“No holds barred.” That had been her answer to her baby sister. And she’d been thinking about Duncan when she’d said it. It was coming back to her now. Once they’d exchanged that look while their parents had spoken their vows, she hadn’t been able to quite put him out of her mind.
She couldn’t put him out of her mind now. The chemistry between them was so strong, so primal. The stuff that sexual fantasies were made of. As she ran her hand over the box, she could have sworn the metal grew warmer. She examined the tiny padlock and saw that it had rusted through, so she removed it.
Lifting the top, she found the contents just as she remembered—three separate compartments, each holding different colored paper. Picking up the folded blue sheets on the top of her pile, she opened them.
The heading read My Fling With My Fantasy Man: Sex on Demand.
She felt her heart skip a beat. Then and now. Those were the words that said it all when she’d imagined the sexual fantasy that she wanted to bring to life with Duncan Sutherland. Oh, she might have buried the memory away, but if anything, it had just grown stronger.
At nineteen, it had described her ideal sexual fantasy period. She’d been in her sophomore year of college, and all her friends had been raving about the benefits of having a friend they could call on for sex on demand. Buddy sex was what they’d called it. It was convenient, no fuss and no bother.
Piper skimmed the first page. She’d gone way beyond what her friends had talked about. And like any good prelaw student, she’d defined her terms and embellished them as she’d argued the benefits. Sex on demand with a willing partner was simple, straightforward and didn’t require all the time-consuming trappings that went along with dating and romance. It further prevented complications from spilling over into the other more important aspects of your life—like your work, your goals, your dreams.
The “sex on demand”—she was finding that aspect on the page in spades. She recalled just how fast her pen had moved over the blue paper trying to capture all the images she’d had in her head of having sex with him anytime, anyplace and in any position. By the time she’d finished skimming the second page, her heart was racing and her whole body had heated. She’d even written about making love with Duncan in that cave he’d rescued her from.
An image of doing just that flashed brilliantly into her mind. It was followed by another—the two of them standing in the alleyway at the back of Abe’s office building. They’d come very close to having on-demand sex right on the hood of her car. Earlier that day, when they’d been in her apartment kneeling together on the floor, she’d imagined having sex with him right on that petal-strewn sheet.
She couldn’t seem to look at him without thinking, here and now.
What if she could have sex on demand with Duncan—no holds barred? The idea thrilled her.
And why not?
She pressed a hand to her heart to make sure it didn’t beat its way right out of her chest. Coming up here to the castle with him certainly hadn’t been something she’d planned on. But a girl was a fool not to take advantage of the opportunities that life offered.
Then a thought struck her and an alarm bell jingled at the edge of her mind. She shifted her gaze back to the subtitle and skimmed the pages again. Discovery—that’s what she’d come here for. And good discovery triggered questions. In this case a couple of very big ones.
The alarm bell went from jingle to clang. What if what she’d written down on these pages was influencing, perhaps even dictating, what she was feeling now for Duncan? What if the stones and the legend were playing some kind of role in making her want Duncan so badly?
She felt panic surge and shoved it down. She’d never solved one problem in her life by panicking. And it wasn’t like she’d actually kissed Duncan in the stone arch. All she’d done was lust after him—very imaginatively and in great detail.
You had to actually kiss someone beneath the stone arch before the legend kicked in. She could argue that major distinction to any jury of her peers and win.
And sex on demand with Duncan was perfect as long as it had no strings, no expectations—all the good points her college buddies had raved about with “buddy sex.” It would be the perfect arrangement for them while they were here. She could make that case to Duncan. And she couldn’t imagine him having a problem with it.
A sound, a bell jingling, had her glancing up and she saw Alba, the dog her aunt had brought home from a shelter, approaching. They’d met briefly when she and Duncan had arrived the night before. If Alba had been sent to find her, that meant that her aunt Vi was up and Duncan might already be up, too.
She folded the sheets of blue paper, carefully tucked them back into the center compartment, then set the now useless padlock back in place. Then she put the fantasy box back where it been for the last seven years. She might not have figured out what she could do about the rest of her problems, but she’d definitely decided what she wanted to do about Duncan Sutherland.
WHEN DUNCAN WALKED INTO THE kitchen, he found himself greeted by the scent of freshly brewed coffee and a warm hug from Viola MacPherson. Now she was his mother’s sister-in-law, but he would always remember her as the warm, loving woman who’d baked cookies and applied first aid on that long-ago summer when he and his brothers had spent nearly every day at Castle MacPherson while his mother researched the MacPherson family in the castle’s library.
Minutes later, he was seated at the table in the sundrenched kitchen and she was setting platters of scrambled eggs, bacon and her homemade scones in front of him. Then she poured herself a cup of tea and sat down across from him.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Piper?” he asked as she loaded a plate for him and then one for herself.
“You’ll starve if you wait for her. Eats like a bird. From the time she was a little girl, she’s been a grazer. When she finally comes in from the stone arch, she’ll go for coffee first and pick at half a scone. Then she might have a banana.”
“She’s out at the stone arch?” He was halfway out of his chair when Vi signaled him back down.
“She’s safe enough. I sent Alba to her. Our dog may be deaf, but she senses things.”
“Cam told me about Alba’s talents.” His brother’s theory about an intruder visiting the castle’s library for six months had been largely due to Alba’s barking in the middle of the night. But the security on the castle, and especially the library, had been tightened since then. And he’d taken the time to check it out last night.
“She hasn’t sensed anyone visiting the library lately, I take it.”
Vi shook her head. “Things have been very quiet here since you delivered our last bridegroom and saved the day. No lightning strikes. No bombs. The most exciting thing we have planned all weekend is a photo shoot tomorrow morning.”
As he dug into his eggs, Duncan reviewed the theory that Cam had given him, picturing it in his mind—someone sneaking in after everyone had gone to bed, making himself at home in the library and taking his—or her—time to search it thoroughly. It spoke of someone who was very patient. But it also indicated someone who had good reason to believe that he would find what he was looking for. Cam’s theory was that the intruder had been searching for the location of Eleanor’s sapphires. Then two things had happened. First, Adair had found one missing earring, and for the past month access to the library and the castle had been shut down. Not only had the intruder’s easy-come, easy-go nighttime visits been cut off by a new security system, but Cam and Daryl had installed cameras and added laser light technology to the alarm system in the library.
Whoever the intruder was, he couldn’t be happy with either development. And he was probably trying to find another way to