Page 53 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

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She bit that lip. Christ help me. She isna’ ready to lose me yet?

No one had ever wanted him to stay before. Everyone ran from him and even here, under a banner of truce, they gave him a wide berth, as if he were plagued.

Sweet angel. She couldn’t lose someone who didn’t want to be lost anymore. He’d turned away after the corn cutting to avoid a confrontation, not because he had any intention of leaving her be. The strange truce that had befallen him and James as they’d scythed together had put him in a contentious position with his men. And his journey to Inverness yestereve had only filled him with more consternation, wondering if he made the right decision—clinging to the past and the secrets therein.

Tormund wound an arm around her shoulders to hook her nape in his elbow, thumbed her lip to pluck it free from her teeth, then dropped his lips to capture it again, suckling it. Nipping it with warning. It was becoming far too easy to kiss this woman, a habit he feared he couldn’t break. He wasn’t ready to lose her yet, either.

“Only I get to bite this lip, angel.”

A delicious shiver raced over her, making him finally smile. Heat warmed against his palm as he cupped her cheek. Those telltale sunbursts.

He settled his chin atop her head and drew back from the tree with her tightly in his embrace, letting her legs unravel to stand. She buried her face in his chest. Her arms snaked around his waist. Strange relief, to finally have her away from the prying eyes of their kin, spread warmth through his chest. He’d left yesterday, needing space. He’d slept like shite in the Blackfriars’s guest cell after tending to his important visit, needing to be near her. His hands slipped down her frame, pressing into the small of her back to pull her flush with him, the same places he’d seen MacNicol put his hands while he’d danced with Brighde, and fok but Tormund had felt red-hot possessiveness.

“Laird MacNicol asked my brother to betroth me to his son.”

Shite. He growled and clenched her harder. Nay what he needed to hear at the moment—this tug of war within an impossible beast to satiate. Tormund was going to lose her if he didn’t do something about it.

“He sounded desperate, as if he had something at stake in the matter.”

MacNicol wanted lands and clout over Tormund, since his ancestors had lost it long ago. He didn’t want Brighde. “I’ll no’ allow it.”

“Ye can nay stop it, either.” Christ. Aye, he could. If he handfasted her. “He put me on edge. I do nay like him.”

Music to his ears to hear her confirm that, when her hands caressed down his back, to his belts, and toyed with him there. “What’s this?”

Thankful for the diversion, he reached behind to pull the item free, handing it to her.

“A book!” she squealed, unwinding an arm from him. “Eh, may I?”

“’Tis for ye. Take it.” He gave it a shimmy to encourage her to accept the small text encased in a flap of leather—a girdle strap—so she could wear it upon her belt.

She blinked up at him, eyes widening. “Ye bought me a book?” Carefully, she opened it while his arm remained slung comfortably around her, grounding him, for a merry sentiment fluttered in his chest, cutting through his anger. Anticipation? “Is it from the monastery? I have nay had a new book in years and my mind is in a horrible drought over it,” she exaggerated, clutching it to her chest.

He chuckled. Pet back her wisps.

Her roan mare eyed him warily. He reached his hand out to the beast who’d bested Nykr, letting her sniff him and stroking her whiskered muzzle as Brighde opened the cover.

“Meditations, by Aur… Auralee…”

“Aurelius,” he murmured, unable to quell his grin any longer as her entire face lit up. “Watch the stars, and see yerself running with them.”

“Torm, it’s the book ye mentioned the other night that I said I wished to read,” she breathed. “Sakes, ye remembered! Is this yers?”

He grimaced and fingered the girdle leathers, and she giggled and shook her head. “Aye, all right. Goodness, these cost a pretty shilling…look at it…” She pet it like a beloved dog’s head. “Such a gift is worth more than any jewel or purse… Pray ye nay spent much. But wherever did ye find it?”

He shrugged. “It’s of no consequence.”

“It is indeed,” she scolded. “Torm, please say ye didna spend so much on me when yer people need that coin.”

“Nay insult the gift-giver, woman.” He shook his head, but she wouldn’t relent her scolding glare. “’Twas a trade, at Blackfriars’, if it makes ye feel better. And ye worried I was celebrating with a wench.”

Just like he’d hated seeing MacNicol touch her, knowing what that bastard vied for. And just the thought of MacNicol taking her to wife, coming home to her smile each day and sowing bairns on her, made a violent storm within him swirl: to make her his, in name, not just in body. If it weren’t for this ambush and the secrets about Owen. If it weren’t for the need to protect her from the darkness that had claimed his mother, claimed Marjorie. And fok this anger that wouldn’t leave him be, wouldn’t be sated, like a hungry dragon that was no longer allowed to breathe fire while the tumult built within him. To ken that he might never bring Owen’s murderer to justice now left unrequited grief pitted in his belly, that no matter which stance he took, he would forsake someone he lov—cared about.

“Ye rode all the way to the city,” she said, as realization dawned. “For me? Or something else?”

He chose his words carefully. “I had to tithe.”