Domhnall moved without thought. He crossed the space in two strides and caught her as she fell, the impact driving her hard against his chest. One arm locked around her back, and the otherbraced her shoulders as they staggered together before regaining balance.
For a moment, the world narrowed to weight and heat and breath.
She fit against him with an ease that struck like a blow. Her body curved into his instinctively, her fingers clutching at his coat as though he were the only fixed thing left in a shifting room. He felt the tremor run through her before she mastered it. He felt her breath break against his collarbone.
It was worse than the horse…farworse.
There had been motion then, the press of necessity, the excuse of terrain and danger. This was stillness. This was choice held in suspension. Her scent rose around him, in an intoxicating fragrance of clean skin and candle smoke, crushed herbs, something unmistakably hers beneath it all. It settled into him deeply, a reminder far more intimate than touch.
His body reacted before his mind could stop it.
He tightened his hold without meaning to, his hand splaying across her back as if to anchor her there, as if letting go would cost him something he could not name. The urge to lower his mouth to hers was sudden and violent, a sharp pull that startled him with its force. He could already imagine the warmth, the way she would stiffen and then, perhaps, yield. The thought was dangerously vivid.
He shut it down with brutal discipline.
This was not desire alone. This was hunger born of proximity, sharpened by restraint and by the knowledge that she did not belong to him in the way his body insisted she should.
He forced himself to breathe evenly, to loosen his grip by degrees rather than all at once. He was acutely aware of how easily the moment could tip, how little stood between control and catastrophe.
She shifted then, just enough to break the spell.
He released her fully, stepping back as though the space between them were a necessary defense rather than an absence that immediately made itself felt. For an instant longer, her warmth lingered against him.
Domhnall turned away before it could undo him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Her feet touched the floor, but her body did not immediately remember how to stand.
Margaret swayed, the sudden absence of his arms leaving her oddly unmoored. Her knees trembled weakly beneath her, as though they had not yet accepted that the danger had passed. She tightened her grip on the book out of instinct rather than need, pressing it to her chest like an anchor.
Heat lingered everywhere he had touched her. She drew a careful breath, then another, willing the shaking to still. It did, but her pulse continued to race, loud enough that she was certain he must hear it.
“Thank ye,” she said at last, managing steadiness by sheer discipline. “The… noise startled me.”
Her voice sounded weaker than she would have liked. She hated that. She hated that her body had betrayed her composure socompletely, that it still remembered the strength of him before her mind could arrange itself properly again.
She waited for him to apologize, about the door, or the hour, or the inconvenience of nearly knocking her from a ladder. It would have been the courteous thing… theexpectedthing.
Instead, his gaze dropped. She followed it instinctively, feeling suddenly self-conscious, and realized what had drawn his attention. The book was still clutched in her hands.
A Treatise on Fortifications and Defensive Works.
Of all the volumes she might have risked her neck for…
His mouth curved the moment he read the title. “That book is nae worth a broken spine.”
Margaret drew a breath, then another, before daring to lean back just enough to look up at him. Her heart was still racing, and her senses were lagging behind the abrupt end of danger. Candlelight caught in his eyes, and she was acutely aware of how close they still stood.
“I was unable tae sleep,” she told him. “I find that understanding one’s surroundings is comforting.”
“Ye chose fortifications for comfort?”
Her lips curved faintly. “I find ignorance far more unsettling.”
His eyes rested on her face, and the look made her feel oddly exposed, as though he were cataloguing her in the same way he might a map or a coastline.
“Ye should nae climb ladders alone at night,” he said.
