Page 39 of Dark Victory

“They don’t bother me,” Tabby cried, lying.

“He’s insane,” Randall cried, getting up, his face pale. Blood trickled from his nose as he ran to the front door. “He’s got damned ’roid rage!”

“What is ’roid rage?” Macleod demanded.

This was going to escalate, Tabby thought, panicked. She seized Macleod’s arm with both hands and held on for Randall’s life. “It doesn’t matter! He is leaving, Macleod. Just let him go.”

“It means that shit you take to make all that brawn is melting down your brain,” Randall spit. “Tabby might like going to bed with you, but intelligence is what really turns her on. I mean, can you even read?”

“Please don’t,” Tabby cried.

Macleod pulled away from her and started to cross the room, slowly, like a big cat lazily and confidently stalking its prey. “Only Latin,” he said. “An’, Randall? With me, she dinna fake it.”

It took Randall a moment. “What?” he said, turning to look at her, disbelieving.

Tabby felt her cheeks flame and she didn’t respond.

Randall choked, realizing she hadn’t been all that honest with him while in his bed.

Macleod was almost at the door. Randall seized it, flung it open and rushed out. He didn’t even go to the elevator, where he’d have to wait for it to arrive at the eleventh floor. He ran desperately for the stairs and vanished into the stairwell.

Macleod actually laughed. “What a puny man! What a coward!”

Tabby backed away, sinking down on a chair by the couch. She covered her face with her hands. She actually felt sorry for Randall. But he had called her a lying whore.

She heard her front door close. She felt Macleod approach, although she didn’t hear him—he was too skilled and his steps were soundless. Through her hands, she saw him holding out her keys. “Go away,” she whispered. Her mind was blank now, and she wanted it to stay that way. She was pretty certain that in a moment, she was going to think about every damned minute that had transpired in the past quarter of an hour or so.

He didn’t move. “Ye wanted him to leave.”

Her head ached terribly now. Don’t think, she begged herself. Just go to sleep and deal with this—with him—tomorrow!

“Ye despise him. He treated ye horribly when ye were his wife. Ye wanted him gone,” Macleod said flatly.

Tabby looked up. “Okay. I wanted him gone. But not that way.”

“Then what way?”

“I was going to ask him to leave politely!” Tabby screamed at him.

Macleod’s eyes widened.

Tabby covered her mouth with her hands. What had happened in that bathroom?

He had touched her and she had gone insane. One touch, the feel of him beneath her hands, and she’d been frantic and desperate and sexually crazed. She’d had a violent orgasm, right off the bat.

It always took her hours to climax, usually during gentle, thoughtful sex, with a good and very private fantasy thrown in.

What was she going to do?

He said, “He doesna respect ye and he wouldna leave if ye asked nicely.”

Tabby stood up and her knees buckled. Macleod reached out and steadied her. She struck his hand away, so hard it hurt her own wrist. His eyes were wide, wary, and he kept his hands to himself. “You treated him terribly! Rudely—violently. You acted like a…a thug!”

He was silent, but his eyes flashed with displeasure. Then he said, “I dinna like him verra much. He called ye a whore.”

She was close to tears. Now, images from their very brief encounter in her bathroom were replaying wildly in her mind. She’d tried to climb up his body! She’d clawed his shoulders—literally! His skin had to be under her fingernails. And had she begged him to do it? What was wrong with her?

“It doesn’t matter what he called me. You are violent, savage…bestial!”