How did she do it?
Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it gently and inhaled the soft, fragrant scent of her skin. She smelled of the flowers she held in her other hand, of the earth and of the woman. It was a heady combination. One that cut through him and made his entire body burn.
In that moment, she was beautiful to him. Not just in her looks, but in her being.
She was the beauty he wished he had. The beauty he would love to spend the rest of his life staring at and holding close to his heart.
But she could never be his.
She belonged to someone else.
“Thank you,” he whispered, lowering her hand.
“For what?”
“Making me feel better.”
She smiled at him and he felt an invisible fist slam into his gut.
How he wished he could keep her with him like this forever. But it wasn’t meant to be. She was promised to someone else and like as not she had a father who was probably beside himself with panic at her disappearance.
If he were a decent man, Ewan would head off to Lochlan’s castle with her now and let his brother find her father so that she could go home and relieve the man’s worry.
Instead, he was going to spend the next few days with their untoward hosts. Not just because he wanted to find out why he’d been taken, but because he wanted to spend more time with this woman.
It didn’t make sense.
Nora was everything he should hate. She was bold and stubborn. Vexing.
But most of all, she was enticing and it had been so long since anyone had enticed him. An eternity since he’d felt the molten heat of passion or desire.
He wanted her.
With every ounce of masculinity he possessed. He wanted to take her in his arms and claim her body with his. To peel the clothes from her and explore every inch of her bare skin with his mouth.
To fan her hair out across his pillows and watch her face contort with pleasure as she came beneath him.
Yet it would never be.
She was a virtuous maid.
And he would move heaven and earth to keep her that way.
Nora held her tongue as Ewan led her back to camp. He must have washed his face right before he came to seek her. His black curly hair was slicked back from his face and sleek. His shoulders broad and muscular, and yet he didn’t appear as fearsome to her now as he had before.
She was growing accustomed to his brooding features and scowls. He was a strange combination of gentleman and beast. An intoxicating blending of dangerous predator and protector.
His touch was so gentle that it amazed her. He showed a kindness with her that she would never have thought him capable of.
And in the back of her mind, she wondered what he would be like to husband.
Would he listen, or would he be like the others of his kind and shut her out merely because she had been born the wrong gender?
Nora, what are you thinking?
The man is wholly unsuitable.
Truly he was. Big, hulking.
