Page 9 of Sins of the Highlander

“Nay, lass, you’re but tickling me,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers. His thumb rubbed back and forth over her forearm.

“What are ye doing?” she demanded.

“Hmm?” He blinked, all innocence.

She looked pointedly down at his hand. His thumb stopped.

“I was just distracting myself a bit from the pain,” he said. “Ye’re fair soft.”

“Ye’re accustomed to scratchy wool. That’s just the silk ye feel.”

“No, I can imagine ye beneath your clothes,” he said. “I’m thinking your skin puts silk to shame.”

“Aye?” She jabbed him again.

He groaned. “Aye. Your father may let ye tend him, lass, but ye must admit, ye’ve no’ got a healer’s touch.”

“And what’s a healer’s touch like?” she asked, working quickly to push the needle through and tie off another knot, closing his wound with each stitch.

“Light as a feather. Like this.”

He moved his hand from her arm to her breast. His fingertips brushed the bared skin above her bodice in teasing strokes. She held herself still, beguiled by the sensation. She’d never have guessed her body would react so to a man. She should be afraid, she knew, but her only fear was that he’d stop.

His touch moved down, between the stiff boning of her bodice and the soft, thin chemise, circling her nipple slowly through the cloth of her undergarment.

Oh, how he made her ache. He tormented that needy skin with his nearness. She fought the urge to squirm into his touch. When he finally flicked a nail over it, a jolt of wickedness shot from her breast to her womb.

Warning bells jangled in her head.

“Stop.” She covered her breast with her own hand. “That’s no’ a healer’s touch.”

His smile was sin incarnate. “Ye’ve the right of it there, lass. That’s a lover’s touch. And ye’ve had only the smallest bit of the pleasure, only a taste of what I would give ye an’ ye allow it.”

“No.” She scrambled to her feet to put some distance between them. “An’ ye try to take me, I’ll scratch yer eyes out, Rob MacLaren.”

“I’d not take ye. Not a step further than ye wish. I ken ye’re a virgin and wanting to stay that way,” he said earnestly. “But there’s great delight for a man in the giving of pleasure, ye see. And ways around a maidenhead that’ll leave ye still pure when we’re done.”

She’d forgotten to breathe as he spoke. Now she sucked in a quick breath.

“Shall I pleasure ye, Elspeth?”

Chapter 3

She blinked at him, like a small brown squirrel caught in the gaze of an adder. Then she gave herself a shake.

“No, of course not!” she said, backing away from him again. “Ye’ve stolen me away from my own wedding! How could I suffer ye to touch me so?”

“It didna seem to me that ye were suffering.” Rob never claimed to know much about women, but he recognized waking passion when he saw it.

“I hardly know ye.”

“Ach.” He nodded. “Then I take it ye must know Lachlan Drummond well.”

With a few quick steps, she managed to put the spring between them. “We met at the altar, if ye must know. He was my parents’ choice.”

“Well, that’s a point in your favor, lass. Otherwise, I’d mistrust your judgment.” Rob liked the way her cheeks flamed with color. “But still ye intended to bed him this night, did ye no’?”

Her brows drew together in distress. “He’d be my husband. I’d have to.”