The Perfect Gift Read online

  Tension gripped Jared’s body. “We closed up and hit the road, and with each kilometer the locals grew more talkative. Suddenly they were our best friends, offering cigarettes and tea. I suppose that’s when it began to sink in that this trip might be something more than they suggested. It was twilight and the road had dwindled to a footpath through a wall of jungle when our friends led us over a hill to a scattering of lights. We closed in, guns drawn. I still remember that hellish darkness all around us.” Jared laughed softly, and Maggie shivered at the sound. “By then the locals had vanished, and there was no missing the stink of a setup, but of course it was too late. We were heading back to our jeep when the mountain exploded, and the buildings behind us tore apart like straw. The man I was with took twenty bullets through the chest. Then they came for me.”

  He waited, his hands twisting over the polished wooden bed frame.

  Maggie couldn’t hold back a broken sound of fear. She put up a hand, hating the flat impersonality in his voice. “Jared, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Sound as if you’re talking about a stranger, someone who doesn’t matter and might not even exist.” Her hands closed over his shoulders.

  He gave no sign at all of noticing. “You’re close there. By the time they were done with me, I didn’t exist. I certainly didn’t matter.” He turned slowly, and moonlight hollowed the gaunt lines at his jaw. “Not surprising, under the circumstances. A year in a box will do that to anyone.”

  SHE ONLY STARED. “A BOX? I’VE HEARD ABOUT THIS BOX, but no one will explain. I don’t understand.”

  “Four comers,” he said slowly. “No windows. No door. Food shoved in once a day—if you can call it food.”

  Maggie stiffened with comprehension. “They held you in a box? But why would the Thai government—”

  His laugh was a rumble of bitterness. “Not the Thais, though they were glad enough to see me gone. The police were from Burma—excuse me, the Union of Myanmar. By all means let’s be correct in our terms. Wouldn’t do to get the name of your jailer wrong, would it?” His hands opened and closed, as if with a will and intention of their own. “Any more questions before we call it a night?”

  Only a thousand, she thought, feeling as if they stood on opposite sides of a cold, stormy sea. And she knew she had to hear the rest—for Jared as well as for herself. “Why, Jared? What good were you to them?”

  “A fair question. But that part, too, had been carefully arranged. You see, that building on the mountain wasn’t a drug lab at all. According to the official reports, it was a nice little village school and we had just incinerated several hundred innocent Burmese children. Definitely a capital offense.”

  “But they were lying,” Maggie blurted. “Besides, you weren’t in Burma, you were in Thailand.”

  “I’m afraid not. Up there you don’t see border markers, and you sure as hell don’t see customs offices on the edge of a mountain. Our friendly Thai police had led us ten kilometers over the border.” He stared at the pool of moonlight on the carpet as if looking down into hell itself. “It took the British authorities six months just to find out I was alive and another three to find out what the charges were.”

  “How did you survive?” she whispered.

  Dimly, so dimly Jared heard the pain in her voice. But for whom? He struggled to remember the stranger who had knelt in the noisy darkness, dirty and shaking, caught at the very edge of madness. Not him, that creature of torment.

  Then one night the sight had come and everything had changed…

  “Survive? I wrote letters in my mind. I was very careful, every line and word, and I carved a mark on the wall for every stifling day that passed.”

  “How did they find you?”

  Jared struggled to pull his mind out of the madness, out of that square of darkness. He hadn’t said so much to Nicholas or the professional psychiatrists he had been sent to upon his return. He wondered how much they had guessed. “They found me because of one man who understood. A man who was too stubborn and arrogant to take no for an answer.”

  “Nicholas Draycott,” she whispered.

  “A rare man. I can never repay him for his help. So now you know all of it.” He shrugged, a mixture of moonlight and darkness by the window. “Rest well. You’ll be safe here, I’ll see to that.”

  “And who,” Maggie whispered, “will keep you safe?”

  Slowly his big hands uncurled from the wooden post. “Irrelevant.” Without another word he started for the door.

  “Who, Jared? Because you damned well need someone beside you when the memories return.” Her chin rose in stormy defiance. “You’ve tried it alone. Now try it with someone else.”

  “There’s nothing more to say. The adventures are over, Maggie. The rest is just a performance. There’s no one inside to care, no one at all. Don’t waste your arguments and your anger on a ghost.”

  She caught his shoulders and spun him around. “Put the past to rest, you told that officer. Good advice—so why don’t you take it yourself?”

  Their bodies were chest to chest as she glared up at him, her eyes blazing.

  Beautiful, he thought, watching moonlight dust her angry cheeks while emotion poured off her in waves. But the force of her feelings couldn’t change the truth. He had a job to finish, perhaps two or three. Then fate would bring him through a misted glen to a lichen-covered boulder and a tree with a broken branch.

  There he would find death waiting.

  “There’s nothing more to find. All the singing’s over, Maggie. The clapping’s done.”

  “I think you’re afraid. It’s easier to sneak away into the dark than fight for the possibility you might be wrong.” She stood rigid, her hands opening and closing at her sides. “That means you’ve let them win, Jared. It means you’re still caught in that box.”

  “I can see my own death, Maggie. The man who came back can see just about anything, if he puts his sight to it,” he said harshly. “Just one little unexpected bonus of a year in hell.”

  “See? What do you mean?”

  He felt his pulse hammer at his jaw. She had goaded and prodded, and now here he was, ready to blurt out the truth.

  And watch her laugh? Worse yet, watch her back away in fear?

  Jared realized he’d gone too far to stop now. “Sight. A vision passed down in my bloodline for fourteen generations. By family legend it passes only to the eldest son, but with my brother’s death, it moved to me. At the time I was crouched in the Burma jungle trying hard to remember my name,” he explained grimly.

  Her head rose. Very slowly she touched his cheek. “What you’re saying is you can see the future?”

  “No. I sense things. Words that haven’t been said. Emotions. Sometimes even secrets. Mostly it comes through touch.”

  “Touch.” She blinked. “You mean like some kind of psychic?”

  “Not like.” His mouth hardened. “Not that I can control the focus, although I seem to be getting better at that with practice.”

  Maggie shook her head sharply. “You expect me to believe that you are—that you can…”

  “Yes,” Jared said simply. “Because it’s true.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “In that case, what are you seeing now?”

  “Parlor tricks? I think not. Either you believe or you don’t,” he said coldly. A MacNeill had his pride, and he had already explained more than he should have. God help him, he wouldn’t deny what he was, not even for Maggie.

  He set his shoulders and looked away, stung by her tense silence. He wouldn’t beg. Nor would he give another word of explanation. She was the one who’d squeezed and probed until she’d gotten answers. If she didn’t like what she heard, it was too bloody bad.

  “Fair enough. No parlor tricks and no test questions.” Her hand crept up the front of his sweater, then opened over his heart. “I won’t ask what you’re seeing now or if you can read my mind.” She smiled, a mix of challenge and female recklessness as she eased
against him.

  Instantly he saw.

  Dear sweet God, how he saw. The play of hands across heated skin. The surge of blood when clothing fell and no more barriers remained. The clarity of what she was offering made his pulse spike.

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. “You’re playing with fire, Maggie.”

  Her smile was smooth and slow. “I thought that was your job, Commander. Assessing potential for explosions. Dismantling volatile devices.”

  His face hardened. “You haven’t been listening. It stops here. There aren’t going to be any fireworks, Maggie.”

  “You want to know your problem?”

  “I’m fairly certain you’re going to tell me.”

  “It’s right here.” Her ringer jabbed at his chest. “There’s supposed to be a heart in here, something that makes you take risks and dream dreams. My father taught me that, Jared. He might have been impossible at business, but he damned well knew how to dream. You’ve forgotten how to imagine. At least silver can catch the light. At least cold metal reflects the fire of all that’s around it and—”

  His hands shot down over her wrists. With a low curse, he yanked her against him and sealed her mouth beneath his.

  He was tired of arguing.

  He’d show her fire if she wanted it, and he’d bloody well make her feel all the dreams locked inside him.

  She was sputtering as the bedpost caught her back and held her motionless. Jared closed his eyes and drank in the taste of her mouth. Wanting filled him, blind after so many weeks of denial, and his hands speared down her spine until he found the warm swell of her hips. His mouth twisted on hers, driving and savage. He was amazed at how she trembled, amazed at how much he wanted her to tremble.

  Her hand opened at his chest. “I thought you didn’t want this.”

  “Oh, I want, Maggie. I want so much it terrifies me.” He wrapped his hands in the warm silk of her hair and forced her head back. “You should be running right now. Shaking in fright about what I’m thinking.”

  She met his hot gaze square on. “Should I?”

  “Yes. After all I’ve told you.”

  “What have you told me? That you’ve some sort of unusual skill. So what? There’s nothing so amazing I’ve seen yet.”

  His hands tightened, and he felt the heat snap through him. “Is it proof you want?”

  She didn’t back down, didn’t relent by the merest inch. “I do.”

  “Then you’ll have it,” he whispered. He snared her wrist. Eyes closed, he nipped the creamy skin.

  And slid deeper, swimming down to find the electric flow of her emotions.

  In colors they came. Boldest red and flaring blue. Yellows and golds that raced over molten silver, as fine and rich as her singular designs. The force of it left him panting, shocked.

  In that same rich flow, Jared found the rest of her secrets. That she wanted him no matter who or what he was. She had no reservations and no regrets in her love.

  Love. The feeling roiled in pinks and bright crimson. Clear to him, though she might not yet have used the word.

  “Maggie,” he began, his voice harsh. “You stop a man’s heart.”

  Her smile was a curve of aching beauty. “Fine words, Commander. But I’ve still to see that razzle-dazzle you’ve made so much of.”

  She didn’t want to talk, no matter how fine the compliments. He saw clear through to her soul now and knew exactly what she wanted. Heat and recklessness. Giving and blind surrender.

  She’d have it now.

  He bent her back. In one mad sweep her gown went flying and pooled at her feet. And there she stood, wearing a shimmer of white lace at her thighs and nothing else. He saw the glow of her skin, the sweet thrust of her nipples, and the fine flush that covered her cheeks.

  “You’re staring.”

  “There’s a great deal to stare at,” he rasped.

  He felt the sudden leap of her pulse and the desire that shot through her body. She opened, hands and heart shifting as she let the reality of her love fill her mind.

  “Be sure, Maggie. Be very sure. It’s been a while for me,” he said bluntly. “For many reasons, once we start there won’t be an easy way to turn back.”

  “I’m tough. I can take it, Scotsman. A few bruises and nail marks won’t scare away a Kincade.”

  His hands tightened. A dark surge of need made him nip at her ear and savor the cool, beautiful line of her upturned chin. He was going to take her places she’d never been. He was going to show her worlds of pleasure that had no name. “You make me feel savage, like some blue-painted ancestor knee-deep in heather and mist.”

  “Promises, promises.” Nearly naked, she stood on her toes and nuzzled his neck with her lips. Then with her tongue.

  He cursed at the heat she provoked. His hands moved to her ribs and then closed hard. The past lay heavy around them in the moonlight, and Jared could almost sense the quiet footfalls of restless ghosts.

  Warriors slain on desert sands, part of the great Crusades. Reckless adventurers and pirate princes. Draycotts who had given their blood to protect these towering stone walls.

  And lovers who whispered in the shadows, bodies urgent with need.

  He closed his eyes, fighting free of the house’s magic. He had enough magic right now, spilling from his contact with Maggie.

  “Anything else dire you insist on telling me? Wives hidden in attics or kinky fetishes I need to know about?” She worked at his shirt, pulling it from his waistband.

  “That you’re destroying me.”

  “Destruction is good,” she whispered, lips to his hard jaw. “Now let’s go for total devastation.” Her fingers slid under his shirt and traced the lines of his chest. Jared felt the swirl of her passion and her flare of surprise. She wasn’t used to this. No other man had touched her this way, made her shiver this way.

  The thought nearly pushed him beyond control. With a groan he trapped the curve of her breast, then tugged one taut crimson crest between his teeth.

  Her breath came ragged. She made a broken cry as her nails dug into his chest. Need was a storm in her head, racing through the link to flare in Jared’s own mind.

  Her breath was puffy. “Jared, I want—”

  “I know,” he said hoarsely, seeing almost before she did. His hands slid along her hips and eased lower, pushing past the wisp of lace to cup her heat. “Let me feel your wanting, Maggie. Let me have your fire.”

  There in the shadows and the silence Jared found the tangled curls that hid her wet heat. And in the same moment he parted the sleek folds, goading her deeper into the pleasure that stretched before her like a slender golden rope.

  So tight. So hot where she sheathed him. He shattered her control, pulling her nerves tighter until she stretched in an exquisite bowstroke of yearning.

  Desire burned. Need sang.

  In one more moment Jared knew he would be as lost as she was. And he wasn’t ready for that paradise yet. “Maggie, I—”

  “Yes,” she said shakily.

  His hands slid into her hair as he held her face still, plundering her mouth with a violence he had never expected in himself.

  “More,” she rasped, digging at his shirt, her legs restless against him.

  Jared knew a dark surge of triumph at her need. It was a need he knew perfectly how to assuage. With every second of contact, his knowledge of her wants grew in his mind, cast in exquisitely graphic detail.

  She frowned, shoving at his shirt.

  Linen flew. Lace tore and struck the floor.

  Skin to skin at last.

  Their hands met in a sigh of pleasure as moonlight gilded bodies that were almost too taut for bearing. Tongue to tongue, chest to chest, they lost themselves in each other.

  She nuzzled his chest, tasted his warm skin and tested the rigid length of him. She goaded the hot muscle trapped within her hand until Jared felt his control shred, and when her lips feathered over him, he tensed, cursing at the unspeakable slam of
desire she provoked.

  Her tongue was like silk as he gripped her face, pulling her away. “No more,” he said harshly. He brought her hands to his chest and sent them in a tangle to the bed. Soft damask whispered as Jared pulled her atop him.

  She gave a lost, broken sigh. “You can really feel what I’m thinking?”

  His grin was slow, relentless. “Every wicked thought.”

  A flush stained her face and slid over her chest. “This could get tricky.” Her head tilted. “Unless I take the offensive.”

  She arched slightly, then straddled his rigid heat.

  This is what I want, she thought.

  And heard his soft curse.

  I love you, she thought, and felt him lift her and part her slowly, with infinite care.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Against his neck, his chest, his mouth.

  Worlds collided.

  Universes merged, flared, re-formed.

  Pleasure surged, tightening every muscle to something bordering pain. Jared let them both feel the pulsing heat, made them both wait until raw sensation nearly overwhelmed all other awareness.

  His hand slid between them. “You feel like roses,” he whispered, cradling and tantalizing. “Hot, sweet petals. Tonight I’ll find how you taste, Maggie.”

  She closed her eyes while silver streams wrapped around her. Blindly she rose, fingers trembling in his hair as desire bloomed. Jared felt the flare through his own body, felt her wild blinding rush that sent her falling, lost in spirals of wonder.

  He drove her up anew, catching her soft cries with his mouth, greedy for the touch and taste of her shocked response. He was the first to make her shudder, he saw. The first to make her feel such blinding sensation.

  His eyes closed as her nails dug at his back. He felt her silken contractions, pulling, pulling. She rose against him, her hot breath an erotic claiming.

  With a muttered oath Jared pinned her hands to the white bed and took her the final way, driving her with exquisite friction that burned in dark waves of pleasure.

  Endless need.