Page 9 of Married to the Cruel Highlander (Unwanted Highland Wives #5)

9

T he sun had barely begun to rise when Ersie Barcley marched onto the training grounds, her boots crunching against the gravel with every heavy step. The morning mist clung to the grass, and a damp chill clung to the air. She twirled her sword in her hand with an almost impatient rhythm.

“Och! Come on. I promise I willnae hurt ye—much,” she called out to the line of guards posted nearby, raising an eyebrow challengingly.

The men averted their eyes. One muttered something about ‘breakfast being more urgent’ and shuffled away. Another pretended not to hear at all.

Ersie huffed, careful to let her mind travel back to when she had first arrived at MacGordon Castle. Everyone had refused to spar with her back then, and she had to pose as a boy to do it.

Her blade dropped with a clatter. “Cowards.”

The previous day’s tension still hung heavy in her bones. After that charged moment in Keith’s study, when his mouth had nearly met hers, she’d been practically imprisoned in her chamber—locked up with her traitorous thoughts, her heartbeat clattering louder than any marching drum.

Thirty-seven interrogations. That’s how many filled the bundle of papers she’d poured over last night. Each one was more hopeless than the last. Not a single one led to the truth about the murder of Keith’s son.

Not one.

Now, she needed movement. Distraction. Her muscles begged for it.

Then came the voice. “I’ll spar with ye, lass.”

Low. Smooth. Dangerous.

Ersie turned slowly to find him standing just beyond the practice ring, his arms crossed, a sword already in hand. His gaze, unmistakable, held hers like a snare.

Before she could react, a guard stepped up to him as if to protect him.

“Leave,” Keith ordered, his tone brooking no argument. “All of ye.”

The guard hesitated, glanced between the two of them, and then bowed and left.

Now, they were alone.

Keith stopped and picked up her sword, tossing it toward her with a flick of his wrist.

She caught it mid-air. “Ye look well-rested, Me Laird.”

“Were ye avoiding me, lass?” he asked, already circling her.

“Nay,” she said, settling into her stance. “I was readin’ yer notes.”

His smirk told her that he did not believe her, but he said nothing.

The sparring began.

Blades rang, clashing in a swift, practiced rhythm. At first, it felt like a dance. Her body moved on instinct—sidestep, parry, twist. But even as he blocked her with perfect form, there was a lag. Just a second’s delay that was very obviously not part of his normal rhythm.

She felt it.

“Ye are letting me win.”

His blade arced toward her shoulder, and she blocked it, spinning her body behind it and then out of the way. Their blades sliced the ground.

“Dinnae let me win. Fight me as yer equal,” she demanded.

His lips curved slightly. “As ye wish.”

Ersie’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “That sounded far too smug for someone who just got called out.”

Keith’s smirk widened. “Maybe I like it when ye challenge me.”

She scoffed and lunged again, their blades meeting with a loud clang . “Is that so? I suppose ye enjoy losin’ too.”

“I enjoy watchin’ ye think ye are winnin’,” he replied, stepping lightly to the side, deflecting her strike.

“Careful, or I might bruise yer pride.”

“I’ve scars far worse than a bruised pride, lassie,” he said with a wink that made her stomach do something wholly inappropriate.

Ersie didn’t falter. If anything, she fought harder, their blades clashing again and again.

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

“Nay,” he said, sidestepping and spinning behind her. “But I think I’ve already managed to do that.”

“Ye are maddening,” she hissed, twisting to face him again.

“Aye. And yet here ye are, still sparrin’ with me. Still breathin’ heavily.”

Her cheeks flushed, but she refused to back down. “I’m breathin’ heavily because ye move slow as a cow.”

Keith smirked, and the sight of it sent shivers up her spine.

“Say what ye will, Ersie Barcley,” he said, his voice dropping, “but I see how ye look at me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ye are delusional.”

“And ye are still here.”

That she couldn’t argue with. Not when her blade trembled ever so slightly in her hand—not from fatigue, but from something deeper, something more dangerous.

That’s when she noticed it once more.

“Damn it, Keith! Ye are holding back!” she said, swinging her blade across the space between them wildly.

Her anger soared past her logic as her accusation echoed off the stone walls behind him.

It took him just two moves.

Just two.

The moment she lunged, he pivoted, twisted her wrist, and disarmed her. Her sword clattered to the ground as he swept her leg out from under her. She hit the ground with a winding thud, and before she could blink, he straddled her hips, one arm pinning her wrists above her head. The other held the edge of his sword lightly against her throat.

“I win,” he said in a low murmur and tossed the blade aside.

“Only because ye cheated and used yer big, useless body.” She tried to wriggle away, but he held her where he wanted her, and it infuriated her.

“I can assure ye that me body isnae useless. Do ye ever admit defeat, lass?”

“Ye are literally on top of me.”

His gaze darkened. “And ye are at me mercy.”

She swallowed, her breath coming shorter. “I’m still a lady.”

“Are ye?” His eyes raked down her body with a heat that made her toes curl. “I couldnae tell—and ye are so vehemently against being addressed as such.”

“Ye are such a brute!” she muttered, struggling to keep her composure beneath his weight. “Just so ye ken, I would never agree to help ye if ye hadnae kidnapped me.”

“Too bad ye didnae escape me.”

For a breath, their eyes searched each other. Time stopped. Neither dared to move.

And then his mouth crashed into hers like a storm rolling over the hills, demanding and hungry. Her mind screamed that she should shove him off, but her body—her traitorous body—arched into him, her lips parting to answer the kiss with equal fervor. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t slow.

His grip loosened just enough for his hand to slide to her waist, his fingers digging into the leather of her tunic. Her hands—finally free—moved to his chest, but instead of pushing him away, they curled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer.

He groaned deep in his throat, as if the sound had been torn from somewhere far beneath his ribcage.

Ersie’s knees tightened around his hips as his other hand found her jaw, tilting her face so he could kiss her deeper, slower. His lips moved against hers in a rhythm that threatened to unravel everything she knew about herself.

This wasn’t playing around.

This wasn’t sparring.

This wasn’t purposeful seduction to get answers.

His hand drifted lower, skimming the curve of her hip and the outside of her thigh, and she gasped against his mouth.

The world around them had narrowed, until only heat and skin and breath remained. Keith’s lips traced the edge of her jaw, a hungry path downward until he kissed the corner of her mouth again, softer this time. Like he wasn’t sure whether to retreat or deepen the kiss further. Like he was waiting for her to stop him.

But she wouldn’t.

She shivered beneath him, her hands gripping his biceps now, her nails digging in slightly through the linen. She could feel every breath he took, every twitch of his muscles. Her body burned from within, heat pooling low in her belly that had little to do with the morning sun and everything to do with the man whose massive frame was tightly held between her legs.

He leaned closer again, brushing his nose along her cheekbone, his lips teasing the shell of her ear. “Tell me,” he whispered, his voice raw and thick.

Ersie sucked in a breath and then bit her bottom lip. She didn’t answer.

His hand skimmed down her side again, pausing just at the curve of her hip, as if waiting for a protest.

But she gave none.

Keith’s breath hitched, the sound caught somewhere between a curse and a plea. She didn’t stop him. She didn’t push him away. Her silence, a submission, was louder than any cry of encouragement she could have given him.

His lips found the shell of her ear, tracing a slow path downward until he pressed his mouth just beneath it, against the softest spot on her neck. Her breath caught in her throat, her fingers digging harder into the thick linen at his back.

Keith kissed her, still without coming up for air. Not as desperate as before, not as hungry, but just as deep. The kind of kiss that anchored itself to the bone. A kiss that spoke of questions neither of them dared to ask.

The hand at her waist shifted, sliding behind her back to cradle her, his thumb rubbing small circles just above the swell of her hip. Her legs curled tighter around him, and her hips tilted up slightly, brushing his in a way that shattered what little control he still hung onto.

A low groan rumbled in his chest as he shifted his weight, fitting his body to hers. Their mouths moved in rhythm, tongues tangling with increasing urgency.

“Tell me to stop, lass,” he gritted out again.

His hips ground against hers, and it set her entire body on fire. Still, she said nothing because she didn’t want him to stop.

Please. Please, dinnae stop… she thought wildly to herself, but she felt a shift in him.

Her silence seemed to unnerve him more than any shove could have. He tensed, as though something inside him cracked open and flooded his system with unwanted clarity.

He growled low, half in frustration, half in despair. And then he stopped. Froze like a man remembering himself.

He pulled away but not far. Their foreheads touched, their breaths mingling.

“Christ,” he muttered.

Heat still pulsed through her body as she stared up at the sky above her, her breathing shallow and heart pounding like a war drum in her chest. She lay there in the dust, unable to move, her limbs refusing to do anything she asked of them at that moment.

This was complicated because it had been no ordinary kiss. That had been the kind of kiss that split the ground beneath her.

She lifted a trembling hand to her lips, which he’d claimed with such fierce purpose. Her mouth still tingled, as if it remembered what it shouldn’t.

What have I done?

What has he done?

Ersie blinked up at him, wide-eyed, her voice hoarse. “What was that?”