Page 24 of The Highlander's Alluring Spy
He had the sudden mad desire to wrap his arms around her waist, hold her back against the desk, show her a Laird’s real fury when he was tested. He would have her submit to him fully, willingly, and she would cry out his name in ecstasy as he took her, begging for more, pleading forhim—
Instead, he breathed in, feeling it shaking on its way back out, and said in a voice as even-tempered as he could manage. “Why?” he asked in a rough, deep tone, stepping forward and almost wholly closing the gap, showing her that he could not be intimidated by a mere slip of a girl.
“Why what?” she snapped, not flinching away.
“Why dae ye seem so sure of me distaste toward ye? What have I done to make ye see me like this? An’ why dae ye even care so much?” he breathed.
His voice was more even now, steady, but he could barely hear it over the pounding of his own blood in his ears as it traveled through his body and downwards.
Magnolia swallowed. Nathair could see it bobbing in her neck. She had an eerie calm when she said, “You act suspicious of me. You have done so since I arrived. I do my best to please you, but…”
He raised his hand without thinking, brushing some of her loose hair from her face. She didn’t move away from his touch, but her voice faltered to nothing.
“I act suspicious o’ everyone,” he muttered. He didn’t lower his hand, frozen where he was, hovering just over the impossibly soft skin of Magnolia’s cheek. “I ask again. Why dae ye care?”
An’ why dae I care, too?
She chewed at her lip, and he had a sudden urge to bite it too, feel his teeth against her skin, and his tongue grazing her own. “My Laird,” she said softly. “Your opinion matters much, much more to me than it should.”
Nathair couldn’t be sure if he moved first or she did, but the next thing he knew, her arms were around his neck, and he was holding her waist, pulling her up and closer as their lips touched.
At last, crowed a triumphant voice in his head,at last.
It was a soft, slow, sensual kiss, starting with their lips closed and moving against each other as his body ached to be nearer to hers. Then Magnolia’s lips parted slightly, and his tongue darted in, just a little. He was rewarded for his daring by a slight moan against his lips, and her own tongue flicked into his mouth in kind. Her arms tightened around him, pulling him closer.
He gave a low growl deep in his throat, one hand releasing her waist to travel up her back, and he readied himself to move. First, he’d kiss her cheek then her ear, and then he’d slowly run his tongue and teeth down her neck until he found that spot in the crook of her neck that had always made Catrina mewl like a kitten, and—
He froze.
Catrina.
He dropped his hands as though she had burned him, pushing himself away, abruptly breaking the kiss and backing off. Magnolia was flushed, wide-eyed and panting, but there was a look of self-horror in her eyes, too.
Ye shouldnae have done that, Nathair. Ye shouldnae be feelin’ like this.
They stared at each other endlessly, unable to pretend it hadn’t happened, unable to talk about it.
She swallowed again, then bent over the desk to pick up her book and hurried out of the library without a word.
He stared after her, his heart still hammering, then slipped into his chair. His mind whirled with Catrina, with Magnolia, with soft lips and half-forgotten sighs, with guilt and lust and longing, and it threatened to drown him.
He blinked his eyes, forcing the hot prickles away from them, and stared down at the letters.
Catrina.
Magnolia.
On the fifteenth day of the sixth month of battle…
Had any war general before him ever felt such a combined sense of victory and defeat as he did at that moment?
And what in God’s name was he to do next?
7
The Regret
Magnolia opened her eyes as the sun streamed through the window. She’d woken from the most peculiar dream about her father, her mother, and her godson John. As she tried to recollect the details, though, the real memories of the previous night came flooding into her mind, erasing the dream almost entirely.
