Page 30 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

He’d done what? Her heart, trilling before, raced now. She gripped his shoulders to hoist herself up as if climbing his back, to see around his monumental frame, once more looking upon the expanse of water and the currach, biting her lip, whispering, “Does he speak truth?”

The man continued, “And pray ye return her in one piece, mi laird. I cannae afford the time or coin to repair it. Do ye ken how to sail it?”

At this, Tormund scowled with clear affront, but Brighde couldn’t withhold her giggle, squeezing him, relishing how this time he went rigid at her sudden touch and relaxed immediately afterward. “I’d wager he kens a thing or two about it.”

Tormund drawled, “If aught should damage it, I’ll make ye a new one. It’s sort of a…family business.”

Tormund swung a leg over Nykr’s neck so as not to kick her and dropped down. Then, turning, he reached up to her. His hands settled about her waist. She braced his shoulders. Like lifting a feather, he plucked her from Nykr’s rump, letting her slide down his body.

For a moment, they stood face-to-face. His hands curled over her hips, anchoring her to him as if reacquainting himself with her, holding her as if he had ownership, like he seemed wont to do.

“Why?” she asked, picking gently at his doublet as if it were speckled with dust.

He stepped back, jaws pumping beneath his ears, but didn’t answer. Releasing her, he maneuvered around Nykr, taking a lead out of his bag and slinging it around his mount’s neck, slipping the knot snug upon the rope, and handed it to the crofter. He flicked a coin from his sporran into the man’s hand.

“Nay, mi laird, ye need no’ pay coin when ye toiled so hard today. I’ve never in all my years seen a man of nobility willing to sully his hands as ye did, and the amount ye harvested was so fair, we never would have gotten the work done before nightfall.”

Tormund was a noble, too? Of course, he was chief of the MacLeods and the Stornoway laird. But what was his peerage?

Tormund held up a palm, refusing the man’s offer to return the money. “For minding my horse. ’Tis all, man.”

He moved to the currach and flipped it over. Brighde smiled at the crofter, nodding. The man bowed and backed away, leading Nykr with him.

She squatted down to sift her fingers in the sand and pluck at seashells. Her fingers held back strands of hair blowing wild around her face as she breathed in the scent of breaking waves and watched Tormund’s form as he shoved the currach through the sand until the hull sliced into the water. His limbs, longer and lankier than they seemed when looming large, moved with surety and grace. His proud kilt billowed around powerful legs, revealing torqued muscle that disappeared beneath his deerskin boots. How easy he made the laborious task look as his braid cresting his head glistened in the evening glow, igniting the midnight tresses aflame with bay and sorrel hues.

Was it wet? Had he bathed? He’d smelled so fresh, belying the ruffian look of his talon in his ear and the silvery patterns etched upon his neck. She hadn’t noticed those before. Faint scarified patterns, not tattoos, the subtle hue of them hard to see unless the lighting was right.

He shrugged out of his doublet and tossed the garment onto the rower’s bench. Unfurled the square sail and belayed the rigging through his hands into a neat coil. Slipping two oars into the hull and securing his pack beneath the bench, he turned back to her, tunic slouched around his belts and hanging open at the neck.

He held out his hand to her.

Expectant light shimmered in his obsidian depths, even if he didn’t smile.

“If ye could, ye’d sail away and nay return for a year, aye?”

She bit her lip, stood, dropped her shells into her pocket, slipped out of her shoes to run barefoot and respond to his beckoning as if her body had no choice, as if he reeled in a fishing net and she a helpless fish. Basking in the feel of sand between her toes, she collected her hem in one hand to bunch up her skirts and came close enough to the rolling waves that they rushed around her ankles.

She gasped at the chill and grinned, sliding her palm into his and shivering with pleasure to feel his grip once more tighten on hers. Then she spun beneath his arm as if he twirled her in a dance, laughing, water splashing around her feet and her hem flopping into the waves.

“Do we leave for a year?” she teased, squeezing his fingers.

“Would ye have me that long, angel?” His reply sounded strained. His eyes trained on her spinning body until he swung her into his arms, cradling her, and deposited her wet feet into the floor of the vessel, steadying her with his arm around her back and his palm cupping her ribs beneath her breasts. He froze.

She glanced at his face to see why he’d done so. Except he was staring down at the swells of her breasts. Her mantle had shifted.

“Yer bodice, lass,” he gruffed.

Her cheeks heated. Her plaid had concealed it, but her laces were still untied, as were the ribbons at her wrists. “I was changing when I noticed the purse and was assailed with irritation.”

She hurried to do up the bodice, but he gripped her fingers, stopping them, then fingered the sprig of lavender wedged into her cleavage.

“Leave it.” He let her go, steadying her by her elbow as the vessel bobbed gently, clinging to the sand with only the tip of the bow. “Sit here.”

Heart still racing, that dock line of trust pulled taut between them. She did as he commanded and sat upon the bench at the bow, feeling his heated gaze upon her skin that stirred those spirals of desire within her that she knew he could sate. She’d likely lay herself out as willing tribute again if he tried. All last night as she slept, the tension had worked her nerves into a ball of energy for which she had no definition.

And then the boat lurched. His face came near to hers, leaning over her as he braced the bow and shoved them out onto the water, sloshing into the waves until the shore freed the vessel to bob and dip on the sea swells.

He leaped over the side, around her, spraying water from his boots and hem of his kilt onto the planks.