Dark Lover (11 page)

Sam looked closely at her. She'd just embarrassed her. Although she was in her midtwenties, sometimes Kit acted like a virgin. “He's into sex, Kit. And with me, he'll use it as a weapon—if he can.”

“He's really attractive,” Kit said.

Sam grimaced. “Until you get to know him.”

“And you do?”

She sobered. “No, I don't. In fact, I bet no one knows him—and he wants it that way. But he's in the game—a game we have to win.”

“Is that it? Or are you just a wee bit intrigued by all that brooding sex appeal?”

“He's hot but I am not intrigued.” Kit was staring skeptically now. “I shouldn't want to know what makes him tick, except as an agent. I know that. But, Kit, I'm a bit shaken from what I saw last night. He went berserk with the demon. He was out of control, crazed. And afterward, he had a brief breakdown. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.”

Kit's eyes were wide. “You're never moved by anything or anyone. Are you telling me you feel
sorry
for Maclean?”

It was hard not to be moved by a man as powerful as Maclean losing it to the point of tears, Sam thought. “I'm a pro, remember? I'd never
allow
myself to feel sorry for him! But he's the number one player in this game, and the stakes are high. The more we know about him, the better.”

Sam had the funny feeling that she was lying. It was her job to figure him out, but he turned her on and he'd shaken her up. In fact, she almost felt confused. She looked at Kit.

“How can you not feel sorry for him, as a human being?” Kit asked.

“Kit, we're trained to be objective on the job.”

“I read his file.”

Sam went still. She needed to know what Kit had discovered, but suddenly she wished she didn't have to go there.

“Sam? Why do you have a funny look on your face?”

Dryly, wishing she could confide in Kit, she said, “The suspense is killing me.”

“What's going on between you two?”

Sam tensed. “Nothing. I mean, he wants into my pants, and I said no. He's enjoying the chase. Don't they all?”

“Why would you say no?” Kit was puzzled. “He's a stud, just the way you like them. I've never known you to refuse a hot guy and then dump him on your terms.”

Sam became uncomfortable. An image flashed of her in Maclean's bed. They'd tear each other apart, use each other up, she thought. It would be off-the-charts passion. She knew it. “He's under investigation, Kit. Why are we talking about my sexual habits?”

“We're not. We're talking about you and Ian Maclean, a near-immortal with a two-inch-thick agency file, filled with flags. A near-immortal who, I might add, is a suspect in the thefts of art worth hundreds of millions of dollars. A near-immortal who spent decades in demonic captivity. He should be one of us—but he's not. But he's not one of them, either. I think it's worth talking about how you're dealing with him. And if you have feelings, I think that's worth looking at, too. And that is why I'm here.” She flushed. “I'm worried about you.”

Sam's first reaction was to laugh. Kit was a rookie, and compared to her, as innocent as a civilian when it came to evil. But then she recalled Maclean's attack on John and his reaction afterward. “You don't have to worry about me.” But she hesitated, her gaze locked with Kit's. “I won't allow myself to wonder about him, to worry or feel compassion.”

“But are you?”

“I don't know!” Sam stood and started to pace, but her ankle remained sore and she paused, wincing. “I will
never
become involved with Maclean. That would be suicide.”

Kit stood, too. “Wow, that was an extreme answer. How could becoming involved equal suicide?”

Sam couldn't believe she'd spoken as she had; she never got involved. “I might jump in the sack with him sometime, on my terms, but that would be it.”

“Can you tell Forrester you want out and let someone
else hunt the page? It might be best, Sam. I mean, that car chase was nuts. Even if you caught up to him, then what? He has more power than you—he can leap. How were you going to get the page in the end?”

So many images flashed, all of Maclean in the last twenty-four hours. In half of those memories, she was in his arms.

Kit had made an irrefutable point. Chasing him had been bad judgment. She never had bad judgment, but she hadn't thought it through. Unless he'd died in the car chase, there'd been no possible way for her to accomplish her mission and retrieve the page.

Kit was right. She should bow out. Maclean was a challenge she didn't need.

Except she never refused a challenge and he intrigued her as no one ever had. “I'm not bowing out,” she said. “I'm in until this is done. What's in his file? What did they do to him?” Her heart slammed as she spoke.

Kit sighed. “I didn't think you'd back down. I don't know what they did to him. That's not in the file. No one knows. What I do know is that he was abducted in 1436 and released in 1502. Do the math. He was held prisoner for sixty-six years.”

Her gut churned violently. “Only a near-immortal could survive that. No wonder he's so scarred—and not just physically. No wonder he has no social skills.”

“So you
are
feeling sorry for him?” Kit's eyes widened.

Sam stared at her. Was she going down that road to disaster? “There's a damned temptation to feel sorry for him. How couldn't there be? He was probably tortured to within an inch of his life. Demons love pain. And he was just a child, wasn't he, when they first grabbed him?” The churning in her abdomen increased.

“He was nine years old. They kept him under a spell, Sam. He stayed nine years old the entire sixty-six years.”

God, it was even worse than she'd thought. Sam rubbed her forehead, which ached. Or was it her heart that ached now? “If I allow myself to feel sorry for him, I'm screwed. He'll figure it out and use it against me, then laugh in my face.” But she had a bad feeling that it was too late.

Kit stood up and walked around the coffee table to stand beside her. “You're so cool and detached about evil. I think it's admirable. But how can you
not
feel sorry for him? I felt like crying just reading the bare facts about him. He's been messed up. He was dealt a really bad hand.”

Sam winced. Kit was right. No one should have had to go through what he had. “What else is in the file?”

“It's weird. Big Mama started building his file the moment we got her, in 2002. His file goes back exactly twenty-five years. And then there's nothing, nada, zilch. It's as if he appeared out of nowhere.”

“Maybe that was when he was released.”

“Maybe. If so, I do believe he's supposed to be living in 1527, not 2009. That would make him a medieval man, not a modern one.”

“He can time travel. He can live in whatever time he wants.” But Sam tossed this new idea around. Maclean acted as contemporary as anyone.

“There are rules, Sam. The Masters are supposed to live in their time, not in someone else's. They can leap time to save the Innocent, but then they need to go back to where they belong. It makes sense. Otherwise they'd encounter their own lives in the future, wouldn't they?”

Sam had already surmised that. That would explain why Brie hadn't dragged Aidan to the twenty-first century, and why Tabby had decided to stay in the past, too. “But he isn't a Master. He clearly doesn't play by their rules.”

Sam had barely gotten the words out when she felt him. She tensed, surprised. Maclean's distinctive heat and
power were nearby. Her buzzer sounded, and she knew he was downstairs.

Startled, she went to answer it.
What did he want?

“Can I come up?” Ian Maclean said.

Sam found her composure, except that her heart seemed to be racing. “Only if you're bringing me a check for fifty thousand dollars.”

S
AM LOOKED
at Kit, who said, “What does he want?”

“I have no idea. I don't even know how he knows where I live.”

“Are you going to change?”

Sam smiled. She knew her tiny shorts and small T-shirt were inflammatory. That was fine with her. Let him suffer. She'd enjoy it. “I'm sure he can handle it.” Hadn't she handled him with Becca, up close and really personal?

“Do you want him to seduce you?”

It crossed her mind that, in spite of the constant back and forth, he'd never turned on the full extent of his sexuality. Which might be good, because she wasn't sure she could handle a full-scale assault. And that was unsettling.

Before she could analyze that, the doorbell rang. Sam turned and opened it. Maclean smiled at her with his usual arrogance, looking damned good and somehow elegant in fitted and very frayed jeans, Gucci loafers and a sweater he'd paid hundreds of dollars for.

There was no way he could belong in 1527, she thought. He looked like what he was—a rich, conceited, jet-setting playboy. But that didn't diminish his appeal.

And then she realized he hadn't suffered a single scratch from the car chase. She was disbelieving. “You look like you just finished brunch in Soho.”

He didn't answer. His eyes widened as he took in her black eye and wrapped ankle.

Then his gaze slammed down her body again, this time with heated male interest. “What happened?” He sauntered inside.

“You should know,” Sam said, closing the door. “
You
happened.”

“If I hit ye in the eye, I dinna recall, an' my memory is good.”

Sam wondered if he thought he'd lost so much control last night that he'd hit her and couldn't remember it. “I got the black eye chasing you the wrong way up an exit ramp,” she said wryly. “And I got the sprained ankle fighting with a broken heel last night, while you
watched
.”

His gaze moved over her T-shirt and her obviously bare breasts beneath. “Ye saw a doctor.”

She felt the moment his body heat went up a few more degrees, because her body responded in kind. She made sure to keep her tone casual. “What's the big deal? And who taught you how to drive, anyway?”

He slowly lifted his gaze. “I taught myself.”

“Cars don't fly.”

His mouth curved. “I'll try to remember, next time we're fender to bumper.”

His words washed through her, as soft and sexy in tone as that cashmere sweater had to be on his skin.

“Are you always a complete horndog?”

“Ye want it that way.”

She stared. His gaze was blinding and intense. Maybe she did. She sure expected his bad-boy behavior now. But she thought about his scars and the sixty-six years of captivity he'd endured. No one would be normal after that.

Maybe the oversexed thing was a part of a massive cover-up.

“I think I'll go,” Kit said.

Sam had forgotten that she was present. “You don't have to leave. Maclean won't be long. Will you?”

He grinned. “I'm hardly in a rush, Sam. I want to see yer digs.”

She thought of him standing over Becca, in no rush. The image shifted into a graphic memory of his pressing her against the library table in the entryway last night. There'd been a ton of urgency then. The urgency was building, now. She said harshly, “Kit, this is Ian Maclean, and this is my friend Kit.”

Ian smiled at her, as if he expected her to drop at his feet, too.

She flushed. “I think you two might hash things out a bit more easily if I'm not here.” Kit picked up her bag. “I think a truce is a great idea.” She smiled. “We're all on the same side, really.”

Sam wasn't sure if she was speaking to her or to Ian. When Kit was gone, she walked into the kitchen to pour him a glass of wine, aware of his gaze sliding down her back and bare legs as he followed her. She handed the glass to him. “I'm not a good hostess,” she warned, “unlike my sister, who would welcome you with open arms. I'm just taking advantage of this moment in time—although not the way you want.”

“I like,” he said softly, “yer boxers.”

“I'll bet you do. And, Maclean? We're not on the same side. It's amazing, considering what she's been through, but Kit's an optimist. If we were on the same side, you'd have the page in your back pocket right now.”

His gray eyes gleamed. “Care to see fer yourself?”

Did he have to make everything a sexual invitation? “Or you could change your mind, take the high road and give the United States government the page.” She was joking, but she wanted to know where he'd stashed it.

He smiled with amusement. “And what would I gain from handing over the page?”

“Self-respect?”

He sipped the wine. “I don't care about self-respect.”

Did he mean he did not respect himself? She couldn't imagine anyone living with themselves that way.

“I'm sorry ye got hurt today,” he said softly. “I didn't think you'd keep up with me.”

He'd lowered his voice into a bedroom murmur. It vibrated across her skin like a massage head. She took a breath, disconcerted, and smiled at him. “I'm rarely underestimated twice. I'll bet you don't do it again.”

“Never,” he said.

If he were just a bit less sexy, a bit less seductive, it would make her life a whole lot easier, Sam thought. And if he hadn't been a captive for all those decades, that would be helpful, too, because there'd be no excuse for his asocial and selfish behavior. She studied him, her gaze searching, and he calmly walked into the living room and sat down on her sofa. He looked really good there. He also looked somewhat pleased—like a lion in its den, about to feed.

His charismatic presence took up most of the room.

She took the adjoining chair, almost doing the Sharon Stone thing as she crossed her legs. He sat up straighter. “Are you sure I can't entice you into doing the right thing?”

He slowly smiled. “Ye can try, Samantha. Any time…any way.”

Sam smiled back at him and let a heavy silence fall. “Would you consider doing the right thing—if I gave you what you want?”

He grinned, amused. “You'd surrender so easily? I'd be disappointed.”

“I'm pretty good,” she said, certain he'd never hand over an item worth over two hundred million dollars for a roll in the sack with anyone.

“An' what would ye do if I said I accept?”

The breath rushed out of her. A fist of desire went through her, and she stared at him in shock.

“I'm tempted. But two hundred million dollars is also tempting.”

She breathed. “If you give me the page and it's checked out to be the real deal, I'll sleep with you. More than once. Anyway you want.”

He stared, his eyes like smoke.

Sam tried not to think about what he might require in that deal. She stared back, trying not to appear aroused.

He broke the silence. “Yer a woman of yer word.”

“Wow—you trust me.” He didn't reply and she knew he was thinking about a hundred different ways to get his money's worth. “I don't trust you, by the way.”

He gestured at the sofa beside him. “Are ye afraid to sit next to me?”

“This isn't a date, is it? Or do we have to hold hands? Because as far as I can tell, we haven't made a deal.”

“We haven't made a deal.” He smiled slowly then. “I want ye an' I want the money, too. I intend to have both.”

Sam stood. “No surprise there.”

He stood. “I thought we broke the ice last night.”

She couldn't believe he was referring to last night, considering his breakdown. And then she told herself sternly to stop underestimating him. His MO was becoming obvious. He was adept at keeping the upper hand and keeping her off balance. He used sex as a weapon in their battle, all of the time. But two could play that game.

“Did we?” she asked. She thought about his bait and trap Internet operation. “You set John up.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter? Have I asked why ye hunt evil every single night?” He shrugged with as much indifference as there'd been last night.

“I'm a Rose. Rose women have been entrusted with
safeguarding humanity for generations. Each and every one of us has a destiny. Mine is slaying.”

“Ye believe yer every word. Have ye been brainwashed?”

He was mocking. She felt her temper flare. “What's your destiny, Maclean? Stealing art and seducing wealthy wives?”

When his cold gaze held hers, she felt guilt stabbing through her. As Kit had said, he'd been dealt a bad hand. It made her life look like a summer walk in a world without evil.

He'd gone through hell because that had been his destiny. His survival had been written, too.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Your Fate stinks.”

He didn't appear mollified. “Now ye feel sorry fer me?”

“I'm fighting the urge.”

“Like you're fighting me?” he asked, his tone filled with skepticism. “Ye can feel sorry fer me anytime.”

She knew he wanted her to feel sorry for him. He'd be ruthless in his advances then. It was a good time to turn the tables on him. “You're too much of a jerk for me to feel sorry for you. So, how did you survive sixty-six years as a kid being held captive by demons?”

His eyes turned to ice. She knew he was stunned, because he did not speak.

“Those scars—”

“I won't talk about it.” He was on his feet, furious.

Sam almost backed down. Instead, speaking cautiously, she said, “It's in your file.”

His eyes widened as if he were shocked. He breathed hard. “Someone has a file…about that?”

She almost wished she'd kept silent but she had to figure him out. “Checking out suspicious guys like you is our job.” He seemed horrified. “We know that you were imprisoned by your demon grandfather for sixty-six years
and that he kept you a child the entire time, all because of his hatred of your father.”

He was incredulous now and still furious. He walked over to her. Sam stood her ground. “My life is my business,” he cried. “I won't discuss it,
ever
.”

When his brogue intensified, she'd noticed, he was either aroused or upset. He was upset now. She couldn't blame him. He didn't want to share the details of his life, and his worst nightmares, with her or anyone. It was his right. But CDA needed to find and defeat evil, to protect the citizens of this country. It was the classic clash of national security and the individual's right to privacy. Being a soldier meant she believed that the interest of national security won.

She wet her lips. “I work for an agency that hunts evil, Maclean. The Bureau is a cover. You probably know this because of your telepathy. We keep vast, detailed records. The agency goes back to the time of Thomas Jefferson. We have files on demons and demonic crimes that are centuries old. Because of your father, and your penchant for taking art that doesn't belong to you, we have a record on you, too.”

He stared at her, aghast. “I want the file.”

“It's classified.” But her mind scrambled. Perhaps they could use his file to make a deal.

“I want to meet your boss. Immediately.”

“Nick Forrester runs HCU, a department in the agency, not the agency itself. And he won't give you a copy of that file. But I'm sure he'd love to meet you. You guys have quite a bit in common.” She wondered if he'd hand over the page for his file.

“Set it up,” he demanded.

Sam did not like being ordered around, but she nodded. “I'll speak with him first thing.” She studied him. “That page is in a safe place, isn't it? I mean, no one wants it crumbling to dust.”

“It's in a very safe place.” He whirled and started pacing.

Sam watched, trying really hard not to feel sorry for him.

He faced her. “Ye should have told me about the file sooner. Who else has seen it?”

“I'm not sure. Probably everyone who is working on getting the page into government hands.”

“An' how many people would that be?” he demanded. “Ten, twenty—a
hundred?
”

He was really upset at the idea that other people knew about his ordeal. “Probably less than five or six of us have seen it. Nick likes to keep things really tight and in his control. If he could, we'd all be puppets on his really short string.”

He nodded, his eyes still blazing.

Sam wanted to tell him that there were no details on his captivity in his file. It was hard to control the urge. The information would undoubtedly soothe him, but if he found that out, they'd lose their leverage—if his file could be used against him.