The Highlander's Touch

He growled and banged the door shut with his foot. Then, pulling on her ankle, he caused her to lose her balance and brought her crashing down on top of him. He’d tried to roll her toward him as she fell to keep her from striking any of the stoneware she’d so deviously strewn about, but she bucked as she hit him and bounced over his side. A grapple ensued and she fought him with a surprising amount of courage and strength. Aware of his superior brawn, he focused his efforts on subduing her without hurting her or allowing her to harm herself. If anyone was going to be harming her, it was he.

They wrestled in silence, except for his grunts when she landed a particularly painful shot and her gasps when he finally captured her hands and held them above her head and stretched her on her back on the floor. His grasp nearly slipped when his hand closed around a band of metal on her wrist. As he forcefully restrained her arms, it slipped off and he closed his fist over it, then placed it in his sporran for later inspection—it might yield clues to her identity. He deliberately let the full weight of his body settle atop hers, knowing she would not be able to breathe. Submit, he willed silently as she bucked against him, trying to win her freedom. “I am stronger than you, lass. Cede this battle to me. Doona be foolish.”

“And let you kill me? Never! I heard your men.” She panted, trying to draw air into her lungs while crushed beneath his weight.

Circenn scowled. So that was why she’d laid a trap for him. She must have overheard Galan and Duncan as they’d retired to their rooms; they’d obviously said something about his killing her. He’d have to speak with those two about discretion, perhaps encourage them to revert to Gaelic while within the walls of the keep. He suffered a momentary lapse in concentration while admiring her resourcefulness, and she exploited it by bashing her forehead into his chin, and it hurt. He shook her forcefully and was astonished when the woman didn’t yield, but tried to head butt him again.

She showed no signs of giving up the fight, and he realized that she would beat at him until she passed out from lack of breath. Since the only part of their respective bodies they both had free were their heads, he did the only thing he could think of—he kissed her. It would be impossible for her to head butt him with her lips pressed against his, and he’d learned long ago that the best way to control a fight was to get as far into his enemy’s space as possible. It took nerves of steel to handle six feet and seven inches of ruthless Brodie a breath away from one’s heart.

While congratulating himself for the inventive strategy he’d employed to keep her from hitting him with the only part of her body she could move, he acknowledged his attempt at self-deceit. He had wanted to kiss her since the moment she’d materialized in front of his bath—yet another violation of his careful rules. He knew that physical intimacy with this woman might skew his impartiality. But their skirmish had brought him into contact with every inch of her body, her curves were pressed against his hard length as if they were naked together, and her fierce, intelligent ambush had aroused him even more than her beauty had.

He had the scent of her in his nostrils: fear and woman and fury. It made him rock hard.

He sought to subdue her with his kiss, to make her understand his complete dominance, but the crush of her breasts beneath his chest heated him, and he found himself plunging his tongue between her lips with the intention of seducing rather than conquering. He sensed the moment when his kisses stopped being his way of controlling her and became nothing but a savage desire to indulge his appetite for the woman. All he need do was push aside his plaid, peel off her strange trousers, and push himself inside her. The temptation was exquisite.

His breathing quickened, sounding harsh to his own ears. It had been too long since he’d been with a woman, and his body was tightly strung. He angled himself away, drawing back to stop the painful press of his arousal against the cradle of her hips.

When she went motionless beneath him, he girded his will. Loath to lose the fullness of her lower lip, he sucked it hard as he drew away. He gazed down at her; her eyes were closed, her lashes dark fans against her cheeks.

“Are you going to kill me now?” she whispered.

Circenn stared at her, conflicting directives warring within him. In their tussle, he’d freed his dirk, and now he laid it against her throat. One swift plunge and it would be over. Brief, merciful, simple. His oath would be fulfilled, and there would be naught to do but remove the lass with the torn neck and forever-silenced heart and return to his carefully orchestrated world. Her eyes widened in alarm as she felt the chill metal brush against her skin.