The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning Page B

kind of clothing she wore, what lingerie got the bliss of cupping her breasts and slipping between the curves of her bottom, what soap and scents caressed her silken skin. He’d examined photographs, opened her luggage, and studied what things she’d deemed too precious to leave behind when she’d packed to run. And each discovery had made him want her all the more; she was shiny and bright and ripe with mortal hopes and dreams.
    The
Books of the Fae
had been a laugh. Well, except for the volume that so grievously maligned him. But he’d been rectifying that.
    The slender tome had made him out to be the foulest of the Fae. It had portrayed him as a consummate liar, a trickster and deceiver, a cold-blooded, arrogant seducer who cared for nothing but his pleasure in the moment.
    It was no wonder she’d fought him so fiercely, no wonder she’d so swiftly dismissed his word. The Devil himself hadn’t fared worse in literary history.
    Still, he could do without words; he would speak to his
Sidhe
-seer through his actions—select, carefully chosen ones. He’d learned long ago that it was the tiniest of details that seduced, the most delicate of touches that brought the mightiest to their knees.
    Christ, he thought, staring down at her, she had to be hot in all those clothes. Her house was overly warm, even on the first floor where he’d been working online. Another thing he would do something about for her.
    He’d had no luck finding anything about Circenn’s whereabouts in any of those databases humans were so fond of compiling, but he’d not truly expected to. His half-Fae son could be not only anywhere but any
when
. It was entirely possible he’d taken his wife and children back to the Highlands, to his own century and a simpler way of life, where he might stay indefinitely.
    But no matter, Circenn would show up eventually.
    And the day had been productive in other ways; he’d planted many seeds that were already taking root. Not the least of which was a simple shirt.
    She’d done her laundry tonight; he’d heard her.
    But there’d been no explosion. No shouting, no insistence that it would be a cold day in hell before she washed his clothes. Not that he’d intended her to. He discarded clothing once he wore it and took new.
    Stepping deeper into her room, he silently slid open a dresser drawer. Then another. And another. Until there it was. His T-shirt. Neatly folded in her bottom drawer, hidden beneath a pair of sweats.
    A smile curved his lips.
    He closed the drawer and walked over to her closet, opened it, and glanced down at her laundry basket. As he’d thought, she’d not washed what she’d been wearing today. A pair of panties disappeared into his pocket. “Quid pro quo,
ka-lyrra,
” he murmured softly. “You get a piece of me; I get a piece of you.”
    He shut the closet door and stared down at her again. His body was strung tight with lust so intense that the mere wanting of her was a thing to savor. All his senses were inflamed, and he was suddenly feeling things that, if ever he’d once felt, he’d long ago forgotten.
    By Danu, he thought, inhaling sharply, he felt
alive
. Vibrantly, acutely, perhaps one might say . . . passionately alive. The simplest of experiences were suddenly so savory, so rich in nuance and complexity. Merely choosing his clothing each morning at Saks held new fascination for him, as he selected them with an eye toward her reaction, learning what she liked to see on him. What made her eyes widen, her pupils dilate, her lips part just a bit.
    Leather. She definitely liked leather.
    He knew what he would see on her, once he’d smoothed that bristly spine of hers.
    Nothing.
    Her nipples hard and wet, glistening from his tongue. Her bare ass cupped in his hands as he raised her to his mouth. That same ass flipped over and raised for—
    A low growl built in his throat. Clenching his teeth, he forced himself to step away from her bed. Not yet.
    She would soon come to