Page 9 of Taken By the Vicious Highlander

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“That’snoneof yer business, is it?” she snapped, her voice sharp.

Keep it together. He’s a stranger. Dinnae let him in.

Memories of her brother’s anger and her father’s descent into the deepest pits of sorrow flashed across her mind.

She blinked away the memory quickly, but it raked its nails across her brain uncomfortably as she watched Damon move and sit on the edge of the bed, his posture relaxed yet somehow still imposing.

“What about heirs, then?” he asked, his tone businesslike as if he was discussing clan strategy with one of his councilmen.

The question plucked the string on her raw emotions and set her on edge instantly. The detached way he spoke about it made her blood boil.

“Nay, I dinnae wish to have children.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why does it matter to ye? Maybe ye should find someone else to give ye an heir! It willnae be me!” Lilith shot back, her anger threatening to open the floodgates on the tears pricking the back of her eyes.

Damon furrowed his brow slightly, a flicker of surprise breaking through his calm exterior. “What kind of man do ye take me for?” he asked, exasperation creeping into his voice.

Lilith met his gaze defiantly, her fingers curling into the fabric of her dress. “The kind of man who always gets what he wants. If it’s nae given to him, he takes it.”

He rose swiftly, his frame towering over her as he stepped closer. She flinched, her eyes dropping to the floor on instinct.

Here it comes…

She was trapped between his arms, his knee between her legs, and her back pressed against the wall. His eyes bored into her, willing her to look at him. She felt his face mere inches away from her own.

“Listen carefully, LilithAragain,” he began, drawing out her new last name with delicious ease, his voice low and firm. The sound of her name on his lips tugged on a place deep below her navel. “I’ll never do anything against yer will. But I cannae give up on an heir. And I’ll be damned if I share me bed with anyone else but me wife.”

Her pulse quickened, though she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or the intensity of his proximity.

“I already told ye, I willnae change me mind,” she said, her voice wavering slightly. “So, either ye do as yer sister promised and respect me wishes, or ye will have to take me without me consent. Just like the brute we all ken ye to be.”

Her eyes met his finally, fire and fury behind them. A challenge.

Like water off a duck’s feathers, Damon let her accusation roll off his tall, imposing frame. His body rolled slightly above her as he inhaled, his chest closing the space between them. Lilith squeezed her eyes shut as a tingling pressure built between her thighs and her breathing quickened with a new type of primal need.

As if finding space between them where there was none, Damon pressed into her. His heat radiated through his tunic and soaked into her skin. A greedy growl rumbled in his chest, sending a chill through her.

Nay! He wouldnae. We cannae. Nay… please…

“Seven nights,” she heard him say, finally breaking the silence, his voice steady and calculating.

“What?” she blurted, wrenching her eyelids open to meet his blue stare. “Seven? I’m willnae spendonenight with ye?—”

“Spend seven nights with me,” he spoke over her. “If I cannae change yer mind by then, then I’ll let the matter go.”

“I still dinnae understand. Why would I do that?”

“Naybeddin’ or claimin’ ye.”

“Well, what then?” Lilith asked impatiently.

The words ‘bedding’ and ‘claiming’ did very little to lower her body temperature. Given that his knee was still comfortably wedged between her legs, pinning her to the wall, she couldn’t free her mind from her illicit thoughts. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from speaking any of them into existence.