Free Highlander 04 - Some Like It Kilted (2010) by Allie Mackay Page B

image came close, but now . . . in a riled state, he was flat-out magnificent.
     
Mindy stared at him, mouth dry and knees knocking.
     
The words dinnae ken —and everything else he said in his rich, buttery-smooth burr—hung in the air between them. His voice was deep and real, almost tactile. It was a sensual touch sliding around her. The deliciously sexy Scottish burr mocked and taunted, making her pulse leap and igniting sparks of female awareness even as every living inch of her quivered and trembled with nerves.
     
She’d vowed to never again be moved by anything Scottish.
     
That she noticed his burr made her face flame and her head pound. Admitting that his rugged I can toss you over my shoulder, carry you up the tower stairs, and ravish you good looks were appealing was even more galling.
     
She’d been kilted and jilted once.
     
She wouldn’t be hoodwinked again. Most especially, she wouldn’t be fooled by a seven- hundred-years-dead Scotsman. Even if he did have a melt-her-panties burr, she was immune and would stay that way.
     
As if he knew, his eyes narrowed and—shades of Twilight Zone —his sword’s crystal pommel stone began to glimmer with a pulsing blue radiance.
     
“Damnation!” He clamped a hand over the gemstone, his scowl turning fierce. “Away with you, whoe’er you are! There are others about who’d do more than just glower if they chanced upon you!”
     
It was the wrong thing to say.
     
Mindy straightened, heat scalding her cheeks.
     
No Scotsman, alive, ghostly, or otherwise, was ever going to do her again.
     
“I’m Mindy Menlove”—she lifted her chin to shoot daggers at him—“and I’ve already met the others, so you can’t frighten me with them.”
     
“What others?” He flashed a glance at the door arch, his brows snapping together as he scanned the shadows. “Was Saor one of them?”
     
“Say who?” Mindy blinked. She started to tell him about the long gallery of ghosts, but before she could open her mouth, he was right in front of her. His big body blotted everything except his broad, tartan-draped chest and shoulders that were almost indecently muscled.
     
The hot-eyed look he gave her was indecent.
     
So much so that her breath caught and her knees almost buckled.
     
She bit her lip and tried to scoot away, but he caught her wrist and jerked her close against him. So close, she could feel the rough weave of his plaid, the rock-marble hardness of his chest, and—she hardly believed it, considering—the soft brush of his breath on her cheek. She could also smell him. The bracing scent of cold, fresh air flooded her senses. It was a heady, outdoorsy scent laced with just a dash of wool, woodsmoke, and pure unadulterated man.
     
Intoxicating, and unlike anything in a bottle.
     
In fact, she was sure men would pay any price if such a scent were on the market.
     
Too bad the scent belonged to a man who wasn’t a real, live man.
     
As if he sensed the thought, he circled his thumb across the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, his touch as real and warm as the living day. It also sent a rush of tingly shivers streaking up her arm.
     
Mindy’s heart galloped.
     
He grinned.
     
“You’re a ghost!” She tried to jerk free and couldn’t.
     
His grip was like iron.
     
His gaze heated again and he stepped back just enough to sweep her with the kind of look that would have made her go all soft and hot under other circumstances. It did make her feel as though she should cover herself. For one crazy moment, she feared she might even be naked. After all, if she was standing here conversing with a ghost, who knew what else was possible? But then his eyes glinted with some indefinable emotion and he released her. He stepped back only long enough to brace his hands on the table on either side of her, effectively caging her within his arms.
     
“Aye, I’m a ghost.” He sounded proud. “We’ve already discussed that. And it’s no’ me we’re