Elspeth jumped. She hadn’t expected the noise to be quite so loud. The explosion had echoed like a cannon shot in the still house. The first explosion was followed immediately by another and another until the house was reverbrating with sound: Women’s screams, hoarse masculine shouts, Patrick laughing softly beside her. Doors were opening upstairs and Elspeth could smell the acrid smoke of the fire-crackers.

“Here we go,” Patrick murmured over the barrage of explosions. “How’s this for a statement, Elspeth?”

The first explosion jerked Dominic from sleep. Gunfire. In the hall outside. He moved with the sure instinct that had guided him for the last ten years. By the time of the second explosion, he was on his feet reaching for his gunbelt. When the third explosion rocked the hall, he was at the door.

“Dominic,” Rina said sleepily. She sat up and brushed a shining brown lock of hair from her cheek. “What the hell-” She broke off as another explosion jarred her fully awake. “No, Dom, don’t go out there.” She jumped out of bed, reaching hurriedly for her lacy peignoir.

Dominic wasn’t listening. All his senses were strained toward the danger in the hall. God, he was tired of this. Tired of never going to sleep without worrying if he’d face gunfire when he woke. He yanked open the door, stepping quickly to the side to avoid a possible spate of gunshots. The explosions continued, but there were no bullets sailing through the air, impacting floors and woodwork. He cautiously looked around the doorframe. The hall was filled with smoke and the explosions weren’t coming from a gun. He stared blankly at the string of explosives on the floor going off one after the other. “Firecrackers!”

“What?” Rina was beside him. “Who would do a thing like this?”

He didn’t have to consider the possibilities for more than a minute. He had been in the Nugget when Patrick and his friends had ridden through the doors on horseback throwing firecrackers right and left. “For Patrick, every day is a day for celebration,” he said dryly. “I imagine this was his way of bidding us a fond good-bye until next week. But, if I know my nephew, he wouldn’t be able to resist staying and watching the fun.” He was striding down the hall following the exploding string of firecrackers. “And when I catch up with him, I’m going to tie a string of firecrackers to his tail.” The explosions had reached the head of the stairs and so had he. He called down into the dimness at the foot of the stairwell. “Patrick, I’m about to lift your scalp.”

He thought he heard a shout of laughter amid the explosions sparking down the stairs. It didn’t improve his temper. He started down but was forced to move slowly to keep behind the exploding firecrackers. “Did you consider the possibility you might have set the house on fire? Or that someone could have started shooting before they realized it was a torn-fool trick?”

“It wasn’t Patrick’s fault, Mr. Delaney.” Elspeth moved out of the shadowed hallway to the foot of the stairs. She stood very straight, her eyes fixed on him as if mesmerized. “This was entirely my idea.”

She could barely get the words past her dry throat. She had never seen a real live man naked, and Dominic Delaney was boldly and unashamedly naked. When he had appeared at the top of the stairs with only the smoke wreathing his nudity, she had experienced shock, and then, almost immediately, her usual curiosity.

Michelangelo. He was like a statue she had seen by Michelangelo in that museum in Florence. Powerful shoulders and pectoral muscles, a tight stomach and heavily corded thighs and calves. Only the colors were different, warm bronze instead of cold white marble. Dark hair feathered Delaney’s chest and lightly dusted his legs. There was also hair encircling his… Her eyes widened as she stared in fascination. In all the statues she had seen, that portion of the male anatomy had either been covered with a fig leaf or else the sculptor had depicted it as minuscule and unimportant. Even Michelangelo. But Michelangelo was wrong; it was neither of those things. She jerked her eyes quickly back to his face. “I’ve come to ask you to reconsider.”

The expression of stunned surprise on his face was superseded by ferocity. “The hell you have.” He started down the steps toward her, each word punctuated by the explosion of the firecrackers. “I don’t like women who use their sex as a shield to invade a man’s privacy and put him at a disadvantage. I don’t like it one bit.”

“You said you wouldn’t see me. I had to do something to change the state of things.”

“In case you didn’t hear me the first time, the answer is no.” His blue-gray eyes glinted fiercely through the smoke. “But you knew it would be no, didn’t you, Miss Elspeth MacGregor?”

“Yes, but it appeared to be the only way to get you to take my offer seriously.”

“Dom, what’s going on?” asked a lovely brown-haired woman clad in a blue lace peignoir from the top of the steps. Her gaze fell on Espeth’s prim, black-gowned figure at the bottom of the stairs. “Jesus, what’s happened?”

“Nothing to concern you, Rina. Go on back to bed.” Dominic Delaney’s gaze never wavered from Elspeth. “I’ll take care of this.”

There were other faces peering over the banisters now, but Elspeth was scarcely aware of them. All her attention was focused on the naked man coming down the stairs toward her. She was exquisitely conscious of everything about him. The sleek ripple of the muscles of his thighs, the way his chest moved in and out with each breath. His strange blue-gray eyes gazing at her with insolence and anger and something else…

He stopped at the bottom step and stood there just looking at her in the duskiness of the hall. She couldn’t breathe. She dimly heard the firecrackers going off on the porch but they seemed far away. Everything seemed far away except the man standing before her effortlessly holding her gaze with his own.

“Do you know that you’re in a whorehouse, Miss MacGregor?” His voice was silky soft, almost a murmur. “Women have only one reason for being in a whorehouse. They’re here to perform certain acts of pleasure, to entertain men.”

His index finger reached out and slowly touched her cheek. She inhaled sharply. The skin seemed to burn under his touch. Ridiculous. It had to be her imagination.

“Since you’re a woman, I have to assume you must be here for that purpose.” His hand wandered down to caress her throat, his thumb delicately testing the wild beating of her heart. “And I suddenly feel a need to be… entertained.”

Elspeth found her breasts were heaving with every breath. He couldn’t mean… “No, you don’t understand. I truly meant to-”

“Cut it out, Dom.” Patrick stepped out of the shadows. “Can’t you see you’re scaring the hell out of her?”

“Am I?” Dominic’s hand was gently stroking Elspeth’s throat. He could feel it flutter beneath his palm. Her breath was coming in shallow little bursts. Her pink lips were slightly parted, and he could see the faintest glimpse of her tongue. He wondered what she would do if he leaned forward and parted those lips with his own tongue. “I thought you’d be around somewhere, Patrick. I’m sure you enjoyed the hell out of the show, but you really should have persuaded her not to do it. You might say I’m a little annoyed.”

“More than a little.” Patrick eyed him warily. “But you’ve frightened her enough. She doesn’t know you’re only fooling.”

Was he only trying to frighten her? Dominic wondered. That had been his intention when he had started, but now he wasn’t sure. His hand tightened on her slender neck. Touching Elspeth MacGregor was proving very unsettling. The flesh of his palm was tingling and he could feel a throbbing sensation begin in his groin. “Why don’t you leave the matter to be decided between, the two of us? Its time you got on your way to Killara.”

“Let her go, Dom.” Patrick’s tone was hard. “I’m responsible for her being here. I can’t let you do it.”

“Since when have you had any say about what I do?” Dominic’s hard gaze moved from Elspeth to Patrick’s face. What he saw there surprised him. Christ, the boy was serious. Next, he’d be pulling a gun on him to protect his little owl. A fresh surge of anger provoked by sheer frustration tore through him. It was a frustration that could be easily satisfied, he assured himself. Rina or one of the girls would give him more pleasure than this skinny little bespectacled gnome. But he didn’t want Rina or her girls, he realized in amazement. He wanted Elspeth MacGregor with a lust that was beginning to tear at his gut. It would go away, he told himself impatiently. As soon as she was out of his sight it would vanish as if it had never been. And the sooner that circumstance occurred, the better.

His hand dropped from Elspeth’s throat. “You’re right, it’s time this stupidity ended. Here, hold this.” He threw Patrick the gunbelt he still carried in his hand. “And open the door.”

With a relieved grin Patrick moved swiftly to obey. For a moment he hadn’t been sure Dominic would give Elspeth up without a struggle. Who the hell would have dreamed Dominic would become aroused by the little Scottish girl? And the fact that he had become aroused couldn’t have been more obvious since Dominic was naked as a jaybird. Patrick flung the door open with a flourish. “Yes, sir.”

“Brat.” Dominic picked Elspeth up and slung her facedown over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” Elspeth shouted. She could feel the play of muscles in his shoulders as they braced beneath her struggling weight. He was walking quickly, and with each step her lips touched the middle of his naked back. His arm was around her knees and she could feel the heat from his body even through the layers of her petticoats. Fear. It must be fear that was making her heart pound so frantically, she thought. They were on the porch and then going down the steps. She could see the people who’d been peering over the banisters now streaming down the stairs. “Let me go!”