Page 137 of Dark Lover

Her body tightened. The attraction between them had been almost fatal from the start. She stroked his rough cheek. She loved Macleod now more than she ever had. “Have I ever been able to say no?”

He laughed and held her hard.

But in spite of the raging desire, she was afraid. What if she couldn’t find the magic they now needed? Had Moray come back for Aidan or for Ian? Tabby loved her cousin and her sister impossibly. Their battles were her battles.

Macleod sighed and looked down at her.

She looked up. “Malcolm and Claire vanquished Moray in Orkney in 1425—and he came back from the dead. We vanquished him a second time, in 1502. Guy, if he’s come back, maybe the rumors are true.”

Macleod released her. His face had darkened. “That he’s immortal?”

“And we are not. Not a single one of us.”

SHE WAS FINALLY ASLEEP, even though it was noon and the sun was pouring into his bedroom.

Ian looked at her and gave over to the impossible need. He ran his hand over her long, lithe, beautiful body. He stared at her striking face. His heart thundered, close to bursting. In her sleep, she sighed and stirred.

Sam Rose loved him. He threw himself onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, unsmiling.

Images from that night flashed. The doctor he’d so ruthlessly strangled. The monk, being attacked by those souls. Sam, pointing her gun at Carlisle’s forehead.

He shifted uncomfortably. His heart kept telling him to smile, to rejoice. But how could he? He was sick inside.

He closed his eyes. He’d been afflicted with the incessant memories since leaving the Brooklyn town house. It was as if he’d been freed yesterday, as if sixty-six years of pain and fear were engraved on his mind and in his soul. The monk was dead but he saw him so clearly, it was as if he stood before him. And his grandfather. He’d never forget the mastermind behind his captivity and torture. Moray made the monk seem kind. Moray made the monk seem human. Sam had said the helpless boy was gone and that he’d never be back, but he felt like that boy again.

He wasn’t going to rejoice.

Not now, and not ever.

She loved him.

It didn’t matter.

He couldn’t love her back.

He didn’t want to love her back.

Tears began burning beneath his closed eyelids.

He was damaged still. He’d always be damaged. There was too much in his past, too much pain, too many memories. He didn’t know what love was, didn’t want to know, even if a stupid part of him was pleased that she loved him.

He could never give her what she wanted. He could never do this.

He realized he was afraid all over again. No, he was terrified. When was she going to figure out the truth about him?

She’d realize the truth when she read his file.

He stared up at the ceiling but something was wrong with his vision, which was blurred. It was hard to think clearly, hard to breathe. Come hell or high water, he would still get that file and have every copy destroyed. He just couldn’t figure out how he’d do that now, when he had no leverage. But it wouldn’t matter. Sam was smart. She probably knew the truth, because she had all the pieces of the puzzle. She just hadn’t had a moment to put the puzzle together. Sooner, not later, she’d do it.

And then her confusion would end. She might think she loved him, but it was impossible. It was the sex that enthralled her—and that wasn’t even a matter of his own skill, it was the power and stamina he’d inherited from the gods. It couldn’t be anything else. He wasn’t kind. He wasn’t pleasant or charming. He had no morals, no code of ethics. He wasn’t a hero. A pretty face only went so far. It could only be the sex. He was not lovable. He knew that beyond any doubt.

No one loved him. Not now, not ever. Not even his father, because if Aidan had really loved him, he would have found a way to rescue him when he was that boy. He was unloved—as he should be. Men like him did not deserve love. He did not deserve love—he did not deserve Sam Rose.

He saw his entire life in his mind’s eye. It was a long, bleak, endless tunnel, one he traversed alone. The tunnel began with his imprisonment, a black hole of pain and despair. There was no light within the tunnel, not where it began and none at its end, to guide him out. There was no way out. He started to laugh, helplessly.

The tunnel was his Fate.

He stared down at Sam as she slept. She was the strongest, toughest woman he knew. Even in sleep, he saw and felt her warrior strength, the kind of strength even someone like him could rely on.