Highland Fire. Hannah Howell

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СКАЧАТЬ tucked the remaining bread into his sack, then, smiling faintly, pulled her into his arms. Moira tried to look stern, but it grew more difficult to resist him with each hour she spent in his company. She placed her hands against his chest, intending to push him away. That intention was swiftly banished by the touch of his lips on hers. His mouth was gentle and warm. Good sense and morality told her to resist the temptation they represented, but, as with the bread, she found she was too weak to refuse something she wanted so badly.

      She curled her arms around his neck as he teased her lips with small, nibbling kisses. After a moment she pressed closer, silently requesting the fuller kiss he held back. A soft groan escaped her when he readily answered her plea. The heat that both frightened and enthralled her raced through her body, its strength centering low in her abdomen. On occasion Moira had heard one of the maids speak of how she burned for a particular man. Now Moira knew what that maid had been talking about. She knew that she burned for Tavig MacAlpin, ached for him. It was the worst and the best thing that had ever happened to her.

      “Ah, lass, ye have the sweetest mouth I have e’er tasted,” he murmured against her throat, tracing her frantic pulse with little kisses.

      “Yours isnae so bad, either.” She grimaced when he laughed softly.

      “Such flattery.”

      His long fingers brushed over the curve of her breast, and Moira shuddered from the force of the desire ripping through her body. Gritting her teeth, she squirmed out of his hold. She hastily stood up, silently praying he could not see how unsteady she was. Somehow she was going to have to find the strength to fight his allure, much more strength than she was showing now.

      “We had better be on our way,” she said, inwardly cursing the huskiness infecting her voice.

      “Ye cannae keep running away.” Tavig picked up their supplies and began to walk.

      “I dinnae ken what ye are talking about,” Moira protested, hurrying after him.

      “Aye, ye do. We are fated, Moira. Ye feel that each time I touch you. Ye feel it in your blood, in how it heats with desire.”

      “What arrogance.”

      Tavig ignored her muttered interruption. “Ye have been so sheltered ye dinnae understand what your body and your heart are telling you, so ye fight it, pushing me away. I am a patient mon, though. I can wait until ye do see the truth.”

      Moira glared at his back, wondering how she could ache to tumble about in the heather with him one minute and desperately want to kick him in his too attractive backside the next. She knew what irritated her the most was his knowledge of how she felt. As she grudgingly accepted his help over some moss-covered rocks, she briefly feared he could read her mind. She easily shrugged away that fear. If Tavig could read minds, right now he would either be laughing at her or getting out of the reach of her foot.

      He just knows me too well or has a knack for reading the expressions on my face, she mused. If she was to retain any emotional secrets from the man, she was going to have to learn a few new tricks. She had learned to hide her fear and anger from Sir Bearnard. Now she would learn how to hide her feelings, thoughts, and emotional turmoil from Tavig.

      “I suppose it had to rain at some time during our journey,” Moira grumbled, trying to huddle farther back beneath the crude branch-and-blanket shelter Tavig had made for them.

      “Aye. ’Tis a shame it does so during our resting time, though. We willnae have a comfortable sleep.” He cut her a slice of bread from the dwindling loaf he had stolen that afternoon. “This is all we shall have for food tonight as I cannae light a fire without dry wood and kindling.”

      “Do ye think that will make me less concerned that ye stole this?” She wrapped her blanket more tightly around herself as she nibbled on the bread.

      “Nay. I ken that ye have the strength to cling tightly to your disapproval.”

      “But not so tightly that I refuse to eat this ill-gotten bounty. Ye need not keep that thought to yourself. I swear I can hear ye thinking the words.” She sighed, rubbing her aching feet.

      “Why dinnae ye unwrap the rags from your feet and stick them out in the rain for a wee while?”

      “But they will get wet. Most likely cold as weel.”

      “’Twill soothe that aching ye are trying so hard to hide.” He met her disbelieving look with a smile. “Trust me, dearling. There was a time or two when I had to walk long miles in ill-made boots or bare feet. I ken weel that hot aching that can afflict one’s feet. I found naught that was as soothing as bathing them in cool water. There isnae a stream or pool about, only what falls from the sky. Try it. It cannae hurt.”

      “Nay, mayhap not.”

      With his help she unwrapped her feet. Cautiously she edged closer to the opening of their shelter until her feet protruded beyond its somewhat weak protection. Moira hated to admit it, but the cool spray did feel good. Just exposing her tender feet to the cooler night air had felt good. The rain washing over her feet made her sigh with relief. She scowled at a grinning Tavig. The man did not have to look so smug.

      “Aye, it helps some,” she muttered.

      Tavig laughed and shook his head. “Ye are a stubborn lass, Moira Robertson.”

      Moira knew her sudden, instinctive flash of fear had been seen by him, for his laughter abruptly faded, and he scowled at her. In her years with Bearnard Robertson, being called a stubborn lass had always been followed by a beating or one of Sir Bearnard’s many other cruel punishments. Although she had been with Tavig only a short while, she knew he would never treat her as her guardian had. Her fears could not yet make that distinction, however.

      “I wish I kenned what I must do to get ye to cease fearing me,” Tavig said, cutting her another slice of bread.

      “I dinnae fear you, Tavig,” she said quietly.

      “Nay? ’Twas stark fear I just saw in your face, loving.”

      “Aye, ye probably did see that. Howbeit, it wasnae a fear of you. ’Twas fear of a memory.”

      “A memory?”

      “Aye, a memory. Ye called me a stubborn lass, and the words stirred a harsh, frightening memory. That was what my fear was born of, not ye or anything ye have done.”

      “Must I weigh every word I utter then?”

      She shook her head. “That wouldnae be fair to you, nor would it help me. I must learn that just because someone says the same thing Sir Bearnard once said, it doesnae mean he will now act as my guardian did. Ye meant the words as a tease, not a scold or a threat. I must learn to hear more than the words. I must listen to the way they are spoken. There was no anger or warning in your voice. That is what I must teach myself to heed.”

      “Aye, for I begin to think Sir Bearnard said little that wasnae followed by some act of brutality.”

      “Sometimes he said nothing at all. He was at his most dangerous then.” She shivered, trying to shake away bad memories. “The rain grows more chilling than soothing,” she murmured, pulling her feet back inside their shelter.

      As he helped her rub her feet dry and rewrap them, СКАЧАТЬ