Page 86 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

He came around the edge of the desk then. She didn’t step back. She lifted her chin instead, meeting him halfway with her eyes rather than her feet.

“Ye should be.”

“Should I?” She laughed, short and low, and it didn’t sound like fear at all. “Ye keep sayin’ aye like it settles somethin’.”

She lifted her chin, and the candlelight caught in her eyes.

Magnus thought, briefly and with some violence, that a man ought to be allowed to hate a color as harmless as brown for what it was currently doing to him.

“It doesnae, ye ken. It just makes ye sound like ye’re tryin’ to convince yerself.”

“I daenae need convincin’ of anythin’.”

“Then why are yer hands clenched in fists?”

He looked down. They were. He opened them, one finger at a time, and set them flat against his thighs, though it did nothing to loosen whatever had wound tight in his chest.

Elspeth watched him do it. Her teasing stopped, mouth going soft, eyes tracking his hands rather than his face now, and she didn’t reach for either an explanation or him.

“It’s a fine stand,” he said, because the cup was there and it gave him somewhere to put his eyes that wasn’t her mouth. “Ye had the lad carve the Wallace crest into it.”

“Aye. I thought—” She stopped, and her fingers found the edge of her sleeve and worried at a loose thread there, twisting it once, releasing it, twisting it again. “Since it belonged to yer family before it belonged to ye, it seemed a shame to let it sit crooked on a shelf like it was nothin’ at all.”

Magnus picked the cup up, turned it once, and set it back down exactly as it had been, because his hands needed to do something that wasn’t reaching for her.

“It’s nae nothin’,” he said.

“I ken that now.”

The fire popped. Neither of them moved toward it, or away from each other, and the room had gone small the way it always did whenever she stood in it for too long.

“Elspeth.”

“Aye?”

“I told ye to leave a quarter hour ago. I’ve said it three times now, and ye’ve moved closer with every one of them. The door.”

“Ye did. And I noticed.” She didn’t move toward it. She moved half a step closer to him instead, chin lifted. “Perhaps if ye actually wanted me gone, ye’d have crossed the room and opened it yerself, rather than sayin’ the word to me like it might do the work on its own.”

He glanced at the door. He didn’t cross to it. His hand found the edge of the desk behind him instead and gripped it hard enough that his knuckles paled.

“Elspeth,” he said again, lower this time.

She only smiled, slow and too pleased with herself, and stayed exactly where she was.

* * *

Magnus’s voice, low and rough, sent a shiver down her spine despite the warmth of the fire. She watched his knuckles turn white where he gripped the desk, watched the muscle jump in his jaw as he fought for control.

The air between them felt thick, heavy with unspoken words and the scent of rain clinging to his kilt from his earlier work outside.

She took another step forward, close enough now that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, close enough that the wool of her skirts brushed against the leather of his boots.

His eyes darkened, the firelight catching in their depths, turning them to molten whiskey. He didn’t move away, didn’t tell her to leave again. He just watched her, his chest rising and falling with each ragged breath.

“Ye keep sayin’ me name like it’s a curse,” she murmured, reaching up to trace the line of his jaw with her fingertips. His stubble was rough against her skin, a delicious friction that made her breath catch. “Or a prayer.”

Magnus closed his eyes, his whole body trembling as her touch slid down his throat, over the frantic pulse in his neck. When she reached the collar of his shirt, his hand shot out, fingers wrapping around her wrist with an almost painful grip. Not pushing her away, but holding her there, trapping her hand against his thundering heart.