Page 35 of Moon Awakening

He hated her.

How could she belong to a man who hated her?

But her brain insisted that this kiss was still wrong.

Finally, she forced herself to listen and tried to break away from Lachlan, but he responded by moving his grip to her waist and lifting her into more intimate contact with his big body. The apex of her thighs met a hard ridge and with a groan, he pressed her against it. Pleasure suffused her on a wave of such overwhelming delight, she cried out against his lips.

"What the hell are you doing?"

The raucous voice infiltrated Emily's thoughts just as Lachlan went stiff, his hold on her biting into her waist.

He lifted his mouth from hers. "Go away, Ulf."

"Balmoral warriors do not bed married women," Ulf said, spitting the words out with enough disgust to make Emily's face flame with shame.

She buried it against Lachlan's neck.

"She is not married."

"She said she was."

"She lied."

"And you have only her word for this?" Ulf demanded.

"Yes," Lachlan ground out as he lowered Emily until she was standing on her own two feet again.

He turned to face his brother, stepping away from her at the same time. Chilled by the loss of his touch, she rubbed her arms. He stood between her and Ulf, but she did not feel as if he stood with her—only in front of her. He was a barrier, but not an ally.

Shame that she wanted him to be suffused her. She was not married, but she was promised. To a man who has flat-out refused to marry you, her brain reminded her. Did that negate the betrothal? It couldn't when Abigail's future was at stake.

"Why should we believe you now, English? One way or another, you are a liar." Ulf sneered at her.

"I'm not lying."

He abruptly turned his attention to his brother. "What the hell were you doing kissing her, regardless? She is our enemy."

"She is not our enemy and you will not call her such again." Lachlan's tone was so harsh, she could barely make herself believe he had been the man kissing her so tenderly only moments before.

Ulf did not appear impressed by his brother's ire, however. "I bloody well will. Just because you're controlled by that beast inside you does not mean I will abandon reason for such base urges as lust. It's obvious to the other soldiers as well. They're back at the beach betting on whether or not you have tupped her yet."

Emily gasped at the crude terminology and the implication of Ulf's words. The others knew that Lachlan wanted her? They thought he was having her… right now? By the saints, didn't they realize she was a chaste and honorable maid?

She hadn't been acting like either a moment before though. She'd touched a man's bare chest… and wanted to do more.

Perhaps she was depraved.

"I am not governed by my beast, I am benefited by him," Lachlan said in a hard voice.

"So you say."

What was all this talk of beasts? Was Ulf trying to say that lust was a beast? She'd heard it described thus by the priest that served her father's barony, but Ulf did not seem a religious man who would eschew the pleasures of the flesh. Did he mean to imply that he did not have the same beast raging in himself, or simply that he felt no such thing for her?

She suspected the latter and did not feel in the least offended by it. Relieved more like.

Ulf's sneer was now directed entirely at his brother. "Then prove your superiority instead of making a mockery of it."

Lachlan sighed. "She is innocent."