Page 17 of Defy the Highlander

“Never from them.”

“Then they’re fools.”

“Or mayhap they know their place.”

A grin spread across his lips. “I’ve never been accused of knowing my place,” he said huskily. “Even if I did, in yer case, I’d ignore it.”

God, he was so close. Lilia was having difficulty breathing and she turned her head, looking away from him because she was thrilled and intimidated at the same time. Looking at him made her feel as if she were losing control of herself. She could see him in her periphery as he leaned in, taking a long, deep smell of her hair.

It was enough to turn her bones to jelly.

“Brody…” she breathed.

“Shush,” he murmured. “Let me smell ye. I want tae know what an angel smells like.”

It wasn’t just her hair he was smelling, but her skin. He sniffed her neck, moving to her shoulder and smelling that as well. All the while, he didn’t touch her. He didn’t make a move to make contact. But his face, his nose, was close enough that Lilia could feel him brushing against her. His heated breath spilled over her skin, blowing against her like the heated bellows of a smithy’s forge.

It was intoxicating.

“What does an angel smell like?” she managed to ask.

He moved so his face was next to hers. He was looking at her profile at close range as she looked away.

“Beauty,” he muttered. “Strength. Honor. It smells like everything in life a man needs in life.”

She sighed in utter delight as his words filled her ears. When his lips gently kissed her cheek, her jelly bones gave way and she slumped back against the wall. Brody swiftly moved forward, slipping his arms beneath hers and bracing her against the stall so she wouldn’t fall. As she turned to him, opening her mouth to speak, his mouth slanted over hers in a deliciously tender kiss.

The lightning exploded.

Lilia could hear little gasps as he kissed her, hardly aware they were her own. For all of Brody’s size and strength, his kisses were so very gentle, like the touch of a bird’s wings, something so delightful yet something that filled her with awe and wonder. She’d never been kissed before.

Not even close.

It was as if the sun suddenly burst out from behind the clouds.

Her arms went around his neck, holding him firmly against her as she responded to his heated kiss. Enfolded in his embrace, she was vastly aware of his body pressed against hers, the heat from his big frame filling her with a comfort she’d never known before. She could hardly breathe, but she didn’t care. She welcomed the giddiness. He was overwhelming her with the virile masculinity that had been buried beneath that street filth.

His scent filled her nostrils, too.

Glorious.

And then, it was abruptly over.

Someone opened the barn door and Brody released her so quickly that she stumbled back against the wall of the stall. He moved with the speed of a cat, now standing on the other side of the stall with a horse brush in his hand as Angus shuffled into the barn, mumbling to himself.

Realizing the old man hadn’t seen them in their clandestine embrace, Lilia simply went about her business, pretending to check on Lady Currie’s white palfrey before speaking to Brody, who was bent over a horse that he’d already tended earlier in the morning and trying to make it look as if he were actually working.

“M’lady will want her carriage again tonight,” Lilia said to him before turning to Angus, who was over near the tack, still muttering to himself. “Did ye hear me, Angus? We’ll need the carriage again tonight.”

Angus simply waved at her, unimpressed with the usual request. Passing a lingering glance at Brody, Lilia slipped from the stable, heading out into the stable yard. But thoughts of Brody were heavy on her mind as she passed through a shelter where some of the hay was kept. It was no more than a roof held up by four posts and as she passed through it on her way towards the manse, someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her behind a pile of hay.

It was Brody.

His mouth was on hers again, his big arms around her. Lilia was much more adept in responding the second time around as a thrill swept through her. Her arms wound their way around his neck as they fell back into the hay, lips fused. The hay made a convenient hiding place, a nice little cave to shield them from the world in these precious moments of discovery.

But that didn’t mean they would not be seen.

“Brody,” she said even as he kissed her. “We must be… careful. Someone might see us and it’ll get back tae m’lady.”