Page 39 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

Grabbing his arm, she tugged him as if to march him out. Silly. To where was she to take him where her brother’s sentries wouldn’t see?

“I grew tired of waiting for ye to wake, lass. Put this on and come,” he whispered, holding out one of her kirtles.

“But how did ye evade my brother’s sentries? If he finds ye here, ye can kiss yer bollocks goodbye, man,” she hissed back as she added with a giggle, “which would be a shame indeed.”

He teased her with that arrogant smirk at her desire for him so openly validated and pulled free of her scolding, crossing his arms. A boulder unwilling to budge. “I’m nay called a wraith who slides in and out of the mists for no reason, angel.”

Her gaze flitted over his biceps bulging upon where his fists were wedged. His mouth quirked as he leveled a knowing glare.

“If ye can ambush us so easily, how have ye nay murdered my brother in his sleep already?” she quipped.

Something hard flickered in his gaze, killing the smirk and bringing back his serious creases.

“Did I say something?” A shiver raced over her skin. “I meant only to tease…” But she blinked and the look was gone, the teasing once more softening his face and his hand caressing reassuringly down her arm, shaking his head.

“Come. If we are to escape before yer clan rises for the morn, we should do so now.”

“To where?”

He arched a brow.

“Ah, is this another, ‘my Tafl game, my rules?’ challenge, where I must simply trust ye blindly?”

“Cheeky wench,” he taunted. “Do ye nay trust me?”

She grinned. “The bachelor who sneaks into my tent and nearly gives me apoplexy?”

He thrust the kirtle at her again. “It’s a, ‘Don yer claes and ride with me because how else is a lass to indulge in berries from the maids who go afruiting if she nay goes afruiting with them?’ sort of challenge.”

Her eyes widened. “But I will miss the ceremony this morn, for I promised to help our servants sell our ribbons.”

He frowned, a moment’s disappointment darkening his brow, then shrugged. “Then I’ll wait. Ye can accompany me this afternoon. I hear the berries in my cousin’s easternmost village taste better than my kisses.” That smirk.

He reached out to draw her necklaces out of her chemise, to twist the talon and the locket strings together contemplatively.

“Ye will never let me forget that,” she giggled. “Why there?”

He let her necklaces drop but looked askance. “I’ll nay have to hide ye.”

Did he dislike this sneaking and hiding as much as she did? She looked down at the kirtle, fighting back a frown at the hint of seriousness in his words, but felt a smile burn her lips again when realizing that in his melancholy, there was also a boyish alacrity to his admission.

“Just a skirt? Nay even a bodice?” She eyed him coyly.

He peeled her MacDonald tartan off her shoulders between his thumb and finger with a curl of the lip as if touching something rotten, dropping it on her cot of down pillows and throws, then gazed shamelessly over her virtues through her thin chemise. And sakes, but she let him, relishing the caress of his appreciative gaze.

“I nay see the problem.”

“Ach!” she exclaimed, smacking his arm as he chuckled, dodging her scolding.

He snagged her offending hand and reeled her to him to slip his other palm around her waist and press their bodies together. Marveled at how his muscles didn’t even tense at her touch this time, but seemed to relax as if he liked it. Ah, sagebrush and sea breeze and his warm, masculine feel. She loved it—

Nay, she couldn’t let herself love. Marjorie had often chided her that she loved so easily, hurt when others didn’t return her fervor.

“There.” His head dipped slowly, lips ghosting a kiss upon hers even as his grin persisted, calming her. “That’s better, wee hellion—”

“Bridgy?” came her brother’s voice from the next tent over. “Ye all right, sister?”

Chapter Eleven