“Hmm,” he murmured softly, staring after the retreating grad student. “Mayhap ’tis only her.”
“‘Her’? Do you mean me? What me?” Jessi said expectantly.
“Puny little man,” he scoffed, as Mark obediently closed the door.
Was that it? Was that why Mark had slunk off—because he was puny and Cian MacKeltar was so big and forbidding?
She tipped her head back, eyeing him. At six and a half feet, and a good two-hundred-plus pounds of pure muscle, he dwarfed people. With those wild dark braids tangling halfway down his back and those wicked red-and-black tattoos licking across his chest, up to the edge of that whisker-shadowed jaw, he looked downright primeval: an ancient, deadly warrior stalking the halls of the university. She supposed his mere appearance might have been enough to make Mark decide he clearly wouldn’t be winning any arguments with this man, so there was little point in beginning any.
How nice it must be to have such an impact on the world! If reincarnation was the way of things, she wanted to come back as Cian MacKeltar. She’d like to be the asshole man, for a change, rather than subject to asshole men’s dictates. And if she were going to be the asshole man, she’d like to do it up right and be the biggest and baddest.
“That was amazing,” she said fervently. “He is such a pain in the butt. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I could get him to just go away like that. Like he had no choice but to obey me, or something.”
“Come, Jessica.” Cian MacKeltar closed a hand around her upper arm. “We must away ourselves.”
They awayed.
8
An hour later they pulled under the canopy of the Sheraton in downtown Chicago.
Jessi had wanted to go home and get a few things, but Cian MacKeltar had immediately, vehemently vetoed that.
The next assassin could already be awaiting you there, woman, he’d said, and she’d shivered. How creepy to think someone might even now be lurking in her dark apartment, waiting to kill her. How odd to think she couldn’t go home. Maybe not for a long, long time.
Maybe never again.
This was it, she’d realized while driving. She’d gone too far to turn back now. She was officially on the run. Her situation wouldn’t have been so dire if Mark hadn’t caught her leaving with the artifact.
But he had. That milk was spilt, and there was no point crying over it.
She glanced over at Cian, barely able to see him over the top of the huge mirror that was wedged sideways between the bucket seats of her car. A good quarter of the mirror was hanging out the open hatchback, which was bungeed carefully around it, with various bits of her clothing—jackets and sweaters and T-shirts that tended to accumulate in her car as the seasons changed—wedged protectively between metal and glass.
Head flush to the ceiling, he looked miserably uncomfortable. It had been as difficult to cram him into the tiny car as it had been to finesse in the mirror.
They’d argued over the top of the looking glass the entire way downtown. He took backseat driving to a whole new level.
Cease ceasing movement so abruptly! Christ, woman, must you catapult forward after each cessation? Are you certain you’ve strapped the mirror securely? We should stop and check it. By Danu, wench, try nudging this beast gently, not kicking it with both heels! A silence, a slew of choked curses, then: Horses! What the bloody hell is wrong with horses? Have they all been slain in battle?
When she’d finally cranked up her favorite Godsmack CD in an effort to tune him out, he’d let out a roar that had rattled the windows in her car: By all that’s holy, woman, what is that hideous noise? Cease and desist! A battlefield at full charge could be no more cacophonous!
Huh. She loved Godsmack. The man clearly had no taste in music.
Scowling, she’d stuffed in Mozart’s Requiem—which she reserved for only her broodiest days, usually during finals week—and in moments, he’d been whistling cheerfully along. Cheerfully. Go figure.
“You’re going to have to stay here,” she informed him. “I’ll get the room and come back for you.”
“I doona think so,” he growled.
“You don’t look like the rest of us.”
“Nay,” he agreed. “I am bigger. Stronger. Better.”
The look she gave him said she had something nasty on her tongue and couldn’t scrape it off. “That’s not what I meant. There’s no way we’ll be able to keep a low profile with you walking around dressed like that.”
“Leave it to me, woman.”