Page 70 of Sins of the Highlander

“No.”

“Why in hell not?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “If ye canna keep a civil tongue in your head, I’ll be asking ye to leave.”

“I’ll do no such thing.” He toed off his boots and stretched out on the bed. “I’m paying for the damned room, aren’t I?”

“Then I’ll leave.” She headed for the door.

He cut her off, leaning a long arm over her shoulder to hold the door shut. “Ye’ll no’ be going anywhere, Elspeth Stewart.”

“Oh, that’s right.” She glared up at him, looking like a cornered cat ready to scratch his eyes out. “I’m Mad Rob’s prisoner, just a pawn in your chess game with Lachlan.”

“Elspeth.” He leaned toward her. She’d never looked more swiveable than she did right now, her cheeks painted with ire, her eyes flashing, and the curve of her breasts straining against her bodice. “That may be how things started, but that was before—”

“Aye, before ye began…” Her mouth twitched. “…Using me…” Tears trembled on her lashes. “As your whore.”

She covered her face with both hands and wept.

Oh, Lord, not tears. Let her scream and rage and pound me with her fists, but dinna let her cry.

His gut roiled if she’d punched him in the belly. With the sharp end of a pike.

“I canna believe…I was so wrong…about ye.” She sobbed between her words, dragging in deep breaths but never seeming to have enough air.

“I’m the one who’s wrong,” he said. That was the premise of any woman’s argument, wasn’t it? If his relationships with women taught him anything, it was that the man was always at fault. “O’ course, I canna point to anything I’ve done wrong in particular, but I’m sure ye’ll do that for me once ye’ve stopped crying.”

That made her cry harder.

“Elspeth. Leannán.”

“No.” She twisted from him and slapped his hand away when he tried to palm her cheek. “Ye havena the right to call me that.”

“And ye havena the right to call yourself a whore.”

She dropped her hands and glared at him. “That’s right. I havena received payment yet. Oh! But ye did promise me your mother’s cloak and a shiny copper brooch, so I guess ye do plan to make good your debt!”

Rage boiled in him. “I’ve never struck a woman in my life, but you tempt me, woman.” He spun her around and began unlacing her bodice. It was time to change the tone. “Ye’re vexing me sore.”

“What are ye doing?” She tried to get away from him, but he held her fast, still unlacing her.

“That should be obvious. What is it ye think we’ve been doing here, Elspeth?” he said, pulling the leather over her head. Her breasts swung free beneath her thin chemise. People lied, but their bodies never did. “Have we been whoring, ye and I?”

He caught hold of her skirt and yanked at the waist. The horn button popped off and rolled under the bed.

“Rob, stop it.”

He picked her up and tossed her onto the bed, grabbing the hem and pulling off her skirt. She fought him every step.

“Is that what it seemed like to ye, when I came inside ye?” he demanded. “Were ye playing a whore’s trick when I held ye while ye cried out and shuddered round me?”

He pinned her beneath him. All the anger drained from him as he looked down at her. “It didna seem so common,” he said softly. “So mean a thing to me.”

She stopped squirming. “What was it like to ye?”

“I’m no’ a man of words, ye ken. No’ a poet.”

“I didna think ye were.” She reached up to touch his face, hesitated, then traced her fingertips along his cheek. “But a man doesna need to be poet to speak his feelings plainly. And a woman canna tell what a man feels unless he speaks of it.”