Page 30 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

T he night before Kirn had always been a brag, no matter where you were from, or what vendors you’d secured. The glen telling winter it would not go down quiet.

Skylar stood at the small slit window of the surgery and watched sparks lift to the stars. The tiny, half-window let her see a scrap of sky, no more; enough to dream by, never enough to climb. She had set her jars straight twice, and her notes thrice, and her hands would not stop fidgeting.

Cora tilted her head. “Ye hear more than that.” She glanced toward the yard where Zander had gone to speak with men over barrels. “Go look with yer own eyes, if it’ll quiet ye.”

“I’m nae his keeper,” Skylar said, heat rising where she wished it wouldn’t.

“Nay, but ye are yerself,” Cora replied, and then left her to it.

The bonfires called her feet out of the cool of the stones and into the night.

The yard spilled full of children chasing their own shadows, girls shrieking when sparks spat too close, old men bragging of harvests fatter than truth, their ale sloshing proof enough they lied.

Skylar kept to the edge, the way a woman does when she wants and fears in equal measure.

She found him near the east wall, half-lit. Zander, with his head bowed to listen to a crofter’s complaint about tar, then straightening to settle it with a word and a clap on the shoulder. He looked bigger under firelight, more carved.

He turned and saw her like a hawk.

“Ye’re— out,” he said, crossing to her.

“I could say the same of ye,” she said, tilting her face up. He smelled faintly of smoke and malt, and something clean beneath it that was only him. Something that she hated to admit that she noticed.

“How’s the lad?”

“Steady. Drowsed off late. Katie’s near insulted I came to look.”

“Aye, she does like to mind me house witout witnesses,” he said, the corners of his eyes creasing. He offered an elbow like a courtly man making a joke of himself. “Walk?”

She hesitated, only for a moment, a grin playing at the corners of her lips, before she took it.

She should have refused because walking arm-in-arm with the laird among the clansmen would have caused lips to wag, but she didn’t because refusing would have been drama, and she had always preferred medicine.

She took it, her hand slipping to the crook of his arm. The heat of him bled through linen and wool, and she cursed the way her pulse jumped at the contact.

They walked the yard’s edge, small talk for the first few steps, the sort people make to keep from falling into a hole of their own digging.

She kept her eyes forward, fighting not to remember the press of his mouth at the elm, the feel of his fingers between her thighs, the taste of the hint of whiskey on his breath.

He broke it first. “The stillroom’s aired,” he said. “We’ll set yer hooks tomorrow. I’ve a key.”

Her breath hitched. “Ye are a maddening man.”

“So I’ve been told,” he said mildly. “By folk I like less than ye.”

The piper struck up a reel. A ring of girls danced in a circle, skirts flashing, elbows linked. Someone laughed and grabbed Skylar’s hand, tugging her toward the ring. She stumbled, skirts tangling, until Zander’s palm settled against the small of her back.

“Ye—” she began.

“Dance,” he said, eyes warm. “Aye, and ye?”

She only smiled back at him. It had been years since a reel had taken her like that—drive in the music, heat along her limbs, laughter jumping out before she could seat it.

Zander moved with a heavy grace that made space for her; he did not crowd, did not steer too much, did not make a show of being a laird. He was a man who wanted to feel the beat and see her smile and keep his promises.

They broke apart on a turn, found each other again, hands joining like a mistake repeated on purpose.

Her braid slipped; a handful of hair came loose.

He saw it, and the look that moved through him stole her knees.

Want. Clean, hungry, not polite. She felt her own answer, terrifying as a cliff’s edge.

The reel ended in a roar. Skylar stood breathless, hair fallen, palms tingling. Zander’s hand slid away, leaving the ghost of heat on her back.

“Ye’re flushed,” he said, as if he were taking a pulse with his eyes.

“Ye’ve eyes,” she shot back, then softer, “I’ve… I should go.”

His jaw shifted. “Aye. Come,” he said, voice low and brokering no room for argument.

She left the circle and the light before she could make a spectacle of herself, ducked into the corridor that led toward the surgery, toward safety. She made it halfway to sense before stopping with both palms against cool stone.

Leave. The gate. Ariella.

The words had been stones in her pocket all day, dragging her gait. Ariella’s name like a prayer she hadn’t finished. Grayson’s soft breath like a tether she didn’t know how to cut.

She thought of the stillroom key that wasn’t yet in her hand. She thought of the dirk at her side. She thought of his mouth when he laughed, which she should not have thought about at all.

But her feet went the wrong way. Or perhaps it was the right one, back to the keep, back to the laird’s chambers.

“Skylar,” he growled, each syllable a low rumble that made her heart seize. Something raw and lava-hot stirred inside her, drawing her forward on unsteady legs.

“I should go —” she began, but the words died in her throat, thin and false.

“Stay,” he commanded.

She closed the distance as if pulled by an irresistible force. Zander lifted a hand, not to bind, but to cradle her jaw. His thumb brushed her cheekbone, rough but careful, and the restraint in the gesture undid her more than force ever could.

Their lips met with a calculated ferocity, firelight igniting the seam between them.

“I —,” she gasped, voice trembling. “I didnae think —”

“Think later,” he murmured, silencing her with a scorching press of lips.

Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, even as her mind shrieked warnings. This is madness. He’s nae yer husband. Ye’re unwed! Nae right! But her body didn’t care for vows she’d never make, only for the fierce wanting that had been gnawing at her.

“Zander…” she broke the kiss, panting, her forehead pressed to his. “This isnae… proper. We— we shouldnae…

His jaw flexed, his breath ragged. “Aye,” he agreed hoarsely. “We shouldnae.”

But neither of them moved. The weight of the words fell useless against the pull between them.

Skylar closed her eyes. She thought of Ariella, of her duty, of how fleeting every borrowed hour here was. She thought of Grayson’s laugh, of Zander’s hand steady on his son’s shoulder, of the man’s lips on hers now. And she knew. She didn’t want restraint. She didn’t want propriety. Not tonight.

When she opened her eyes again, she found his searching hers with a tortured hunger. Her voice came out raw, certain despite the tremor. “Then have me. Just once, Zander. I ken it’s wrong, I ken it, but I want it— I want ye.”

He stilled, as if the world itself had frozen. His fingers tightened on her jaw, and she saw the battle in him. It was the same as hers. Duty against desire.

“Say it again,” he rasped.

A fierce heat hammered through her like steel on an anvil; she responded without hesitation, her body roaring to life after too-long dormancy.

“I want— nay. Even if it’s sin. I need ye.”

The last of his control seemingly snapped. His mouth claimed her, desperate. He kissed her fiercely.

She answered with her own fire, surprising herself with the intensity of her need.

His hands mapped her, memorizing the curve of her waist, the flare of her hip, the soft dip at the small of her back.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, tugging, drawing him closer.

He groaned against her lips, the sound vibrating straight into her chest. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist. The room shrank to ragged breaths and urgent hands, the stifled cry she let slip when his mouth trailed from her jaw to the hollow of her throat.

He pressed her back onto the bed as if she were both precious and inevitable.

Their mouths found each other again, deeper this time, a clash of longing and surrender.

She arched into him, her body pleading for more.

His weight pressed her down, solid and anchoring, yet the tenderness in his touch betrayed how careful he was not to break her.

“Tell me,” he rasped, brushing her hair from her face.

“Take me, Zander. I’m yers,” Her voice broke, but her hands told him the rest, guiding him, urging him.

Clothes gave way slowly, piece by piece, the air growing thick with the sound of skin brushing skin, of sighs and murmured names. She traced the long scar across his shoulder with trembling fingers before pressing her lips to it like a vow. His breath shuddered, his forehead dropping to hers.

“Ye undo me, lass,” he whispered, voice frayed.

“And ye undo me,” she answered, surprised at the honesty spilling from her lips.

When he entered her, it was not with haste but with reverence. A rhythm formed, unspoken yet perfectly matched, their bodies moving in accord. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, his name falling from her lips like a plea. He answered with a low growl, each thrust steady, claiming, but also giving.

The crest built between them, their breaths mingling, the heat mounting until she shattered, her cry swallowed by his kiss. He followed her over, holding her so tightly she thought she might vanish into him.

The aftermath was quiet, breathless. Their bodies tangled, the air still humming with the echo of what they’d shared. He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes closed, as though words would lessen it.

Skylar let herself drift into the safety of his arms, her heart thudding with equal parts fear and longing. Outside, the Kirn fires blazed bright, but inside, the two of them surrendered to the dark, falling asleep wrapped around each other, the world forgotten.

Escaping, forgotten.