Spies of the Angui - Cipher's Kiss Book 3 Read online

  Another catastrophic explosion hit him, almost knocking him out of his mind. He had to get inside her. He had to take her and possess her. He had to experience everything about her, or he would die.

  Quick as a wink, he yanked down her underwear. Her garters held her stockings around her thighs and left her hips and ass bare, along with that mysterious triangle of heavenly fulfillment between her legs.

  At the same moment, she pulled up his kilt and steered him between her ass cheeks. The unbelievable softness of her flesh surrounded his aching member until it crushed the life out of him. He’d never experienced anything as overpowering as this.

  She angled her pelvis to welcome him in. If he ever hesitated, she commanded him to go where her delicate little fingers guided him. She knew what to do with a man in this position, and she did it.

  The next thing he knew, that cauldron of boiling elixir swallowed him whole. He groaned in mortal agony when he sank into her. Heat and moisture and dreamy pleasure cascaded all over him. It smothered his face in tingly sparks. It rained down his neck and chest to the dark patch where his bones knocked into her.

  He pried back her head and growled into her ear. She sighed and moaned at the stiff lance plunging into her deepest anatomy. He collapsed into her and stuck there. Shudders racked his muscular frame, but he couldn’t bring himself to withdraw, not even to stroke his burning shaft inside of her.

  She exploded in his hands, jerking against his arms. She would have torn herself out of his grip if he hadn’t clamped down on her. He couldn’t let her move. He wanted her there, exposed and raw and bare. He wanted her hot and quivering down his length.

  She moaned and tried to grind against him, but he held her still by cradling her head on his shoulder. One pulse of cataclysmic intensity rocketed up his body, radiating out from his root to the limits of his being. It filled him with incredible power. He could remain here forever in the shivering supernova of her desire.

  Her muscles rippled against his shaft inside her, but he still didn’t move. Some part of him sensed the secret spots along her channel where her nodes of power joined with his. The slightest adjustment of his position and they fused in an electric circuit that sealed her to him for all time.

  He stayed buried to his hilt in her core. She fought against his arms and screamed in ecstasy, but he refused to move. His power throbbed through her and returned to him through her lips and tongue.

  Just when he thought he couldn’t tolerate any more, she gave a violent spasm that almost ripped her free. She moaned again, and her every limb twitched and flailed at once. She crammed her ass back against his hips and gyrated her pelvis to meet his, and a sudden gush of nectar washed over him.

  The energy mounting inside him broke its banks. He pounded into her hard enough to smack her ass against his hips. They both exploded into movement at the same instant. He thrust into her repeatedly and she followed his rhythm, pushing her ass back to meet him plunging into her depths.

  She cried to the skies. Malcolm heard his own voice rising, and the tide of limitless desire rose with it. It crashed over him and smashed him to pieces as he unloaded all the centuries of buried, aching need into her.

  Chapter 17

  “What’s going to happen to us now?” Vic asked.

  Malcolm stirred in the hay behind her. They lay fully clothed in the perfumed sweat of their brief but earth-shattering encounter. He rolled his head on her shoulder but didn’t lift his face. His loose hair covered him and muffled his voice against her back. “That depends.”

  “What does it depend on?” she asked. “How are we going to get to America? I hope you don’t plan to travel the whole way in this crate.”

  “Aye.” He chuckled low. “That would be a mite uncomfortable.”

  “You just said ‘aye’ to traveling the whole way in this crate,” she pointed out.

  He shook back his hair. “I meant we’ll no’ spend the trip in this crate. Niall’ll keep us in here until we clear the Scottish coast. The British will be searching for us after he defeated the merchantman. If they capture the Prometheus, we’ll be safer in here.”

  “For how long?” she asked. “We could starve to death in here before anybody finds us.”

  “That’ll no’ happen,” he replied. “This crate is addressed to a business in Edinburgh. If the British take the ship, they’ll search the cargo and find us. Otherwise, the crate’ll get shipped to Edinburgh, where we’ll get out and go on our merry way.”

  Vic settled down and closed her eyes, exhaustion weighing her down. “It doesn’t sound like a very thorough plan.”

  “It isnae,” he agreed. “Boyd got the jump on me. I had to come up with a way to get ye away from him before ye turned on the Angui altogether. We’ll be out of this in a few hours. I promise ye that. If no one lets us out, I have a way to open the crate from the inside. We’ll no’ be trapped in here.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  He laid his head back down. “Aye.”

  She tried to relax and was starting to drift off when his voice startled her awake.

  “Do ye regret what we just did?”

  She spun around to face him as best she could. “I don’t regret it. Do you?”

  “No, lass. I dinnae regret it. I only hope ye dinnae.”

  She faced front again. “I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t have done it if I was going to regret it.”

  He breathed into her hair. “I only wonder if it was like this for Niall and Ree when they first met.”

  “Why do you bring them up?” she asked. “What do they have to do with this?”

  “I only wonder,” he mused. “None of the men have taken a woman in years. They dinnae like to unless they have to.”

  Vic snorted. “That’s a great way of putting it.”

  “I only mean they dinnae like to need to. Niall—he was married before—before the plague, I mean. Most of them were. They lost their wives, and they havenae got over it yet. If Niall got with Ree, it must be pretty serious.”

  Vic stiffened. What was he saying? “Are you saying this is pretty serious between us? Is that what we just did?”

  “I dinnae ken what we just did,” he replied. “Maybe ye have a string of studs back in yer own world.”

  She whipped around fast and smacked him in the chest. “You bastard!”

  He snatched up her wrist before she could deliver another strike. “Simmer down, ye harpy. I only meant I dinnae ken what ye have and what ye dinnae have. Maybe ye’re married already, or maybe ye dinnae fancy a man like me.”

  “If I didn’t fancy you, what we just did would be a fine way of showing it, don’t you think?” she fired back.

  “Lass,” he murmured, “listen to me a moment. I only meant I dinnae ken if ye want to be serious with me. It doesnae account for much what I want if ye dinnae. Do ye no’ understand that?”

  She whirled around again, refusing to answer him. Did she want something serious with him? The question had never crossed her mind. She’d acted on the spur of the moment. Apparently, he did the same. He’d never actually said he did or didn’t want anything serious. Why should he say what he wanted didn’t count for much? He must not want anything serious. That was why he let himself off the hook and put it all on her.

  She said nothing more. In a few minutes, he fell asleep. His shoulders rose and fell with steady breathing, and his chest touched her shoulder blades at the point of expansion when he inhaled.

  She still hadn’t answered her own question. Did she want him or not? Was this serious, or was it a onetime thing in the dark?

  She settled down and tried to sleep. His thick arm lay over her waist as he slept without stirring. He’d lived among the enemy for thousands of years. Did he ever really rest? Their current situation likely was the safest he’d felt in centuries.

  He hadn’t slept with a woman in all that time—not one he could really trust, anyway. Was she the first woman into whose hands he really put himself? That tho
ught alone brought back the deep craving in her to shelter the bruised heart hiding under his tough exterior.

  He grew up. He put on muscle. He became a broad-shouldered warrior with sharp eyes and unfailing senses. Underneath it all, he remained a scared little boy in desperate need of someone to protect him, to understand him, to come for him. He needed one person in this crazy world in whose presence he could relax and stop keeping a constant watch on his enemies.

  Was that her? Could she really be the one he needed? Did she want to be? She wished more than anything she could be. He deserved that if anybody did, but maybe she wasn’t the right person to do it. Maybe someone better would come along to fill that need in him.

  She burrowed into his arms and started to doze when, out of nowhere, a blinding flash of light shot into her eyes. Voices echoed all around her.

  Vic cringed back, and Malcolm jolted awake. She shaded her eyes with her hands. Workmen scurried all around the crate, prying back the lid to set it aside. Vic sat up, and when she looked around, she found herself in a warehouse. The men put their tools away as the foreman called orders in all directions.

  Vic stared at her surroundings. “Where are we?”

  Malcolm hopped to his feet. He raked his hair out of his face as he climbed out of the crate. “What’s the meaning of this? How did we get here?”

  The foreman checked some papers in his hand. “I dinnae ken aught about it. Ye were delivered yesterday, and we received orders to unpack ye. That’s all I ken.”

  “We were—” Malcolm glanced over his shoulder at Vic.

  She sat in the hay a moment longer before she got to her feet. One minute, they were on board the Prometheus heading for America. The next thing they knew, they were in this warehouse. Something drastic must have gone wrong.

  Vic approached the foreman. “I’m sorry, but there must be some misunderstanding. Can you tell us where we are?”

  “Ye’re in Stromness,” he replied. “This crate was delivered on a freighter not five hours ago.”

  Malcolm frowned, and he and Vic exchanged glances. Vic’s heart raced, but she tightened her fingers together to fight down her rising panic. They were back in Stromness! How did that happen?

  She caught a glimpse of Malcolm’s hands. He clenched them into fists, and his neck bulged, but he didn’t argue. What was the point?

  The foreman checked his documents again. “The gentleman who signed the orders will be here to collect ye both. Ye’re welcome to wait in me office if ye want.”

  “We’re no’ waiting,” Malcolm fired back. “We’re leaving. We didnae ask to be brought here. I dinnae ken who gave ye these orders, and I dinnae care. We’ve our own business to attend to. Good day.”

  He extended his arm to Vic and guided her toward the big double doors standing open to the street. He got two steps before a band of men appeared in the doorway in front of him. They blocked his passage and spread out inside the warehouse entrance.

  Vic’s gaze darted over the group. They all wore Gunn tartans and confronted Vic and Malcolm with hard eyes that gave nothing away.

  Vic braced herself to flee, but more men appeared behind her. They cut off any avenue of retreat. The workmen vanished and left these powerful Highlanders in their places. Every one of them carried several weapons, and Malcolm was unarmed.

  Vic cast a last glance around the warehouse, and her heart sank. They would never get out of here. Footsteps attracted her attention to the doorway again, and her mouth fell open when another man strode into view. He halted among his men and bestowed a placid smile on Vic and Malcolm. Her heart leaped into her throat at the sight of Boyd.

  Malcolm glared at him. “How did ye get here? I thought ye’d be at the bottom of the sea.”

  Boyd flashed his perfect white teeth. “Ye’d like to think I was, would ye no’? I broke out and swam for it. I dinnae ken how ye got away from the pirates. They said they would throw ye overboard.”

  Vic’s blood raged in her veins listening to this. Did Boyd suspect Malcolm was Angui? Did Boyd divine that was the reason the pirates spared his life? She observed the tension warring in Malcolm’s features. How could he get out of this without giving anything away?

  “They must have taken us prisoners on board their ship,” Malcolm suggested. “I woke up in that crate with Vic. We’ve been trapped in there goodness kens how long. These men just let us out, and I have no notion how we wound up back in Stromness. It’s naught I can explain.”

  “For some reason, the pirates dropped off the crate in the Port of Ness at the far northern point of the Isle of Lewis,” Boyd told him. “I cannae figure out why they kept ye alive in the first place. If they were threatened by the British, they should have dumped ye both. As it happens, they deposited that crate with the Harbor Master. It was addressed to the Guild of Caal in Stromness. That’s how ye got here. See?” He flipped over the crate’s lid to reveal the shipping label on top.

  Vic’s mind spun. Ned must have dropped off the crate and shipped it back to the Guild. Why? Maybe the British came after him. Maybe he thought Vic and Malcolm would be safer with the Falisa than locked in a crate in an open sea battle. Maybe he didn’t have time to unpack Vic and Malcolm and didn’t want them going down locked in a box. Anything was possible.

  She would probably never get the answers, but it didn’t matter now. Boyd was still alive and well after they thought he was dead. He was still Guild Master, and he would order Malcolm to send those teams to the future to intercept Ned and Ree and their friends. Under the circumstances, she and Malcolm had no choice but to go along with the act until they found a way to get free. She could only hope and pray Boyd stayed in the dark and wasn’t up to some scheme to trap Malcolm before slitting his throat.

  Boyd nodded toward the door. “Come along, ye both, back to the Guild House. We have that matter of the intercept teams to organize.”

  Malcolm stayed where he was and shot a fiery glare around the warehouse. “What’s the escort doing here?”

  Boyd waved to the men surrounding the pair. “I had to bring them along. I had to make sure ye didnae come out of that crate spitting mad and trying to kill everyone in sight. Ye just told the foreman ye were planning to leave, and I cannae have that when ye have more important work to do with the Guild. Now come along. We’re late for a luncheon date.”

  Vic stole a sidelong peek at Malcolm’s face contorted in rage, but she beheld the truth written there. Neither of them was going anywhere for the time being.

  Boyd motioned to the door.

  When Malcolm didn’t budge, the men surrounding the pair took a menacing step closer.

  “Now, now,” Boyd chided. “Let’s have no unpleasantness. We’re all friends here. Ye come along with me, Vic.” He cocked his elbow at her. “We cannae have this ugliness at a time like this. We must all work together to accomplish our common aim, must we no’?”

  Vic’s shoulders slumped. That was the end of that. She had no choice but to go with him. She laid her hand inside his elbow, and he conducted her out of the warehouse. A moment later, Malcolm came behind them with the Gunns covering his rear. The implications couldn’t be clearer. They were just as much prisoners now as they had been in the crate.

  Boyd guided Vic through the streets of Stromness. She recognized the buildings now and even some of the people. A curious sense of relief filled her spirit when she beheld the Guild House in the distance. At least she’d be comfortable there. She’d be a lot more comfortable there than she was in the crate.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The same fierce scowl marred Malcolm’s features that she remembered from her first days in this town. Boyd’s machinations turned Malcolm into a raging bear. The soft moments they’d spent in each other’s arms faded to a surreal memory. She couldn’t doubt she’d ever slept with him in that crate, and she could never tell Boyd, either. A lick of fear clamped around her chest when she thought about it. Boyd might suspect Malcolm was an Angui infiltrator. He might even suspect Vic c
hanged her loyalties in that crate. She could never let him find out she’d given herself to Malcolm. She didn’t want to think about what he would do if he found out. His slippery-smooth veneer told her he wouldn’t react well if he found out. His manners, his attentions, his consideration—they all hid something monstrous underneath, something evil.

  The more time Vic spent around Malcolm, the better she understood both men. No wonder Malcolm got so touchy when he realized Boyd was trying to seduce her to the Falisa side. Malcolm understood Boyd’s true nature better than anyone, and he didn’t like it at all. Vic fathomed the whole situation now. He wanted to keep her away from Boyd, and for good reason.

  Boyd cast his benign smile on her as he showed her up the steps and into the luxurious Guild House. “Och, here’s Maisie. She’ll show ye to yer old room, my dear, but first, I want ye both to join me for a wee spot of business related to our recent adventure—or should I say, misadventure—in Stornoway. I think ye’ll be particularly interested in this, lad. Come along.” He set off down the hall.

  Malcolm frowned, but he and Vic followed Boyd to the back of the Guild House. Boyd opened a door, and Vic stared down a rough wooden staircase, into the dark.

  Boyd tripped down and vanished. His voice drifted up to them. “Come on, ye two. Dinnae keep me waiting all day.”

  Vic searched Malcolm’s face for some clue about what to do, but he gave nothing away. He clenched his teeth, and his dark eyes smoldered in their sockets. In a few short hours, the gentle ease she’d developed with him in the crate submerged behind a solid brick wall of hate and defense. He glared at her the same way he glared at Boyd.

  At that moment, one of the men gave Malcolm a shove from behind. He stumbled toward the stairs, bracing himself to fight, but caught himself at the last second and headed down into the basement.

  Vic picked her way down too. A single lantern swayed from the rafters to illuminate a dank, dark hole under the Guild House. Her skin crawled, and she hugged her arms close around her chest. The other men descended behind her and closed the door on the outside world of sun and fresh air.