"Hurt you?" Angus gave her a baffled look. "I'm trying to save yer life. This bastard was choking you."
"I asked him to!" The woman glared at Angus, then at Emma.
"We should go." Emma motioned for Angus to follow her.
"Nay! I canna leave a defenseless woman with a strangler."
The man and woman cursed profusely.
"Angus!" Emma grabbed his arm and pulled. "Come on."
"But - " He glanced back at the French couple, who were still hurling curses at them. "Is it safe to leave her?"
"Yes." Emma retrieved the basket and hurried down the gravel path, tugging him along with her. "He isn't going to kill her. At least, I hope he won't."
"But he was choking her."
"She asked him to." Emma let go of his arm and fiddled with the basket. "They do it for... an erotic thrill. The choking causes heightened responses during sex. She'll have a bigger orgasm, I suppose. Not that I would know, but that's what I've read about it."
He halted. "She asked him to hurt her?"
"Yes."
Angus was stunned. He stared at Emma in disbelief, then strode down the path.
Emma followed him. "Are you all right?"
He shook his head and quickened his stride.
"The woman will be all right. It really was consensual."
With a growl, Angus tossed his knife. It embedded with a thunk into a tree. "I doona understand." He marched toward the tree. "I have lived too long. I no longer understand this world."
"I know it's a bit weird, but people do strange things - "
"Nay!" He ripped the knife from the tree. "A man should never harm a woman. Not even if she begs him to. There is no honor in hurting a woman!"
"Well, I - "
"I canna believe it." He leaned over and stuffed his knife into the sheath around his calf. "If a man loves a woman, how can he bear to harm her?" He jerked his jeans down over the sheath, then straightened. "How could he do that to her?"
Emma shrugged. "She asked him to."
"Why? What kind of man would pleasure his woman by hurting her?" Angus paced across the path. "'Tis a man's duty, nay, his privilege, to give his woman all the pleasure she can bear. She should be panting and writhing with pleasure."
Emma remained silent, staring at him. Did she not believe him?
He walked toward her. "A real man would take all night if need be to make sure his woman was fully sated. She should be screaming that she canna endure any more."
Emma's eyes widened.
"It should be a man's greatest pleasure to see his woman shuddering in the throes of passion."
She took a deep breath and shifted her weight from one foot to another.
He paced back and forth. "Only when she is begging for him, should a man see to his own needs. And he should never, ever harm her." He stopped in front of her. "Am I totally wrong in this?"
"No," she squeaked.
His eyes narrowed as he studied her face. "Och, lass, ye shouldna look at me like that."
"I'm not looking." She turned away. Her cheeks flushed with pulsing blood. Her heart was racing, he could hear it.
"Emma."
"I think we'd better get back home." She looked at him, her eyes glimmering with desire.
He stepped closer. "Yer heart is pounding."
"Your eyes are turning red."
"Ye'll have to face the facts, Emma. This is a date." He touched her cheek.
The picnic basket she was holding tumbled to the ground. With a low growl, he pulled her into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers.
He wrenched every ounce of pleasure from the kiss. He tasted Emma's lips, skimmed them with his tongue, and nibbled them till every curve and texture were embedded in his memory for all time. He held her tightly so he'd know exactly where her br**sts pressed against him. He smoothed his hands down her back to learn the exact curve of her spine, the delicious way it sloped inward and then flared out again at her hips.
He nibbled down her neck. Her pulse throbbed just beneath her tender skin, filling his senses with the fragrance of blood and desire. Her breath puffed against his cheek in tiny, feminine gasps. Her sweet body melted against him. The scents, the sounds, and the sensations clouded his brain till he could no longer think, only feel joy, passion, and a hunger that demanded more and more.
With a groan, he returned to her mouth and demanded entrance. She opened without hesitation, and that moment of surrender sent a surge of heat to his groin. He'd been struggling with arousal since she'd first straddled his lap that evening. And now, with her soft and compliant in his arms, and her tongue touching his own, he began to ache with need.
He planted his hands over her sweetly rounded arse and ground her hard against his erection. She broke the kiss with a gasp. The look of alarm in her eyes should have warned him, but he was too hazy with lust to take heed.
"I want to make love to ye, Emma."
Chapter 9
"No." She pushed against his shoulders. Make love? With the Undead? Although she had to admit there was nothing dead about the erection pressing against her. And there was nothing truly objectionable about Angus. God help her, if he were human, she'd have stripped him naked by now. But dammit, he wasn't. He was a vampire.
She stepped back. "I - I can't."
"I'm no' yer enemy." His eyes still glowed red. "Do ye no' trust me now?"
"I do, I think." She rubbed her brow. "But we're just barely friends. It's a big jump to being... lovers."
"Friends doona kiss like that."
"We got carried away, that's all. It - it was just a kiss."
He frowned. "One hell of a kiss. Shall I give ye a reminder?"
"No." She whirled around and picked up the basket. "Like you said, dawn is approaching. And we need to take this food back, and the dress I'm wearing, and get back to New York." She was talking too fast, anything to keep from thinking about what she'd done.
"Emma."
She took a deep breath and faced him. The glow in his eyes had faded to a dull pink. Thank God. "Are you ready to go?"
"I want to know how ye're feeling."
She forced a laugh. "Well, that's not very manly, is it? What man wants to talk about feelings?"
"I know ye have feelings. Ye loved yer parents greatly, and ye feel passionate about yer work."
"Please." She lifted a hand. "I don't know what to feel. Or think. I can't even believe I did that. I shouldn't have."
He regarded her sadly. "Lass, we've been headed down this road from the beginning."
"No, we're too different. We can't possibly... "
"I've always done what I felt in my heart was right, yet I have my share of regrets." His mouth tilted in a crooked smile. "You would not be one of them."
Her heart ached in her chest. Oh God, he was everything she'd ever wanted in a man. Except for the part about being undead. Or immortal. How could she possibly get around that?
"Have I at least convinced ye to give up slaying? Do ye believe that I care for yer safety?"
"I - I have to think about it." She raised a hand when he started to object. "I know you care. And I'll be more careful. I'll be more discerning now that I know some of you are noble and kind."
He nodded. "That is, at least, some progress. And ye should know that I will always seek to protect you. I will always be here for you."
Her eyes burned with unwanted tears. She hadn't heard words like that in years. Not since the last of her family had died. "I have to be honest with you. If I discover the bastards who murdered my parents, I will go after them."
"And I'll be there beside you." He extended a hand. "Deal?"
"Deal." She shook his hand.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her brow. "Let's go."
She grabbed on to him as everything went black.
Bugger. He was falling for her fast. During his four hundred and ninety-three years as a vampire, his kisses had rarely been for pleasure. There had always been a dinner to gain or something to prove. Kissing Emma had not been spurred by lust for blood or prestige. It was Emma herself who had pulled him in.
And what a kiss. You would think a man his age would have hundreds such moments to recall. But instead of becoming commonplace, such moments had become more rare.