neck as he struggled to suck air in his lungs.

She lifted her chin and felt him hold
her closer. Talking to Jake about her feelings, emotions she couldn’t even name
now, wasn’t in her. So she used the only weapon she had with him. Humor.

“That’s one seriously impressive concealed
weapon you have there, officer.”

He laughed a gut laugh that reminded her
he was still buried deep inside her.

She started to pull away, but he
wouldn’t release her. Instead, he used his weapon on her repeatedly until she
cried mercy.

When they fell in an exhausted heap,
the sheets tangled, her skin raw, and her insides humming, he said. “God, I
needed that.”

“You and me both.”

He lay sprawled in her bed and turned
to look at her. He packed some serious guns under his hard-ass exterior. She
wanted to tell him how much she liked the view but didn’t want him getting any
squishy ideas about them. No, this was physical…incredible, but just a release.
They hardly talked to each other, for God’s sake.

His gaze softened, and she tore her
eyes away. “You’re not going to get over analytical about this, are you?”

“Guys don’t analyze sex. That would
be the girl’s job.”

Good!
She patted his hand and shoved off
the bed. “I need caffeine to analyze anything. Think you can manage a pot?”

His eyes lingered on her bare ass as
she left him in her bed and made her way to the shower.

“I can make coffee.”

She winked at him over her shoulder
and ducked into the bathroom.

Alone, Selma looked at herself in the
mirror, hardly recognizing her reflection. She lifted her chin and peered
closer at her neck.

“The brat gave me a hickey.” The
purple love-bite would be hard to hide in summer clothing. The last time
someone had placed a mark on her like that was high school and back then, it
was a badge of honor, now, not so much. She was so damned relaxed after her
horizontal time with Jake that she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She showered quickly and slipped into
a summer dress before following her nose to the kitchen.

Jake had fumbled through the cabinets
and discovered the coffee cups. He’d found his pants, and left his shirt off as
he padded around her space. It would be hard to look at him from across the
room and not remember the expression of bliss as he moved over her.

Don’t go getting squishy, she warned
herself.

“Find everything?” she asked him.

He poked into the refrigerator. “You
take cream, right?”

The fact that he knew, made her
smile. “Yeah, top shelf behind the milk.”

He pushed the milk aside, dug through
some of her containers of chilled herbs, and removed the creamer. “What is all
this stuff?”

“Office supplies,” she told him with
a straight face.

“Witch’s brew?”

She laughed, not offended in the
least. “You could say that.”

He closed the door with his hip, and
poured her a cup, mixed in the cream, and handed it to her. Selma mumbled
thanks and sipped.
Not bad.

Jake leaned against a counter. “You
really believe in all that stuff?”

“What’s surprising isn’t that I believe
in it, but that you don’t. You’d think after everything we’ve seen, you’d be
onboard by now.”

“Believe none of what you hear and
only half of what you see.”

She’d heard him say that line before,
sipped her coffee and grinned. “Fine. About the half that you’ve seen?”

He ran a hand through his disheveled
hair, his smile fell. “It’s hard to fight what you don’t know. I’m used to
fighting bad guys with guns and bad breath, not Druids who turn into animals or
pop in from nowhere. It’s damn unnerving.”

“I get that. But as unnerving as it
may be, it is real.” To make her point she turned on the light over the sink
with her mind.

He eyed it but didn’t flinch. “I
believe that. Crazy as it is, but potions, spells?” He shook his head.

Baby steps, she told herself.

Jake crossed the room and set his cup
down, took hers from her hand and set it aside before laying one hand on the
counter to box her into his personal space. He eyed her neck, and licked the
sensitive spot he’d placed there earlier. He reached around her, turned off the
kitchen light. “I can turn things off, too.”

She leaned into his lips as shivers
ran down her spine. “You turn things on well, too.”

He grabbed her waist, hoisted her on
the counter.

Selma leaned back, catching herself,
and accidentally hit the answering machine.

Her voice echoed in the room, telling
the caller to leave a message while Jake traced her collarbone with his tongue.

“You’re insatiable,” she told him.

“I don’t hear you saying no.”

And he wouldn’t.

The beep of her machine ended and a
cold, deadpan voice froze them both.

“You think you can hide from me,
bitch? Yeah, that’s right…your home phone number was easy…so was your address.”

Jake’s grip on her tightened as they
both stopped all movement.

How did he get her unlisted number?
Her address?

“What the hell is that about?”

****

Everything in Kincaid’s world was
upside down. Amber never left his head. Her thoughts, her words, emotions. Everything
was only a thought away. By morning, he was able to leave their room only to
find everyone in the house staring at him, wanting to know his intentions. The
fact he knew their thoughts, their needs, itched under his skin, and made his
head want to explode. Was this what Amber dealt with for years, and with so
many others?

To make matters worse, his body felt
as if it had been pulled behind a hover-bike without a net for a hundred miles.
He hoped to hell the relative peace he’d managed for the better part of a week
would continue. He didn’t need any unexpected battles, or he’d have to shelter
Amber and himself until he was strong enough to fight.

Instead of inviting chaos, he holed
up in the library with Giles and suffered his friend’s concerned state.

“Stop staring at me,” he finally told
the man.

Giles shook his head with a laugh.
“Can’t help it. We thought you were going to die. Then when you didn’t, I
realized how dramatically your life has changed. Makes a man think.”

“My life isn’t so different.”

“You’re married to a MacCoinnich,
Kincaid…an original. Not some descendent passed down through bloodlines over
hundreds of years. But the daughter of Ian and Lora. Good God man, do you have
any idea what that means?”

Kincaid crossed his arms over his
chest. “It means I’m sworn to protect her.”

“It means we’re all sworn to protect
her and your children for generations to come. Your own power will grow with
your bond, and you were damn near untouchable before your vows.”

That he knew. Perhaps that was why it
was taking him so bloody long to recover from his brief illness. He’d not
experienced anything close to near-death in all his years of battle, in all the
lives he’d taken.

He didn’t want to think of the boost
to his gift or the weight of hers that had been with him since he first grasped
her hand. Instead of addressing his abilities, he spoke of what didn’t have to
be. “There are no guarantees we’ll ever have children.”

Giles laughed outright. “You’re
bonded. It’s only a matter of time.”

“We hardly know each other.”

“Yet you’re married.”

Kincaid couldn’t argue that. “Still.”

“You were attracted to her before we
found her.”

Kincaid stood, ignored the slight
spin of the room, and walked along the wall of old books. “If bonding has
sealed our fate of many years and children, why don’t your books talk of us?
Why didn’t you find any word of us in the future?”

“I haven’t found a word about Simon
and Helen, either.”

“Who would know of them other than
us?”

“Good point. Maybe I’m the one who
needs to write their story…and yours,” Giles suggested.

“Maybe.” Yet if he did, there would
still be a story told somewhere.

“If your story takes place from this
time forward, there wouldn’t be any evidence in this library today.”

“And if we all return to our time,
the story hasn’t been told yet.”

Giles stood and rolled the ladder along
the wall of books. “Would you want to read your story? Know your future? If you
knew what would happen between you and Amber, would you have come to this
time?”