Free Highland Enchantment (Highland Brides) by Lois Greiman Page A

to understand his tortured tone, she reached for him.
    "What would your father say? What would—" He sputtered to a halt and stepped back out of her reach. She noticed, although with some embarrassment, that his penis, hard and erect and surprisingly large, was pressed up tight against his belly. "What are you thinking?"
    "What are you thinking?" she murmured, mesmerized.
    "Me? Me! I'm a—a bastard!" he sputtered. "Born in the underbelly of Firthport with a sire who..." he stopped abruptly, still breathing hard."But still I..." He stared at her, seeming to realize suddenly that her gaze was trained considerably below his eye level. He gasped, and ripped his cape from the ground to cover his nudity.
    She managed to raise her gaze to his. "Why did you kiss me, Liam?" she asked softly.
    "Me?" He glanced about as if hoping to see someone else languidly residing there, someone to take the blame for his errant display of passion. "I..." He licked his lips then glared at her as if the answer were oh so obvious. "I was but trying to warm you up."
    "Truly?"
    "Aye." He gave her a short nod. "Your parents have been kind to me. I've no wish to see you..."
    He motioned roughly toward her then groaned. "Christ!" He seemed to find it hard to breathe for a moment. "I've no wish to see you die of the ague."
    "So..." She took a slim step nearer as she held his gaze with her own.
    He retreated, the cape wrapped sloppily about his waist. The slanted gap in the side revealed one lean hip and a length of leg honed hard by years of travel and performances. "I didn't expect you to—to... Good Christmas! Had I known you were so desperate for a man, I would have warned your father long ago to see you married off."
    Rachel stopped her advance. Her body cooled. Anger settled into her mind. This was the Liam she had known for so long, the Liam she had vowed to forget. "So you kissed me for naught but my own good?" she asked, pleased that despite everything she could sound quite normal, calm even.
    "Aye. Aye, I did," he said.
    "Oh." She took one more step forward. Then, heart pounding, she touched his chest. Beneath her fingertips, his muscles jumped to attention. Twas that simple movement that sent shivers of emotion up her arm and into her body. She withstood the sensation. Indeed, she did her best to ignore it, concentrating instead on him, on how his eyelids dropped closed for an instant, how his jaw tightened, making a small knot of muscle dance near his ear. "How very selfless of you, Liam. How wonderfully kind of you to forego your own wants, your own desires for naught but my welfare."
    "Aye." The single word was little more than a growl.
    "And here I thought..." Reversing her hand, she slid the pads of her nails up the undulated expanse of his abdomen. "I thought mayhap twas your undying devotion for me that made you do it."
    His eyes snapped open. "What?"
    She smiled at him in cold, aching fury. "Just before the ferry broke apart, you admitted your love for me."
    He jerked back a pace. "I did no such thing."
    "Oh, aye. You did."
    "Twas the roar of the water that confused you."
    "I assure you..." She stepped close to him again. "I heard you quite clearly." In fact, it had seemed that his heart had spoken directly to hers and hadn't involved her ears at all, as if the emotion had hummed straight into her soul. But that was when she was certain she was about to die. Minutes later, when the terror dulled, she knew she'd imagined the words. How pathetic that even during such a horrific situation she had been so needy. Would she never learn?
    But just now it didn't matter. For she had found a way to torment him.
    "So all of these years you have loved me from afar," she said on a breathy whisper. "All these years you have kept yourself from the Highlands because you knew you could not bear to be near me and not have me."
    "You're..."—a muscle clenched in his jaw again—"daft. Twas you who acted the randy hound.
    Mayhap tis you who is enamored with