Page 23
Alisdair looked at her, from her stubborn chin to her blue eyes shining even in the dim light. This brave woman was not afraid of him.
“Tell me, Isla,” he said, his voice low. “Must ye challenge everyone who speaks to ye?”
“Nae everyone.” Isla raised an eyebrow in open defiance. “But it sure feels good to do so when someone underestimates me.”
Alisdair had meant to give her some room, but watching her on fire like this was impossible to resist. Pushed by something dangerously close to interest, to amusement—feelings he had long since sworn off—He leaned in.
Her back pressed against the cabinet as he crowded in close. In the span of minutes, his body had pressed against both her back and front. Isla craned her neck to hold his gaze anyway.
“And ye think I underestimate ye?” he murmured.
“I think ye have already decided who I am,” she said firmly.
“And who are ye, Isla?” Alisdair braced one hand against the top of the cabinet, caging her in.
“A Sinclair and nothin’ more,” she replied. “An enemy, a foe, a danger in yer castle.”
“This is what ye think?”
“I ken what everyone in this castle thinks of me, but I am more than that.”
She raised her hand and jabbed a finger into his chest, shaking with anger. Alisdair only smirked down at her—at the flush in her cheeks, the stray hair caressing her jaw, her parted lips as she caught her breath.
He felt the pull of her, an overwhelming urge to close what little distance remained, to taste that defiance right off her mouth.
How would those daring lips taste? Those lips that had ordered his guards to let her through the gates, that had made that bold proposal, that had pressed thin when insulted and curved in an easy smile around his aunt. How would they feel against his own?
Then his eyes dropped to the finger poking his chest, and he saw it—a faint bruise, purple fading to yellow, on the back of her hand. An old wound she had carried here all the way from Sinclair Castle.
The rage that rose in him was a tempest threatening to sweep everything in its path. His chest heaved, barely holding back a roar.
That shite of a man!
Isla saw the shift in him and tried to pull back, but he gripped her hand. He knew his hands were rough from years of wielding a blade, so he was careful with her. She didn’t need more bruises on her.
“He did this.”
He wasn’t asking. He had always known Gordon Sinclair was cruel, but to raise a hand against his own blood…
“It no longer matters.” Isla looked away.
She clenched her jaw, and Alisdair understood at once that this was no isolated accident. This was the look of a woman long since used to abuse.
“It matters,” he growled low. “To me, it matters.”
Isla looked up at him, so close now. Their eyes locked—his grey storm against her blue sea, clashing in the space between them. The air itself seemed to thicken around them.
This close, he could see everything—the faint scatter of freckles across her fair skin, the golden flecks in her blue eyes. His gaze dropped to her lips for a moment before flicking back up.
Her warm breath fanned his face and stirred a loose strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek. His hand rose before he had decided to move it, longing to tuck that strand behind her ear.
Isla’s breath caught. Not in fear this time, but in something closer to anticipation.
What was he doing?
His fingers stopped just inches from her cheek, before curling into a fist. Only then did he realize how close he had let himself get. Dangerously close.
He took a step back and dropped his hand to his side.
