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“Aye.” He read her mind. “Taste me, love. I ache for it.”
Her lips trembled as she opened her mouth to take him. Her tongue touched his tip and he jerked. “God a’mighty, lass, you’re killing me.”
She smiled, swirled her tongue around him, and reveled in the salty pre-come that emerged. She kissed and nibbled and then prepared herself to take all of him.
Someone pounded on her door.
“Aw, fuck!” Damian jerked away from Suzanne’s mouth. “If that’s your cousin again, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”
Suzanne looked at her lover, crazed with passion and desire, and then she looked down at her own body, flushed with a fiery redness, her pussy swollen and wet.
Damn it, Isabella, why now?
“Just ignore it,” she said.
But the pounding continued. “Suze, it’s me. I have to talk to you. Please, I’ve been up all night. It’s extremely important!”
Damian stood up and headed toward the bathroom. “Go ahead and see to her. She won’t go away. We both know that.”
Suzanne ran up behind him, clasped her arms around his waist, and pressed her pebbled nipples into his muscled back. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” He placed his hands over hers and broke her grasp. He turned and took her into his embrace. “We don’t have the best timing, do we, mo cridhe?”
She laughed, exhilarated that he wasn’t angry. “No. We’re going to have to get better at this.”
“Aye.” He brushed his lips across her cheek. “I love you,” he said, “and I will make love to you. I need to.”
She nodded. “I know. I need it too. Later, okay?”
“Later.” He broke the embrace, walked into the bathroom, and shut the door.
The shower whooshed.
Again.
Suzanne pulled on a pair of sweats and a tank top. “What is it?” she demanded, opening the door.
Her cousin didn’t apologize or offer any explanation for her behavior, which puzzled Suzanne.
“Get dressed,” Isabella said. “We need to talk.”
23
“It’s a Book of Shadows,” Isabella said in response to Suzanne’s query about the heavy volume her cousin had plunked into her lap.
The two women sat in Isabella’s bedroom, a plate of sweet cakes and a carafe of wine between them. Cakes and ale, Isabella had said, from a recipe of Merlina’s. She had labored over them in the powerless kitchen of the castle and then promptly called an electrician in Thurso once dawn had broken. He was due later today to give an estimate and begin work.
“What’s a Book of Shadows?”
“It a witch’s handbook, of sorts,” Isabella said. “Each witch creates her own book, adding to it the spells she writes, her own special potions and tinctures, recipes, and anything else that’s important to her craft.”
“So your grandmother was a witch, then?”
“So it would appear.”
Suzanne sighed and faced her cousin. “So. You interrupted me this morning to tell me your grandmother was a witch? Jesus, Bell.”
“No, no, no. I would never do that.” Isabella stood, paced around the room in a semi-circle, and then sat back down. “But why would you care if I had interrupted you? Don’t tell me you changed your mind about Damian. Again.”
“So what if I did?”
“Oh, Suze.”
“Look. I know it’s a mistake. But it’s mine to make. I’ll only be here for a few weeks. Why not have some fun?”
“Because that’s not you, Suzanne. You don’t have fun.”
“Hey!”
“You know what I mean. You’ve never been able to separate sex and love. What makes you think you can start now?”
“I don’t know.” She smiled. “Maybe you could hex me or something.”
Isabella laughed and shook her head. “Oh no, you don’t. Magic doesn’t exist solely when it serves your purpose. You either embrace it in your life or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Maybe I’ll embrace it, then.”
“Nothing would make me happier, cuz, but I still won’t hex you. That’s black magic.”
Suzanne let out a sharp breath. “Whatever. Let’s get back to why you roused me out of an insanely gorgeous man’s bed this morning.”
“Okay.” Isabella sat down on the floor next to Suzanne and opened the second large volume. “The book you’re holding has all of Merlina’s spells and incantations, her recipes, etcetera. But this one…”
“Yeah?”
“This one was a complete surprise.”
“How so?”
“Well, there’s a detailed family tree in it, but you’d have no interest in that. There’s also a history of Padraig. Apparently—” Isabella cleared her throat. “We’re living in spook central.”
“Spook central?” Suzanne swallowed her mouthful of cake.
“It’s hard to fathom, even for a believer like me, so I know how fantastic this is going to sound to you. Apparently the little town of Padraig is a hangout for entities who are”—she cleared her throat again—“other than human.”
“Excuse me?”
“Vampires, for the most part, some ghosts, an occasional demon.”
“Oh come on, Bell.”
“I know, it’s crazy. But Merlina has a whole history in here.” She flipped pages of the book in Suzanne’s lap. “Evidently, the vampires aren’t a bad sort, in general. They’re just a different race. An ancient one.”
