Page 17 of A Sinful Night with a Scot
Several seconds later, however, he abruptly pulled his arms and body away at the exact same second Elspeth gasped and rolled across the bed.
“What were ye doing?” she cried, her eyes wide as she looked at him in astonishment.
Flummoxed as to what he ought to say, he reacted defensively.
“I could ask ye the same thing,” he blurted, pushing himself up. “Ye were the one snuggling intae me.”
“Indeed, I wasnae,” she continued, now jumping out of the bed. “Why would I dae such a thing? Ye had yer arms wrapped around me. Ye must have pulled me in.”
Climbing out of the bed himself, he turned to her, screwing up his face and shaking his head.
“Och, nay. Ye’re nae blaming this all on me. Ye were probably cold, just like the other night.”
“And ye were probably needy, just like the other night,” she countered.
Both of them now stood at either side of the bed, arguing across it, Elspeth with her hands on her hips, Keane with his hands gesturing wildly.
“How can I be needy when I’m sleeping?”
“The same can be said o’ how I could ken I was cold,” she came back. “Ye were meant tae stay on yer side.”
“And I did.”
“Clearly nae,” she countered, flying an arm out in frustration.
This back and forth was getting them nowhere, and clearly, neither of them were going to admit their fault. They could stand there and argue all day, but Keane had things to be getting onwith. Not least of all, returning to the castle before Gunn and his men caught up with them.
“Och, we were sleeping,” he said, allowing himself to admit to some culpability. “Clearly, we cuddled up tae each other. It’s nae that hard tae comprehend.”
“Fine,” she barked back.
“Fine,” he retorted.
For a moment, the tension still lingered, and with both of them mad at each other, they were clearly at a loss as to what they ought to do next. Elspeth was still standing with her hands on her hips, while Keane ran his fingers through his hair.
Desperate to do something, he dropped down onto the bed and began pulling his boots on.
“Fine,” he murmured again, only now, far less aggressively as he thought about how they had woken entangled around each other.
The thing was, it wasn’t fine. After slipping under the blankets with every intention of staying on his side of the bed, he had rolled over and reached for her at some point during the night.
Surely, that’s natural, isnae it?
Would ye have done it had ye been sharing a bed with Alisdair?
Nae!
And therein lay the problem. A problem he needed to get a handle on. He couldn’t fall for this woman. For any woman. In fact, he had tried to be as mean as possible so she would hate him. It was for the best. But even he had to admit that there had been occasions where he had been kinder to her than he had originally planned.
Och, cut yersel’ some slack. She’s a beautiful lass.
That didn’t matter. He couldn’t allow himself to get attached. He was on a mission. A mission that didn’t allow for distractions.
“I need a mirror,” Elspeth said from across the room, her voice cutting into his debating thoughts.
Keane stood and turned to look at her now sitting at the dresser. She was doing her best to run her fingers through the raven-black hair that hung loosely down her back like a black, swaying curtain.
After her bath last night, she had left it unbraided, and though he had tried to hide it with a snide remark about her keeping him locked out when he had returned to the room, the sight of her had stunned him.
