He handed her a full tankard. This time, she sipped it and allowed herself to relax. He lowered himself into the chair by the fire.
“Where will you sleep?” she asked.
“Here.”
“In that chair?” she asked, unable to hide her surprise.
“Aye.”
“No,” she snapped. “You can sleep next to me.” She patted the feather mattress beside her.
His surprised gaze lifted to hers.
“And don’t tell me it wouldn’t be proper,” she added. “I can keep my hands to myself.”
A devilish grin crossed his face. “Aye, lass, but do ye think I can?”
That sounded like a challenge. One she wanted to accept.
“Well,” she said, slowly, a grin spreading, “I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.”
Brianna half hoped he would not be able to keep his hands to himself. There was a sense of curiosity about the young Scotsman as well as an attraction she was unable to deny.
He pulled off his boots and dropped them in front of him where he still sat in the chair. They eyed each other fromacross the room, which made her heart kick into a rapid beat. His gaze was unreadable. Slowly, he unfolded his tall frame from the chair and took long, methodical steps toward her. His gaze never left her face.
When he paused in front of her, she tipped her head back to look up at him. A shiver skipped through her. Not because she was cold, but because it was a shiver of need and desire.
“Did ye ken yer eyes are like the color of winter sky in the morn?” His voice was low, sultry.
Her breath hitched, pooling at the base of her throat. She was aware of the unusual color of her eyes. All her life, people had commented on them. They were a pale blue—giving her the look of cold calculation to her enemies. For those who were not intimidated by her eye color, they didn’t bother to hide their fascination. No one, though, likened them to a winter sky.
“Are they?” she asked, trying to ignore the rapid-fire beat of her pulse.
“I’ve no’ seen the likes,” he said.
Handsome. The word drifted unbidden through her mind as she gazed up at him. His chiseled face was all sharp lines and rugged angles, as if carved from stone, and yet his eyes were a soft doe-brown that caught the light in a way that made her breath catch in her throat. And when he smiled, he showed off two deep dimples on either side of his oh-so-kissable mouth.
What was he doing to her?
“My mother had eyes this color.” She didn’t know why she told him that. It’d never mattered to anyone else before.
A dark brow lifted. “Aye?”
“She and my father were killed in an accident several years ago.”
Sorrow flickered over his features. Why did she tell him that? She never spoke of her parents to anyone. She didn’t want his sorrow or his pity. But something about the way he looked at her chipped away at her inner defenses.
“But you likely know that already from Evie or Chloe.” She scooted away from him as she said it, reaching the top blanket and pulling it back.
“They dinnae speak of yer mam and da.”
That stopped her cold. “They don’t?”
“Not to me.”
He walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled back the blankets on his side. Then he sat on the edge. She watched the muscles in his back as he removed the tartan, letting it pool on the floor beside him. Underneath he wore a tunic. He pulled this off over his head and dropped it to the floor with the tartan.
With her cheeks flaming, she turned away. She didn’t need to see that expanse of golden skin or the way his muscles flexed along his back and biceps. Nope, she didn’t need to see that at all.
