“What do you mean?”
“Dinnae start with that,” she warned him. “Yer people might let you get away without answering their questions, but I’m yer wife. So, tell me. What happened there with Archie?”
The mention of Archie’s name made his face tense, as though that was the last thing he wanted to talk about.
“It was a friendly spar. Nothing more to it than that.”
“I don’t believe ye,” she replied. “I saw the way ye looked at him. There was real anger there, Camron, and ye cannae pretend otherwise.”
He shrugged. His silence only served to anger her further. She clenched her fists at her sides. How much would he force her to drag out of him? She felt as though she was crashing up against a brick wall at every turn, each and every attempt she made to get through to him pushed aside before she could make it stick.
“As I told ye, we were training.”
“Why won’t you talk to me as an equal?” she blurted out at last, the frustration bubbling over like a kettle left for too long on the stove. “I’m meant to be yer wife. The Lady of this place. Everyone else treats me that way, but ye?—”
“I’ve given ye everything ye could possibly want,” he replied, his voice dropping low, as though daring her to continue. “And if ye’re too selfish to?—”
“Selfish?” she exclaimed. “Tell me, Camron, how I can be selfish when you have taken so much from me? I had no choice in coming here. And ye treat me like a pawn, like I’m nothing more than some broodmare for ye to have yer heir with. It’s not exactly what any woman would have dreamed of when they imagined taking a husband, but?—”
“That’s how ye think I see ye?” he cut her off, silencing her with his low tone.
She could not tell if he was angry or not, and it scared her to silence.
“Well, given that ye hardly seem willing to let me live as I please. And the way ye like to tease me and leaving me hanging like I am nothing but a toy for yer amusement…” she replied, casting her eyes skywards. Truthfully, she could not bear to meet his gaze, as though she would not be able to maintain her certainty if she did.
He rose to his feet, casting aside the cup of ale as he did so. With his back to the fire, he was outlined in flames, a dark shape against the red and orange.
“I dinnae ask much of ye, lass,” he growled. “Just that ye stay away from my cousin. Or any other man at that.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Was that what this was all about? Some ill-fated attempt to get her to give up on whatever burgeoning friendship she had managed to make here? The thought of it was almost enough to make her laugh, it was so ridiculous. How dare he speak to her in such a fashion, try to force her away from the friendship she had here?
“Ye’re nothing but an arrogant prig,” she shot back. “If ye think I cannae so much as have a friend here without?—”
“Ye smile at him,” he continued, closing the distance between them. Suddenly, the flames licking from the hearth did not seem like the warmest thing in the room.
“And yet ye treat me as though I’m yer enemy. Ye give me the cold shoulder like it’s only natural for ye. Explain that to me, lass.”
For a moment, she glimpsed not just his temper, but something that lay beneath, too—something like hurt. Her words faltered in her throat. As much as she wanted to tell him that he had no right to speak to her that way, or to lay down rules on who she could and couldn’t talk to, she knew that it would not salve the sting that she had left on him.
And when he heard the quiet between them, the sudden faltering of her usually sharp words, he moved towards her, backing her against the door she had entered through. Her heart leapt into her throat. It wasn’t fear, though, it was something else—something like what she had felt when he had kissed her in their wedding ceremony, when he had claimed her the way he had.
“Camron—” she breathed.
But, before she could say another word, he moved into her and kissed her once more.
It was less a romantic embrace and more a demand. His tongue parted her lips and sank into her, drawing her against him with the passion that only a man who felt he had been cheated of her attentions could have mustered. For a split second, she thought of fighting it, but she gave in after a moment. She did not have it in her to push against him, not when the strength of his body felt as delicious as it did.
His hands grasped for her waist and her hips, gripping her with the same intensity he had poured into fighting Archie earlier.
She reached up to tangle her fingers in his hair, her husband, her Laird, the man who had taken her and claimed her and made her his—but not yet in the way that really mattered.
He drew back, catching his breath, and dragged his nose along her cheek, his mouth coming to pause next to her ear.
“Tell me that you dinnae want me, lass,” he murmured to her, a challenge on his tongue, a warning. “Look me in the eye and lie. Tell me that ye dinnae want me. Or perhaps I’ll check for myself…”
She swallowed hard. Her body had responded to his teasing, there was no doubt about that. And she could recall, all too vividly, what it had felt like for her when they had first met, when he had danced with her and drawn her close like he could not imagine anything he wanted more. His hand moved boldly down between her legs, sliding up to cup her womanhood, his fingers dipping against her and sending a blur of frenzied want through her.
“Ah, I see you dinnae have to tell me,” he remarked, his voice infuriatingly self-satisfied.
