Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

“Would ye rather Rhys shared this tent wi’ ye?” he asked bitterly, feeling the jealousy rising up to bite him once again.  Scarlett had ignored him in favor of his brother’s company again this day.  After their powerful lovemaking the previous night, James was hard put to find an explanation for her suddenly aloof demeanor.  Nor had she offered one.

“Rhys schmees,” she mumbled.  “He wouldn’t share this tent with me for a million bucks.  Whoa, I think I need to sit down.”

Dropping on to the end of the mattress, Scarlett cradled her spinning head in her hands as the striped tent swirled like a carousel around her.  “I swear I’m never drinking again.”

“Yet ye will nae doubt hae another cup in yer hand on the morrow.”

“Only if it’s water.  Is it really bad as I’ve heard to drink it?” she asked as James undressed her like a child.

“Where would ye hear that?” he asked.

“I think that’s what they teach, isn’t it?  Somehow it’s an embedded certainty that they didn’t drink water in the past.”

Such nonsense was falling from her lips, James didn’t know how to address it.  “There’s nothing wrong wi’ water from a spring, lass, though some claim any water can chill the stomach and hinder digestion.  ‘Tis only standing water that ye should avoid.”  But she should know that.  Any person would know it.  It brought to mind once again all the mysteries about Scarlett and reminded him of the answers he still didn’t have.

With the nonsense she was talking, there was no chance he would have them now.

“To bed wi’ ye, lass,” he said, pulling down the coverlet and lifting her between the sheets.

“Are you going to leave?”

“Aye, we depart in the morn to take Norham,” he told her.

“No, are you going to leave me now?”

“Do ye want me to?”

“No, you should stay.”

Relief swept through him.  “Then I shall stay.”

“Awake wi’ ye, lass.”

Scarlett rocked from side to side as she was shaken roughly.  With a groan, she rolled on to her stomach and buried her head under the pillow.  She was never go to drink again.  How did these people do it every day?  “Go away.”

“How do ye manage to live a life where ye can sleep the day away?”

Pulling her head out from under the pillow, she glared at Laird who was kneeling next to her bed.  Nothing more than a silhouette in the gloom but he still managed to look appealing.  And appallingly awake.  “Sleep the day away?” she grumbled.  “It’s still dark.  Go back to bed.”

“Mayhap if ye were there to share it wi’ me,” he teased then clapped a hard hand down on her bottom, the sting searing through her thin chemise.  “Make haste, lass, we maun away.”

Stretching, Scarlett sat, not noticing how his gaze fell to her breasts as they pushed against the taut linen.  “You are too freakin’ happy.  I hate morning people.”

“Lass.”  His light caress tickled down her arm.

Running her hands over her face and through her hair, she kicked off her coverlet and rolled off the mattress.  “‘Kay.  I’m up.  I’m up.”

Standing, she tugged down her chemise and jumped when his hot palms ran up her thighs, pushing it up once more.  Cupping her bottom in his hands, he pulled her closer and pressed an open-mouth kiss to her belly.  His beard rasped teasingly as his lips drifted southward.  Scarlett clenched her thighs together as heat pooled between her legs.

This was the problem.  This incessant need for him was getting out of hand.  Even when she tried to dominate him, he was in charge.  He left her feeling helpless and overwhelmed.

Cherished, her conscience reminded gently.

Perhaps, but he reached deeper, demanded more from her than she had ever freely given.  She’d spent too long having her will overridden.  She didn’t like the way her body quivered at the slightest touch, her heart ached at the merest glance.

Liar, her inner devil retorted.  His protective nature tugs at your very soul and well you know it.

Scarlett shook her head.  No, she wasn’t used to the concern for her well-being any more than she was used to this tempestuous desire.

  True, she was in way over her head.  What was she going to do about him?

Somehow she needed to put some distance between them.  Find some objectivity as best she could.  This wasn’t her future.  He wasn’t her future.

But what if he was?

Scarlett stiffened at the thought and pushed him away before his tormenting lips might find themselves in a place that would dissolve her determination.

“I thought you said you were in a hurry?” she asked when he looked up at her quizzically.

“What troubles ye, lass?”

No more willing to talk about with him than she had been with Rhys, Scarlett only provided the same answer.  “Nothing.  Let’s do this.”

Dressed in a bronze linen dress and wrapped in Laird’s plaid against the morning chill, Scarlett crossed her arms protectively around her waist as she watched Aiden load Laird’s possessions into his cart. Laird was clad in a thin metal armor that covered his chest beneath his kilt and sleeves of chainmail covered his massive arms.  He wore no helmet, nothing at all on his legs.  For a man considering doing battle, he looked alarmingly unprotected.

Surely he meant to wear something else?  Scarlett couldn’t help but put the question to him.

“We go to lay siege,” he told her.  “Norham willnae fall as easily as Wark.  ‘Twill take time and many cannons to defeat them.  What I wear now will be unneeded.”

“Really?” she asked doubtfully.  “You’ll be careful?”

“I always am.”

“Now you’re sounding as arrogant as Rhys,” she mumbled not noticing the frown that furrowed his brow and darkened his eyes.

“Yer up early, Scarlett.”

Scarlett turned to find Rhys strolling toward her, not from his adjacent tent but from the opposite direction.  He wore the same clothes he had the previous evening and his dark auburn locks were untethered, skewed every which way.  Obviously, he had just awoken.

“I