Velvet Haven

aside with a brisk command and sat down beside her.
    “I do not worry about arteries,” he mumbled as he took a knife out of a napkin and dipped it in homemade strawberry jam, “and neither should you.” He lifted the scone to her lips. “Eat.”
    She took a bite and moaned. So good . She tried to take it from him, but he insisted that she eat from his hand. It was the left hand, the one with the tats, and every time their skin connected he shuddered and closed his eyes. It was absurd to be thinking this at such a time, but Mairi silently hoped he was as turned on by the act of feeding her as she was.
    “When you can, tell me what you remember.”
    She swallowed and he passed her a teacup and saucer. It was dainty and fragile. An antique. She glanced around the room, noted the expensive antique furniture and huge fireplace. It was like something you’d see in an English manor home. It might have made sense if this was still the MacDonald mansion, but it was Velvet Haven, a Gothic fetish nightclub. Antiques seemed so out of place.
    But then she remembered that Bran had mentioned that family lived there. Maybe this was Bran’s room in the club.
    The tea tasted good and Mairi took another sip, trying to find the fortification to tell Bran everything.
    “Start at the beginning. Leave nothing out.”
    With a nod, she plunged in, telling him about the book she had stolen, Lauren’s death, and the strange dreams she’d been having of a man—of him. She left out the sexual details, and the part about her picking up a dagger. She hadn’t made sense of that yet, and she didn’t want him to think she’d actually follow through with anything in her dream—well, except the vivid sex parts.
    She even told him about Suriel, the part he had played in her life. She talked of Rowan, what had happened and what Mairi had done in return. As she spoke, Bran brushed his fingertips along her scarred wrist. When she was done, he bent and kissed it.
    “You have seen much in your life,” he whispered. “Much pain.”
    Mairi felt the sensation of his lips on her wrist and instantly the discomfort in her body eased.
    Silence hovered between them till he asked, “Where did you come by your hobby of translating illuminated manuscripts?”
    She was relieved to be talking about something other than her scars. “I first discovered illuminated manuscripts in the library of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. I used to go there after school to wait for my mom to get done work.”
    “Why did you not go directly home?” he asked as his fingers idly brushed her wrist.
    She didn’t want to talk about this. She’d buried her past.
    “Mairi?”
    She shrugged. “We preferred to go home together, once my mom was done doing dishes and cleaning up. She worked in the kitchen, making meals for the school and the nuns.”
    “And why could you not go home, Mairi?”
    It was times like this that she hated that soft, deep voice of his. The one that could lure and entice. The one that felt like a tender caress.
    “My mother didn’t want me alone with my father.”
    She exhaled a big breath. There. She’d said it.
    Fingers under her chin, he turned her face to look at him. His eyes were dark, the pupil now big, swallowing up the pewter and gold of his. “Did your father abuse you?”
    She blushed. “No, it was nothing like that.”
    “Then what was it like?”
    She pulled away from his hold and looked down at the quilt. “My father used to beat my mother. She didn’t want me to be alone with him because she was afraid that he’d take his drunken anger out on me, instead of waiting for her to get home.”
    His expression was fierce. “My people would have shred him to bits. In my world, a woman only feels the passion in a man’s touch. Never his anger.”
    “Your world?” she said with a nervous laugh. “Aren’t you from Earth?”
    His expression changed, his gaze narrowing.
    “How did you meet your friend Rowan?” he asked.
    “In the library at Our Lady. I was looking through books and she was drawing at a table. We’ve been friends ever since.”
    He lifted a strip of bacon to her mouth. “Has she no family?”
    She took a bite and chewed. “No, none. She was dropped on the doorstep when she was five. She lived there until we went away to college.”
    “Neither of you has had an easy life.”
    She squirmed beneath his scrutiny and bristled against the concern she heard. “No worse than a lot of people.”
    He pulled back,