Emma swallowed reflexively, stopping dead in her tracks. She glanced over her shoulder and caught Thomas looking at her, a strange, hungry expression in his eyes. He was leaning back against the desk, arms crossed across his chest, making the muscles of his shoulders and chest bulge against his shirt.
She wished she hadn’t noticed that, as it made the odd, hungry ache in her stomach clench harder.
“What is it?” she asked, crossing her arms too. “Ye are the one who insisted I come to this party. Why should I not make some friends?”
He snorted. “Ye think thatboywanted to be yer friend?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Don’t be foolish. He was flirting with ye, and ye were flirting back.”
“Ye think having a conversation is flirting, then? God help ye, how do ye go through life thinking that everyone is in love with ye? Actually… actually, that might make sense.”
Thomas suppressed a smile. “Fine. Ye wereallowinghim to flirt with ye, then.”
Emma narrowed her eyes. “So what if I was? I am a single woman, and I can do what I like. So, I ask ye again, if Iwasletting him flirt with me, so what?”
“So what? What do ye mean,so what? Ye cannot let a man flirt with ye while ye are here with me.”
“And why not?”
The question crackled in the air between them like a challenge. Thomas narrowed his eyes, their expressions and body language mirroring. He took a step closer, bringing them within arm’s reach of each other.
Emma should have stepped back to keep the space between them.
She didn’t.
“Ye cannot let other men flirt with ye, Emma Gallagher,” he enunciated carefully, “because ye are mine. Mine, and mine alone.”
She absorbed this for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“I am notyers, Laird MacPherson. I am my own and nobody else’s. I’d thank ye to remember that.”
Thomas was silent for a moment.
Well, perhaps not a moment. Their whole conversation had taken no more than a minute or two, sharp retorts rapped out between them. The silence could only have lasted a few seconds at most, but they seemed to stretch out forever.
In that breathless pause, Emma became aware of the muffled, distant hum of music, chatter, and laughter, with the sharp noise of clinking glasses and tankards cutting through the buzz. The floorboards below her feet were warm, the heat of countless bodies below seeping up through the cracks. There was a single candle sitting on a bookcase in the corner of the room, and it did a poor job of lighting the space. Shadows jumped over Thomas’s face and form, highlighting curves and swells of muscle and the well-shaped planes of his face.
Desire clenched her insides as if she’d swallowed a snake. This was the first time she’d been able to put a name to the hungry, dark feeling inside her that swirled violently whenever Thomas was around and refused to be quiet.
She swallowed hard, making a clicking noise in the quiet.
He lunged forward without warning, and she grabbed him halfway. She was never sure which one of them instigated a kiss, only that his lips met hers hard enough to push them against her teeth, and it was too much and not quite enough all at once. His body, firm with muscle and emanating heat, pressed against hers, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, digging in her fingers.
They broke apart to suck in a breath, their eyes wide. In the flickering candlelight, Thomas’s eyes were shadowed, hiding their expression. This excited Emma far more than it should, and desire fizzled in her gut again. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, one arm resting around the curve of her waist, the other palm splayed hotly against her back, between her shoulder blades.
She felt him lift his hand, his rough knuckles trailing across her cheek, impossibly soft.
“I am afraid ye cannot do exactly what ye like,” Thomas said softly, “because ye are mine, lassie.”
The words were like hot spears through Emma’s stomach.
In a good way, of course.
“How can ye say that sort of thing?” she replied, her voice embarrassingly raspy. “What about Astrid?”
Faint confusion knitted his brow. “Who?”
