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His hand rose to her jaw and cradled her face as his other hand pulled her even closer, their breath mingling.
“No one,” he growled against her lips, “will take ye from me.”
His lips claimed hers in a searing kiss, born out of desperation, fear, and possessiveness. And need. Pure, unadulterated need.
Her thighs stiffened around his waist, and she moaned into the kiss. His hand slid from her jaw to her neck, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin of her earlobe, and her mind emptied.
Her body demanded more of his heat, his strength, his comfort, and the pleasure he could give her. She arched into him, moaning.
“Isla.” He paused over her lips. “If ye keep makin’ that sound…”
She bit her lower lip, and he used his thumb to release it.
“I want ye, Isla,” he murmured. “I have never wanted anything like this before. But I willnae take ye because of fear.”
She gasped at how easily he had read her.
He stroked her hair gently, the sharp edge of his desire gentled now, banked but not gone.
“When our first time happens—and I want it to happen so much—it willnae be while ye are still riddled with uncertainty.”
Isla nodded. He was right. Their first time should be cherished, not rushed or tainted by what her uncle was forcing on them.
“I will finish this, Isla,” he promised as she cupped his face. “Tomorrow, I will ride out with Duncan to see those men with me own eyes.”
Her body went rigid. He turned her wrist over and placed one soft kiss there, right where her pulse hammered beneath the skin.
“I will be back,” he said.
She pouted. “Ye had better.”
He chuckled against her skin. “Few lairds have such an incentive to finish a war quickly,” he teased. “Then again, few have a little rebel waiting for them in their bed.”
Isla’s lips curved in a smile. “Hurry back then, me Laird.”
“Impatient, little rebel?”
She leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Very.”
“Ah, little rebel,” he growled. “I promise I will be back for ye.”
Under the roaring desire, Isla felt the urgent need to commit him to memory—his scent, his taste, his warmth. So she dove deeper.
When she woke up in the morning, he was already gone, the mattress still warm. She sat up and looked out the window.
“Come back soon, ye brute,” she whispered.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NORTHERN PASS
Alisdair felt the cold morning air bite at his face as they rode away from MacLeod Castle. For one moment, he pulled the reins, and Treun halted at once, as if sensing his reluctance to leave.
He was right not to want to let go. Only a madman left the arms of a bonnie wife to ride out in the cold.
He turned back once more to look at the castle in the distance, wrapped in the frail rose-gold haze of morning light, as if it belonged to some old bard’s song rather than his own life.
The memory of her wrist beneath his lips flashed through his mind. He shook his head clear. He had left the husband behind with her, in that bed. Now he needed to be the blade.
