Free Highlander in Her Bed by Allie Mackay Page A

crenel notches and stared after the she-witch.
    Nay, the dog was mooning after her.
    Worse, he'd cast a few moon-eyed glances at Alex, too, even once wagging his plumy tail—until Alex glared back at him.
    Truth be told, the dog was staring at him now. But Alex ignored him, setting his jaw and keeping his attention on the beast's mistress. Once, in another life, he'd loved dogs. Even had a special one, Rory, who'd followed him into every battle and even given his life protecting Alex's own.
    But now he avoided dogs.
    It hurt too much when their short lives ended and his lingered on.
    Nor was it easy to bear how many dogs now feared him. That a MacDougall dog should prove one of the few in centuries to show an interest in him galled to the bone.
    Even so, the old dog had something of Rory about him, and whate'er it was pinched Alex's heart more than was good for him.
    "You bide there," he warned when Ben started toward him. "I want naught to do with you."
    Or your hell-spawn mistress.
    That last he left unsaid, the dog's trusting brown eyes making it impossible for him to speak ill of the wench within the beast's hearing.
    "Curse Colin MacDougall, and for all the days of yonder," he growled, wondering why such dastards seemed e'er blessed with the devil's own luck.
    And of all the MacDougalls he'd encountered, she was the worst of the lot. The flame-haired lass possessed the face of an angel, the mouth of a fishwife, and the body of a siren.
    And her soul was surely blacker than a witch's bottom!
    Equally irksome, the exquisitely formed lassie knew he was watching her. Now, this very moment. Why else would she twitch her hips in such an indecent manner lest she meant to unnerve him?
    Make him run as hard as granite with the need to possess her? Sink deep inside her, plunging in and out of her succulent female heat until he'd quenched every last one of her most lascivious wants and desires.
    Not to mention his own.
    "Damn a woman's slippery heat and the tight, velvety lure of her… charms ." Alex hissed the words, pressed his hands against the cold, grainy stone of the merlon. His frown turned darker than the lowering clouds gathering on the horizon. "I-do-not-desire-the-MacDougall-she-wolf."
    "So you say," a familiar voice crooned behind him, "but mayhap you've forgotten the simplest codes of chivalry? Or do you not care if the maid loses her footing and plummets to her death?"
    Alex whirled around. Hardwin de Studley stood not two paces away, a look of mock distress on his handsome face.
    " Maid ?" Alex near choked. His brows shot upward. "I vow the wench doesna ken the meaning of the word."
    "Say you?" Hardwick clucked his tongue. "Some would claim you condemn her too strongly, my friend."
    "Harrumph." Alex narrowed a glare on his friend. He wouldn't demean himself by commenting on such a ludicrous notion.
    A disgusted grunt sufficed.
    His gaze flicked to his friend's problem . Though it was truly lamentable, Hardwick no doubt suffered a softening of his brain due to his nightly escapades.
    Alex, however, possessed a much sturdier constitution.
    And restraint.
    He would not be influenced by the tilt and sway of a plump, well-curved bottom. The teasing bounce of lush round breasts. Full, hard-nippled MacDougall teats and sure to be filled with poison—if e'er he was foolish enough to suckle them!
    Hardwick looked ready to sample her nipples and more. "Ahhh, to bathe in such tresses," the blighter declared on an appreciative sigh. "To sink to the—"
    "You are worse than a rutting stag." A hot spark of anger flared inside Alex. "Nay, a full score of the lecherous beasts," he added, following his friend's stare.
    A folly he immediately regretted.
    The wench stood in profile halfway down the cliff-side steps. She'd unclasped her hair, allowing it to tumble in burnished copper waves around her shoulders. More vexing still, she was running her hands through the gleaming tresses, letting the silken-looking strands spill from her