Free Conall: The 93rd Highlanders, Book Two by Samantha Kane Page A

to
your bed will make you happy. Will it?”
    “ Yes,” she
told him, a bit of desperation in her voice. “Yes. He knows what a
lusty woman I am. I crave it, Graeme. I can’t go
without.”
    It was Graeme’s turn to
close his eyes against the desire clearly written on her face.
“There are things you should know. About me,” he said. He felt her
rest her cheek on his jacket again and opened his eyes to see her
unbuttoning his coat slowly.
    “ All right,”
she said. “Go on.”
    “ When Conall
came to see me earlier…” His voice faded. He wasn’t sure how to go
on. “I’ll go to Conall when I leave here,” he said in a
rush.
    “ All right,”
she said, smoothing her hand down his chest and stomach, not
looking at him. “You can go and tell him we were together if it
will make you feel better.”
    He grabbed her shoulders
and pushed her back, leaning over to stare into her eyes. “No,” he
said. “You don’t understand. I’ll go to Conall from here.” She
looked confused. “You’re not the only one I want,
Avril.”
    “ There’s
another woman? You’ve got another woman?” she asked. She was
obviously upset.
    “ No, not
another woman,” he told her, willing her to understand without
having to say the words. It wasn’t to be.
    “ I don’t know
what you’re telling me, Graeme,” she said in exasperation. “I’m
trying. Just say it. Who else do you want?”
    “ Conall.”
    She still looked
confused. “Well you can still be friends with him, can’t you?” she
asked. “He said he wanted us to be together. And God knows I still
love him, so I won’t fuss about your friendship.”
    “ He wants us
to be together because he cares for both of us,” Graeme explained
carefully. “He wants to be with me after I’m with you.”
    “ He wants to
hear about it?” She blushed as she said it. “I don’t suppose
there’s harm in that, is there? He’s been in your place.” She
covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes got big. “I shouldn’t
have said that,” she whispered after a moment. “No man wants to
hear that.”
    “ Conall wants
to hear that,” Graeme told her flatly. “I want to hear it. We both
want to see it. And we both want to talk about it when the two of
us are together. Like this.”
    “ What?” she
asked, but he could see the start of a glimmer of understanding in
her eyes.
    “ Conall wants
to be my lover at the same time I am yours,” Graeme said baldly.
“And I want it too. I needed you to know that before we did
something you might regret.”
    “ Is that why
he left me?” she whispered, backing away. “For you?”
    “ No,” Graeme
told her, vehemently shaking his head. “No. He left because you
wouldn’t marry him and he couldn’t bear to cause more talk about
you. That was the truth. This…thing between him and myself…” Graeme
turned away and wiped a hand down his face. “It’s my fault. I’m the
one who’s been watching him like that, who had those feelings. He
picked up on them, I suppose, though I tried to hide them. And
everyone can see I care about you. I think our shared love of you
is what prompted Conall to tell me how he felt.”
    “ That’s not
true,” she said, sitting down on her cot. “I saw you two together,
and I saw the mutual admiration, but I didn’t see it for what it
was. I mean, I know of it, that men sometimes take each other like
that.” She looked down at her hands and rubbed them together before
she began pulling her gloves off. “I’m not sure how I feel about
it, Graeme, you two together. The truth is I don’t even know what
that means.” She looked at him as she set her gloves on the
upside-down crate she used as a small table by her cot. “I do know
it doesn’t change how I feel about you. It should, shouldn’t it?”
She looked puzzled more than anything else. “I don’t know. If I can
care for both you and Conall, then I suppose you could both care
for me and each other.” She threw her hands up