The reversal of emotion that came over her was startling in its intensity. It was as if all of the hot waves of passion surging through her veins had suddenly turned to shards of ice.
She couldn’t do this.
Without thought but to escape, in one swift movement she brought her knee up hard against his crotch, as her father had taught her to do if she ever found herself in such a circumstance.
She was free. Alex hunched over and uttered what was surely the most vile expletive she’d ever heard. His face contorted. Meg bit her lip, feeling a wave of remorse. Her father had not mentioned this amount of pain.
She moved cautiously back out of his reach, sucking in air, trying to retrieve her breath. Surely she must look ravaged, with her mussed hair and bruised lips. But she didn’t care. She had to get out of here.
“What the hell was that for?” he moaned, his voice hoarse.
“I wanted you to stop.”
“You might have said something first.”
“I…” Mortified, she put her hand over her mouth, realizing she hadn’t even tried to push him away. She’d simply reacted. Overreacted. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears building behind her eyes, threatening to break.
Shaking, whether with panic or still blistering desire she did not know, Meg turned and fled toward the sanctuary of her chamber.
The urge to spill the contents of his stomach passed. Eyes burning, Alex watched Meg race down the corridor. What the hell had just happened? One minute she’d been responding as if she couldn’t get enough of him, the next his bollocks had been smashed up to his rib cage. All of his training with the MacGregors had not adequately prepared him for that particular move. But it was not one he’d likely forget. Ever.
Slowly, the pain ebbed. Had he frightened her? He must have. She was innocent. He shouldn’t have rushed her. But one taste had nearly driven him over the edge.
He never would have imagined that such passion lay dormant under that innocent exterior. It amazed him that such a serious young woman could inspire such wickedly carnal feelings.
Her response had driven him half-mad with lust. Although inexperienced, she’d returned his kiss with eagerness and enough instinctive skill to make him forget she was so innocent. Her erotic little groans of pleasure had urged him on. But the tentative touch of her hands on his shoulders and the slight rubbing of her unmistakably hard nipples against his chest had been a potent aphrodisiac that proved impossible to resist.
At that point, he’d completely forgotten that it was merely a kiss of convenience to cover up his presence in the corridor.
No, he was lying to himself.
He’d forgotten about that the moment their lips touched. He’d wanted her since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. And seeing her with Dougal had simply pushed him beyond endurance. He’d wanted to brand her with his kiss, to drive all thoughts of other men from her consciousness. To possess her in the most basic way.
But he’d never intended to take it so far. A few more minutes and he would have been doing a hell of a lot more than kissing her. He grew hard even at the memory. The honey sweet taste of her mouth and tongue, the pressure of her full breasts on his chest, the torture of her hips pressed against his rock-hard erection. He’d sensed her reaction when he’d moved against her. She’d liked it. She was ripe and so sweetly passionate. The urge to make her come had nearly overwhelmed him. Just the thought of rubbing her sensitive mound up and down his thick column over and over until she shattered…
He groaned. He couldn’t even think about it. His was so hard, he could explode.
How had one small kiss progressed to such a passionate conflagration so quickly? A conflagration that had scared Meg enough to cause her to nearly make him a eunuch. He should have anticipated her fear. The force of their passion had surprised him. Somewhere between the moan and the knee he had lost himself in the heat, in the lust, and hadn’t even realized that she might be frightened.
Hell, it even scared him.
Kissing Meg Mackinnon had been every bit as dangerous as Alex had expected. Meg made him think of things he’d never thought about before. Of a family. A home. Of a future that was not for him. One wee lass could wield the power to undo him. To make him lose focus—and if he wasn’t careful, to destroy all that he’d worked for. His duty right now was to his brother and his clan, and to a certain extent to his dead cousins. A duty that was at cross-purposes to the type of man Meg needed to ensure the stability of her clan.
He might not approve her methods, but he should be thanking Meg for putting a stop to it. Indeed, it would be better if he avoided Meg Mackinnon altogether.
Like the black death.
Indeed, she’d already caused him enough trouble, including alerting the men he’d been spying on to his presence in the corridor. At least their kiss had prevented him from being discovered. And Meg’s giggling had prevented further investigation, turning the men back to their meeting—albeit this time with the door shut.
Of course, he would apologize to her. But not right now. He still needed to learn when the ships would be leaving. He could only hope the king’s minions were still discussing their plans. He was just about to slip back down the corridor when he heard more footsteps coming toward him from the direction of the hall.
From the shadows, he watched as a man crept slowly past the corridor and peered down the hall in his direction. Alex held perfectly still. It was dark, but he could see that the large, heavyset man was not a guest at the masque. He wore the breeches and jerkin of a guardsman. Seeing no one, the man continued on, heading in the direction where Meg had disappeared, not back toward the hall.
He felt a flicker of unease. There was something devious about the man’s movements. Like Alex, he did not want to be seen. But there was more. Something niggled at the back of his memory. The man looked familiar. The realization hit him: He could be one of the men from the tavern. But he couldn’t be sure; he’d never seen his face and had only a quick glance at the rest of him.
Alex looked back down the hall to the chamber where Lord Chancellor Seton and Secretary Balmerino were still meeting. An opportunity like this might not come again. He might never learn when they planned to leave, vital information if he and his kin were going to have any kind of chance of repelling the incursion. This was his sole purpose for being at court. Not to chase after some tiny stubborn woman and protect her from a phantom threat.
He knew what heshoulddo. His head urged him back down the corridor toward the meeting. But another part of him, a deeper part of him, wouldn’t let him go. Meg could be in danger. He just couldn’t ignore the possibility that the two men were one and the same.
