Page 33 of The Highlander's Auctioned Virgin
CHAPTER 9
Elinor’s ears perked up.A distant voice had pierced through her slumber, like echoes on crashing waves. She felt like she was falling from an incredibly high cliff, and there was no way for her to land.
The voice called again, and she realized what it said this time.
M’Lady.
She didn’t know where it had come from, though. Deep down, she recognized it, and yet as she continued to fall, it sounded even more foreign to her.
“M’Lady?”
Her eyes snapped open.
She didn’t know where she was. The roof above her was nothing like the one in her room. She felt the mattress beneath her; it was a bit harder on her back than she remembered.
“Och!” a voice suddenly whispered. The same one she had heard in her dream.
She turned her head to the side and sawhim. Ciaran.
He was hanging a few cuts of raw meat above the fireplace, and every few minutes, he would flinch when a part of the meat burned his hands.
Elinor slowly sat up in bed. Flashes of what had happened the previous night came back to her. How she had set up this trial for the lairds and how none of them, except Ciaran, had managed to find her. How they had been caught in the storm and had to spend the night here because there had been no other way for them to return to the castle. How they had spent hours playing Nine Men’s Morris.
The storm must have stopped in the middle of the night because the patter of rain and the rumble of thunder had completely disappeared.
Ciaran still had his back turned to her, and she studied him carefully. His clothes must have dried up because they looked lighter than the previous day. Her own dress still hung on the line near the fireplace.
Another memory she had thought disappeared with her sleep suddenly returned, and she could remember everything clearly now. How she had asked Ciaran to sleep on the bed next to her. How she had bolted from the bed when she thought he had done something to the other lairds. How that altercation had led to?—
She swiped her tongue across her lips. Yes, she had not dreamed that part.
His taste lingered on her lips, like an essence she could not get rid of, no matter how hard she tried. Flashes of the kiss, like the lightning from the night before, flooded her brain.
She could remember the feel of his soft lips against hers. How their mouths had clashed in some intense, weird dance for dominance, and how she had felt like she was floating in the clouds after the kiss.
“I hope ye like meat.” Ciaran’s voice pulled her out of her reverie.
It also startled her, for she had made certain not to make any noise. She wondered how painfully aware he was of his surroundings.
“How did ye ken I was awake?”
Ciaran dangled another cut of meat over the fire. “Yer breathing quickened almost five minutes ago,” he murmured.
Elinor looked down at the towel still wrapped around her body. It looked firm, just like it had the previous night. But she needed to confirm, just to be sure.
“Dinnae turn around,” she muttered as she loosened the towel.
Her undergarments were just as they were the previous night. He hadn’t touched her.
“Ye havenae answered me,” Ciaran said as she wrapped the towel around herself again. He turned to her, a plate laden with freshly roasted meat in his hand. Steam curled up slowly from the plate to the ceiling. “Do ye like meat or nae?”
Elinor grimaced as the smell filled her nostrils. “Who did ye kill to provide us this lovely breakfast?”
Ciaran laughed, setting the plate on a stool by the bed. “Do ye really think that little of me?”
Elinor said nothing. Instead, her eyes flitted from the plate to him.
He rolled his eyes. “I went out to hunt a deer as soon as the storm ended. I saw a few when I first arrived at the castle.”
