Page 42 of Dark Seduction

It was so hard to think. She clasped her burning cheeks. She knew she had decided to avoid him sexually—and in every way—but none of that seemed to matter. What mattered was the gut-wrenching desire in her body, the moisture trickling down her thighs, the urgent throbbing of her distended flesh. What mattered was Malcolm. “Guess what?” she said thickly. “I’ve changed my mind—a woman’s prerogative.”

And he was reading her thoughts, because he darkened. “Dinna try to seduce me, lass, I won’t have it.”

“You really don’t want to go upstairs?” She was shocked.

“Ye’ve had too much wine.” He stared.

It finally clicked. He was still afraid she’d drop dead in his arms. “As powerful as you think you are,” she said huskily, “I am not about to die in your bed.”

His eyes widened. “Ye think I think that I killed the maid with my cock?”

She blushed. “I think she died of heart failure but I think you believe yourself pretty unusually endowed!”

He suddenly laughed, and the sound was warm and rich and beautiful. “Lass, that be sure an’ strong, but the maid died another way.” His smile faded.

Claire did not like the serious expression crossing his face. “I’d give a fortune for an espresso,” she said grimly.

“I dinna ken.”

“No, you wouldn’t know. Why are you looking at me as if a firing squad is standing behind me?”

He reached for her. Claire was surprised when he took her hand in his. “Ye dinna wish t’ ken the truth.”

Claire tried to pull her hand away. “You know what? I did have too much wine and I am damn tired. I am going up to bed. Alone…I guess.” She tried to stand, but he hadn’t let her go, and she wound up sitting on the bench again.

“In yer heart,” he said quietly, “ye ken the truth already.”

“Like hell I do.” Now she tugged hard, and he released her. “Whatever you want to tell me, it can wait.” She felt panic, and it was making her far too sober.

“There be no safe place to hide, lass, nay even in ignorance.”

A shudder of dread swept through her. “Damn you.”

“Ye wish me to hell?” He was incredulous.

She inhaled. “No.”

“Ye don’t want t’ ken the way o’ the world,” he said softly, laying his large hand over hers again. “I ken because I hear ye thinkin’ all the time, an’ ye choose thoughts that please ye. Ye need face the truth, Claire, about Sibylla and her kind.”

Claire couldn’t quite breathe. She knew she did not want to hear his next words. “Sybilla is unnaturally strong, that’s all.”

His grip tightened. “She licked yer skin. Yer throat.”

Claire cried out, leaping to her feet. “She’s a sicko!”

“Pleasure crimes be ancient history, Claire,” Malcolm said grimly, rising to his feet. He never let her go. “The Deamhanain be the source.”

Claire was shaking. No! Malcolm did not know anything about pleasure crimes—he had been reading her mind! Death by pleasure was the result of the breakdown of modern society. It was not a part of the Middle Ages, too.

“The Deamhanain have been killing the Innocent fer pleasure fer thousands o’ years, long before Christ,” he said.

She knew what the Gaelic word Deamhanain meant without having to be told. “I don’t believe in the devil and I don’t believe in demons,” she cried desperately.

“But yer mother an’ yer cousin were killed by Deamhanain…fer their pleasure.”

“Stop! Please! They were killed by madmen, human madmen!”

“True Deamhanain can take life from anyone. They can suck life from a human until he has no power left t’ live. But fornication adds to the pleasure.” His nostrils flared. “The rapture be called Le Puissance.”