Page 80 of Laird of Flint
He couldn’t refuse. He came up beside her pallet and hunkered down beside her.
Her eyelids dipped and opened again slowly. “Come closer,” she murmured.
He drew as near as he could. Near enough to see the languid glaze in her amethyst eyes. Near enough to smell the sweet lavender on her skin. “What is it?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Sometimes when I see ye smile, I think about kissin’ ye.”
He gulped.
“I wonder what y’r arms would feel like aroun’ me,” she confessed. “How y’r breath would feel upon my cheek. What y’r lips would taste like.”
Hew could only gape at her in slack-jawed silence.
In any other moment like this, he would have swept the woman off her feet, delved his hands into her hair, and ravished her mouth with passionate abandon. They would have ended up in an intimate embrace and inevitably in a tryst between the linens.
But this wasn’t any woman. This was Carenza. This was The One. And she wasn’t in her right mind.
She lifted a finger and placed it on his mouth. “Do y’ think about it too?”
He didn’t trust himself to speak. So he nodded.
She traced his lips with her finger, lingering on them with a limpid gaze. Then she whispered, “Do y’ think about other things?”
His throat closed. The raging beast below his waist was thinking of them. In fact, it was demanding them.
She withdrew her finger and gave him a sultry smile. “Y’re goin’ to make a terrible monk.”
She wasn’t wrong. But for now he had to behave like one.
Making light of her comment, he replied, “And you, my lady, are going to make a terrible cateran.”
“Me, a cateran.” She flashed him a gleeful grin. A grin that ultimately melted into a yawn. Then a crease settled between her brows. “Y’ don’t thinkI’mthe monastery thief, do y’?”
So shedidremember their conversation from the wee hours.
He was about to reassure her that nay, he didn’t think she was the thief. Who could ever believe Carenza was a common outlaw?
On the other hand, she’d stolen her father’s coo, let the Boyle brothers take the blame, and deceived the abbot. She wasn’t exactly without sin.
Could she have stolen the church treasures?
There was only one way to find out. Ask her directly.
“Areyou the monastery thief?” he asked.
“Nay,” she replied.
She closed her eyes. He figured that was the end of it.
Then she opened them again and said, “But I’m goin’ t’ help y’ find him.”
Hew frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“’Tis too dangerous.”
“No more dang’rous than reivin’ coos.”
