Page 40 of Taken By the Savage Highlander

“But didn’t he come and find you near the cliffs after he found her?” Eleanor pressed.

“Yes, but that’s because he did not want anyone to be hurt or left out in the storm,” Margo replied, shifting uncomfortably.

She was not sure why, but she felt a bit exposed having Eleanor repeat the information she had told her. Her sister watched her curiously, seeming just as confused as Margo. Then, a smile spread across Eleanor’s face.

“Something happened when he came to find you!” she practically squealed, scooting to the front of her seat. She leaned forward, lowering her voice as she asked, “What was it? Did he kiss you again?”

Margo felt her face flush before she even had a chance to formulate a response. All at once, the sensation of Cameron’s lips against hers came rushing back. She recalled the way he’d pulled her forward, the intense heat of his body, each breath he’d taken and the way it fanned out against her cheeks.

“He did!” Eleanor faux-whispered in delight. “Tell me everything!”

“I do not know how much there is to tell,” Margo said, looking into the fire. “He simply… kissed me. There’s nothing more to say.”

“He kissed you in the rain!” Eleanor pointed out. There were stars in her eyes. “He came looking for you. Isn’t that romantic?”

Margo opened her mouth to object, but she was stopped short when she realized there was truth to her sister’s statement. Had Margo not been thinking about his actions relentlessly? Were her sister’s observations not the same as the ones that she’d been avoiding?

“I suppose it is,” Margo admitted finally. Her heart skipped a beat after the words left her mouth. “Though, I do not know if he intended it to be that way.”

“What other way could a kiss be meant?” Eleanor pressed on, her head tilting innocently to the side. “I cannot imagine that anyone would kiss another person and not mean it romantically.”

Margo hummed thoughtfully. “You may have a point. But I don’t think it is that simple with him. And I don’t know if my heart can take such confusion.”

Eleanor scooted her chair a bit closer to Margo’s. For a moment, the two sat in silence. After a while, she said, “I do not understand why adults must make things so needlessly complicated.”

“I do not either,” Margo sighed, staring at the flames as they licked up the sides of the fireplace. “And I do not know how to stop making things more confusing.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“I’d like to ken how ye keep gettin’ into me study,” Cameron said to the gray kitten that was sitting atop his desk.

Miss Crusoe blinked at him slowly. She seemed completely unbothered at being caught. It was as if the tiny creature had decided she had more claim over his study than he did.

“Fine, daenae answer me,” he said, pushing his hair away from his face. “Ye’re lucky that I daenae have any paperwork to finish.”

At his words, Miss Crusoe stretched. Then, she plopped down onto her side, her paws needing the air. When he took a few steps closer to her, he heard the deep rumble of her purr.

“Just as ridiculous as Margo,” he grumbled, scratching the top of the kitten’s head.

Dropping his hand, Cameron walked over to the window overlooking the courtyard. The castle was resuming normal operations now that they’d finished repairs. And, after his trip to the village this morning, it seemed that the villagers were on the way to resuming their lives as well.

Without more pressing issues to attend to, his mind drifted back to Margo. The deadline on the agreement that he’d made with her father was fast approaching, and he hadn’t cobbled together a plan that would please his Council and convince her father.

“Even if they believed a healer tellin’ them she was with child, they would still want proof,” he said, looking over his shoulder. Miss Crusoe was watching him through her big blue eyes, her head tilted to the side as though she was considering his words. “Perhaps we could trick her father and find a newborn child to present to him. Me Council would ken, however, would they nae?”

Miss Crusoe turned toward him, and lay down with her paws tucked beneath her body. Her eyes slipped closed, the gesture feeling almost dismissive of his problems. It was as if she were saying that he already knew the answer.

“I’m nae touchin’ her,” he growled to himself, both a warning and a prayer.

His control grew thinner and thinner by the day. Now, he was no longer dreaming of her body in the abstract. The feeling of her mouth against his, the sensation of her breasts against his chest, were etched into the very core of his being.

And her laugh.

Making her laugh had felt better than winning any battle he ever had. It confused him, how a simple sound made his stomach swoop the same way it had the first time he’d stepped foot on a fishing vessel. It was just as addictive, too.

The same way the soles of his feet had seemed to itch with the desire to run off and stowaway on one of the boats when he was a boy, his palms burned with the need to pull Margo close. She was too much of a temptation.

“I cannae stay around her if I mean to keep meself from breakin’ her apart,” he said, going back to his desk and flipping through the stack of missives he’d been putting off. “I ken it’s in here somewhere.”