Page 68 of Married to the Ruthless Highlander
At last, the pressure in her lungs and the need to breathe urged her up to the surface. She broke through, sucking in a deep breath of the crisp evening air, brimming with such vitality that she could not keep a grin from spreading across her face. It was the wildest thing she had ever done, and she rather liked the feeling.
“What the hell do ye think ye’re doin’ in there?” a rumbling voice rippled across the water to her, a prickle of unexpected warmth rushing up her spine. “Is the thought of gettin’ married to me so bad that ye wish to drown yerself?”
She jumped and turned slowly, her arms covering her bare breasts as the water trickled down her skin. “I was just swimmin’. Had I kenned I had company, I might’ve stayed under.”
Doughall sat on a rock by the shore, his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk playing on his lips as if he had been enjoying the view. But his voice was cold as he commanded, “Get out, now.”
“I dinnae want to,” she replied. “I’ve barely had a chance to swim.”
“Out. Now.”
She turned fully, still covering her breasts. “I cannae. I have nothin’ on, and as we’re nae yet married, ye cannae see me this way.” She resisted the urge to smile. “And before ye say it, a torn nightdress counts as clothin’. This is different.”
“I willnae tell ye again,” he growled, getting to his feet.
“Neither will I.”
His eyes flashed. “I cannae protect ye in the water. Get out.”
“Protect me from whom?” she replied, making a show of looking around. “If ye want me to get out, ye’ll have to come and get me. Unless… ye cannae swim?”
Was that what he meant by not being able to protect her in the water? Living so close to a loch, she had assumed he would make the most of swimming. As she thought it, a realization dawned on her—he had watched his mother and father die on the shore of this loch. It stood to reason that he might not want to learn to swim here.
Doughall’s lip twitched, clearly irritated by her defiance. But his next action proved that he knew perfectly well how to swim and was not afraid of the loch at all.
Freya’s eyes widened as he tossed his cloak aside, peeling off his shirt and belted plaid until he stood naked on the pebbled shore, bathed in otherworldly moonlight. The silver glow glanced off those breathtaking, sculptured muscles, revealing more of him than she had ever dared to imagine.
The sight of his ridged abdomen made her stomach flutter, and the hard lines of his broad chest made her breathless. His powerful arms and corded neck finally made her understand why he had bitten her in the library. At that moment, she would have given anything to sink her teeth into him. Meanwhile, his thighs turned her thoughts feral, her fingernails longing to dig into that hard flesh.
Her gaze flitted to the part of him that had driven her imagination wild before, the part of him she was certain she had once felt, straining against the heat of her, hard and demanding. Her throat constricted, pushing out a startled gasp. It was no wonder she had felt it so keenly through his plaid and herundergarments, that thrilling flesh so thick and long that it took away what little breath she had left.
“Are ye goin’ to get out?” he asked in a throaty voice, his eyes blazing.
Freya shook her head, unable to form words.
“Then this will be yer last mischief before ye’re mine.”
He walked forward, not flinching at all as he moved through the shallows, the icy cold water rising higher and higher as he waded toward her.
Torn between diving into the water to escape him and letting him come, she braced herself against the shivers that coursed through her, and her body made the choice for her. Nothing could have compelled her to swim away from him, not when he looked like a god in the moonlight, the water like silver around him, caressing him. She had read enough tales of the old gods to know not to run when one approached.
“How did ye ken where to find me?” she asked through chattering teeth.
He grabbed her by her pale, goose-fleshed arm, pulling her to him. “I was guardin’ from the battlements and spied a Selkie in human form leavin’ the festivities before someone could steal and hide her sealskin.”
His arms enveloped her, his slippery, muscular body warming hers. Peering up anxiously, trembling—though not entirely from the cold—she was too overwhelmed by his closeness, his bareness, to remark on the joke he had made. It was not at all like him to speak with any whimsy.
“Truth be told, I thought ye were fleein’,” he continued, his gaze darkening.
“Ye were chasin’ me down, then?”
He held her tighter, those muscular thighs and that intimidating length pressing against her, holding her lungs and thoughts prisoner.
“I was curious to see how far ye’d get this time,” he replied, brushing the wet hair from her face. “What were ye thinkin’, goin’ swimmin’ at this hour? It’s almost winter, for pity’s sake. Ye’ll catch yer death.”
She put her palms on his chest, his shoulders curving as if to shelter her from the cold that was all around them. “It was refreshin’,” she said shyly. “And it’s a beautiful night. I wanted to swim in the starlight.”
“Ye like the starlight,” he repeated.
