“Thinking?” She squinted and narrowed her focus. “There was no time for thinking. Hell, we barely had time for sleep.” They’d had sex four times during the night.Four times.
He grinned. “Between rounds one and two, you slept a little. I thought.”
She pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids as a headache roared in. “We don’t have time for this right now. Too much is going on.”
He reached over and gently pried her fingers away. She opened her eyes. He released her. “There’s always too much going on, and for right now, we’re working together. Last night, after round one, I figured this was a one-night deal, and that we would just get some closure,” he rumbled.
Hurt, surprising in its sharpness, sliced into her chest. “Okay.”
“But then, between rounds three and four, I decidedfuck that.” He took a bite of pancake.
“Uh.” She couldn’t find words. What words were there?
He grinned. “I figure it’ll take more than one night to get closure.”
She couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Your plan, the one you came up with while I slept, was to keep having sex with me while I’m in town.”
He nodded, amusement lightening his too-knowing eyes. “Exactly.”
“You’re terrible.” She took a bite of eggs.
“That’s not what you said last night.”
She shook her head. There was no way she could continue sleeping with Deacan McDougall and not lose her heart again. They’d nearly destroyed each other once. “Not a good idea.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Ah, to have lived centuries ago.”
She couldn’t help but return the smile. “When you could’ve just kidnapped me instead of cajoled?”
He grinned. “Aye. We’d still be married, and you’d be thoroughly tamed by now.”
She rolled her eyes at the teasing, but even so, studying him, she could see his proud heritage. Rugged features and battle-hardened green eyes. He would’ve made a hell of a Highlander, an incredible warrior. She had no doubt he would’ve tamed her way back when. But now she had rights, and a brain—and the desire spiraling through her abdomen could just stop it. “Pity for you to be born in this time.”
“Aye,” he breathed. “However, I am now as modern as a man can be. I’ve mellowed and learned to control not only my temper but the actual anger.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You make it sound as if the anger was already in you before you went to war.”
“’Twas.” He shook his head. “The anger has been with me since I was a kid. My da was a prick, my ma not much better. When they died and I moved to the States, I was already screwed up.” His long fingers played idly with his unused knife.
“I know,” she said softly. She knew well his childhood hadn’t been safe, with a father who hit and a mother who drank. “You moved past the pain.” At least, she had thought he’d found peace with his childhood. Of course, then he’d entered the military and had seen things that had only brought back the anger. “Right?”
“Mayhaps. Hell, Nora. Maybe the anger lives in my blood anyway.” He rubbed the whiskers on his hard jawline. “Maybe my people all have it.”
The descendants of the Highlanders seemed to hear a distant call nobody else did. She wasn’t prone to fancy, but every once in a while, she’d seen a faraway look in his eyes, as if he sensed something. As if a whisper, across the times, demanded his attention. She shivered. “I appreciate the offer but think I’ll opt for self-preservation. Any truce between us is temporary.”
“What about my new mellow life and attitude?” he asked evenly.
She bit back a smile. “It’s temporary. I know you, Deacan. There’s an edge to you, always will be, and you need the action. The fight.”
His eyebrows lifted. “I don’t agree, but even if I did, so what? Right now, we’re fighting together. Common goal and common enemy.”
Right now.She sighed. “The second we cure the Scorpius infection, our goals diverge. Science is about saving lives, and we both know the military will want to weaponize and further mutate the bacteria.”
He sighed and set down his utensils. “Having weapons is necessary to saving lives, and you know it.”
“Science shouldn’t be used that way,” she said softly.
He leaned back and rubbed his chin. “Remember when I first got to the States? A couple of kids at school, the ones on the boxing team, tried to mess with me?”
