Page 111 of Outlaw Ever After

“Did ye ken it was me?” Her words were a desperate mash of sounds as his mouth devoured and his teeth pinched her lip.

He nodded, hand raking up her front, over her breast to her throat to brace it, to sift along her cheek and tilt her head as a carnal need to be connected to the soul he’d always been meant to find fueled his need to touch.

“From the moment I arrived,” he rumbled against her lips, “and realized ye were Seamus’s sister. My first”—their tongues danced—“and only,” teeth nipped, but he didn’t finish.

She pulled back, eyes wide, breathing, “What?”

Something was scratching his nape, blessedly distracting from what he’d almost admitted. That parchment she’d been gripping? He reached up, taking it from her hand. A green ribbon? His green ribbon? He separated an inch, his lips burning and swollen.

“My missive?” he asked.

Worry returned to her eyes at his frown.

“Yer missive. I just found it when I went looking for Seamus. And Kendrew…”

He bristled at the way her brow pleated in concern. “Go on.”

“He’s the one who found it and discovered that ye and I had trysted. He told Seamus. And he did nay want me marrying anyone else. He sabotaged me to get Freuchie when he dared to call me a friend.”

“Men have played darker games for less,” he replied. “Ye say he sabotaged ye to get it?”

She nodded.

“How long has Freuchie been yer dowry?”

She blew an errant strand off her lips. “Since as long as I can remember. As the firstborn daughter, it was always assumed I would marry first and therefore would need the dowry. But we had no coin. Only loads of debt from this castle. And men want coin or lands, nay just expensive castles and no way to upkeep them.”

“Has Kendrew kenned this all along?”

She shrugged, her brow furrowing as a thought seemed to strike.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “It’s just something his sister said. That I should ken how much he fancies me, since he’s waited all these years for me to become eligible, remaining a bachelor till now… It’s clear he feels entitled to Freuchie… And I wonder…”

“Wonder what?”

She tapped her lip. “Something I read last night in the gallery. His sire was once stripped of his lands in Glen Lyon, for treason at Flodden Field, as had any of his issue been stripped of their inheritances in Speyside.”

“But Bale is laird of a small holding in Glen Lyon. Lyon Tower.” Alex frowned.

“Bale, Bale, why does everyone keep speaking of this man? How could he own anything there if his sire was stripped of it for being a heretic and a spy?”

The pleats in Alex’s brow deepened.

Celebrants poured in from the courtyard, complaining of snow and filling the hall with chatter. He laid a finger over her lips.

Music was struck up. The bard sang. Aileana could be heard asking where Peigi had gone.

“Go, songbird,” he said, cupping her cheek and pressing his lips to hers once more, slipping past her up the steps. “I have something to consider.”

“ Come with me .” She tugged on his fingers, pulling him a step down to her again.

Oh, to indulge her.

“All will ken I stole a kiss this time if they see us together,” he argued as he brushed her lips with his thumb, inspecting the damage with a cocky notch of the chin, “and the men already realize ye favor me to win.”

She scoffed at his swagger.