Suzanne Barclay - Lion's Legacy

“They are so dear,” Laurel crooned. With her other hand she reached out to stroke the wee one’s downy head.

“Aye,” Kieran managed to say, but his mind wasn’t on the pup. Laurel’s touch sent a wave of liquid fire through him. ‘Twas worse now than a few moments ago when his attention had been focused on winning over Freda. Now he felt raw, exposed. He watched her pet the pup and swore he could feel her stroking his body. ’Twas heaven and hell.

“You must have had dogs as a lad,” Laurel said, her voice another kind of caress.

He wanted her. Wanted to feel her hands on him, hear her crying out as he joined his body to hers. Jesu, it must be his weariness of the late hour, because no woman had ever affected him so strongly. Think of something else. Anything else. He gazed down at her head, bent now over their joined hands and it struck him what was different about her tonight. “Your hair is loose.”

“Aye. I was abed, but I couldn’t sleep. You, too?” She looked up at him and Kieran nearly swallowed his tongue. Candlelight turned her unbound hair into a fiery halo. Redgold curls framed her delicate, oval face, tumbling down over her slender shoulders to reach the curve of her hips. Wild and impudent, those wayward curls were a reflection of her very nature. One tendril had sneaked inside the vee of her robe. His fingers twitched with the urge to follow it. “Kieran?” she asked.

“What? Oh, aye. Nay.” He felt like a man possessed, his senses aflame with a desire he’d sworn never to give full rein. “I—I am used to sleeping on the ground in the open and found your grandsire’s bed overly soft and the bedchamber stuffy.” And lonely. But he couldn’t tell her that. Conscious he’d already revealed too much, he retreated behind a barricade that had stood him in good stead. Anger. He’d frighten her off. “Why did you disobey my order this afternoon?”

She jumped up, as he’d hoped, but the pain that darkened her eyes hurt him. Hands falling to her sides, hem trailing in the straw, she walked toward the candle as slowly as a prisoner bound for the gallows.

“What is it?” he asked, genuinely concerned.

Dare she tell him the truth? If she didn’t, how could she expect him to confide in her? And she wanted that, needed to know him, to understand him. “I had a vision,” she mumbled, voice low and hoarse. “I—I don’t expect you to believe me....”

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