MacGregor explained. “Lady Elizabeth lost her kitten.”
“Lady Margaret’s youngest daughter,” Mary clarified when it was clear he didn’t know to whom they were referring. “I was able to recruit Sir Gregor in our search.” The smile on her lips and flush on her cheeks when she looked up at the other man made Kenneth’s fists and jaw clench even harder. She didn’t look dull and colorless at all.
“Fortunate, indeed,” he said, unable to completely mask the dryness of his tone. Sir Gregor wasn’t a “Sir” at all; MacGregor wasn’t a knight.
He and MacGregor exchanged glances over her head.Back off, he told McGregor wordlessly. “I will escort Lady Mary to the Hall.”
MacGregor looked more puzzled than put out, but he conceded without argument. Kenneth was too angry to wonder about that.
“My lady,” MacGregor said with a bow, and then to him, “Sutherland.”
Kenneth hadn’t realized how tense he’d been, until his muscles started to relax as the man reputed to be the most handsome in Scotland walked away.
Lady Mary was watching him with furrowed brows. “What was that about?”
He didn’t know himself, damn it, and suddenly he felt as if he’d revealed something he shouldn’t have. He buried his anger behind a mask of feigned concern. It was his duty as a knight to warn her off, he told himself. “You should watch yourself with him. MacGregor has made more than one woman forget herself.”
She had the gall to burst out laughing. “This, from you? Isn’t your warning a bit ironic considering our first meeting?” Their eyes held, and he felt the strange urge to shift his feet. If he believed it possible, he would have thought he was embarrassed. “Nor did he invite me to his bed the first time we spoke.” She allowed her gaze to follow the other man’s disappearing form. “Pity,” she said under her breath.
But he heard it. His blood spiked hot. That edgy irritation returned full force. His muscles flared and his mouth fell in a hard, uncompromising line. He took her arm and forced her gaze back to him. “Stay away from him.”
She should be terrified. He never spoke to women like this. He was in full, fierce warrior mode. But her eyes only narrowed at his tone, and then on his hand when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to be able to shrug him off so easily this time. “What right do you have to speak to me like this? You have no claim on me.”
He told himself to cool down, but there was something in her gaze that snapped the precarious hold he had on his temper like a dry twig. She might not have meant it as a challenge, but he’d taken it as one. Young, uncomplicated, eager to please, and lusty. She might be the last, but he was already regretting not sticking to his typical sort of bedmate.
Seeing a door behind her, he opened it and pulled her inside. It probably had been a storage room at some time, though judging from the shelves of books and folios, the thickly cushioned bench and chairs, and the brazier, it had been turned into a library. But he was only vaguely aware of his surroundings. He closed the door behind him, spun her around, and pinned her against it with the hard slam of his body.
She gasped—in surprise at the suddenness of his movements or at the sensation of contact, he didn’t know.
Damn. He’d forgotten about his ribs. Yet pressed against her, it wasn’t pain he was feeling but awareness. She was more slight than he’d realized, slim and delicate. He had to be careful not to crush her. He could feel the bones of her hips, but also, he noticed, the small, soft curves of her breasts. For unremarkably sized breasts they seemed to be eliciting quite a reaction. His body crackled with a frantic, unfamiliar energy. It was lust, but lust unlike any he’d ever felt before.
It didn’t make any sense, but he was too angry to wonder how a too-skinny widow past her prime, doing her best to look unattractive, was making him feel like a squire about to tup his first maid.
He intended to show her exactly what kind of claim he had. He’d seen her first, damn it. If anyone was going to cut those too-tight laces of hers and watch her explode, it was going to be him.
Planting his hands on either side of her face, he leaned in closer. She smelled good. Not with the overwhelming, cloying scent of strong perfumes, but a faint whiff of flowers, as if she’d bathed in rose petals.
Her breath did an enticing little hitch as his face lowered. In the dim light of the fire he saw her lips part in innocent invitation, but it was the flutter of her pulse below her jaw that sent a pool of heat rushing straight to his groin.
Aye, she wanted him. He could almost taste the desire on her lips, and it shot through him with a surprisingly powerful surge.
“I’m making one,” he said, staring in her eyes and daring her to deny him.
He could see her eyes widen as she took in his meaning. “I don’t—”
He cut off her protest with a kiss. He’d only meant to make his point, to stake his claim with a possessive, irrefutable press of his mouth. But the first touch of his lips on hers changed his mind.
He suddenly understood the poetical allusions of bards. The ground did indeed feel like it had shifted as he was hit with an overwhelming blast of sensation. Passion exploded between them on contact. The kind of raw, primal passion that reached down, grabbed him by the bollocks, and wouldn’t let go. Aye, his bollocks could feel it—as did his cock.
His bodily reaction to her was fierce. Primal. The strange attraction vibrating between them tightened, and the connection once made could not be undone. It had happened to him before—an unexpectedly powerful reaction to a woman on an elemental level—but never to this extent.
Hell, he wouldn’t need the recipe for black powder if he could bottle this.
He hadn’t expected this at all. It was a surprise. A pleasant one, but a surprise nonetheless. Who would have thought he’d be so turned on by a colorless little wren? The fierce attraction didn’t make sense, but it was undeniable.
Christ, her lips were so soft they didn’t feel real. He groaned, sinking a little deeper in the kiss. And so sweet. He couldn’t believe how sweet. He’d had honeysuckle once, and that was what he thought of now. Blooming in the warm sun.
He moved his lips over hers. Slowly at first, urging her response. She wasn’t fighting him, seeming to be in almost a stunned daze, but it was equally clear she didn’t know what to do.
