Page 15 of The Cruel Highlander’s Healer (Highlanders’ Feisty Brides #1)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T hat should be ye.

The jealous, ugly thought rang through Conall’s mind, as it had many times that night as he’d watched Eliza dance. He was watching her now, half jealous and half aroused as her hips swayed.

The old man she was dancing with raised a hand to spin her, and she let out a loud cackle of a laugh. She’d been smiling all night; her face having come alive at the sound of the music.

And all Conall had been able to do was watch.

Ye should have said yes when she asked ye to dance.

But as much as Conall wanted to say yes, as much as he’d been tempted by it, he knew that he couldn’t.

He could never give Eliza, or any woman for that matter, anything more than just the physical. He had seen what love had done to his father, how it had killed him.

Because his father had loved his mother. And she had killed him for it. He would never be able to give his heart away, not if that was all that love would get him.

But still, would it be so terrible to pretend? For just one night.

“Ye should dance with yer woman, me laird.”

A voice sounded from close beside him, and Conall whirled. There was a man standing a few feet away from him, his eyes not on Conall but on Eliza.

There was a hunger to his gaze that had fury pooling low in his belly. But still, he knew what he had to say.

“She is nae me woman,” he grunted, and even he could hear the bitter tone in his words.

“Ye sure look at her like she is,” the man answered. “But if she’s nae, perhaps I’ll try me hand at askin’ her to dance.”

Conall couldn’t stop the growl of protest that rose in his throat. He snarled at the man, glaring at him with a fury he hadn’t felt in quite some time.

The man’s eyes went wide with fear, and he held his hands out in front of him, palms forward. A sign of supplication and surrender. There was a mumbled apology, one that Conall barely heard before the man turned on his heels and scurried away.

Regret began to fill him.

He shouldn’t have done that. He had no claim to her. He knew that all the way down in his bones.

Conall desired her, yes. But she was not his. She was nothing to him other than an employee. Someone he had hired to do a job. He had no right to chase off potential suitors for her.

Maybe that man would have been good for her? Maybe that man would have given her all the things that ye cannae.

His stomach soured.

“Are ye sure ye daenae want to dance with me?”

A lilting, familiar voice came from mere feet in front of him. Conall blinked, the haze of jealousy falling to the wayside as he looked up at Eliza.

She was beaming at him, her hand half extended to him in an offer.

By God, he wanted to reach out and take it. Instead, Conall shook his head.

Eliza’s bottom lip jutted out as she pouted, and almost immediately she wobbled on her feet. He jumped to standing, holding a hand out to steady her.

“That last dram of whisky might have been a mistake,” Eliza admitted, her cheeks flushed with drink and dance.

“Mayhaps it’s time to get ye up to our rooms.”

The words fell from his lips before he had time to consider them. Had he asked them because she was a little drunk? Or had he asked them because he was jealous of everyone that she’d danced with that evening – women, men, and children alike?

Conall wasn’t sure he wanted to try to answer that question.

For a moment, Eliza looked like she might protest. She threw a longing, considering glance over her shoulder to the few people still dancing.

It was well into the wee hours of the morning; she had been dancing for hours. Many of the revelers had long since left, gone upstairs to their rooms or to their homes within the village.

Only a handful remained.

That seemed to be the deciding factor, that there were not many people left. Because Eliza turned her attention back to him and nodded.

He held out a hand to her, allowing her to take it. Conall ignored the way her small hand fit in his as he led her through the end.

The staircase was in the far corner of the building, and as they reached it, he realized how narrow it truly was.

“Walk in front of me,” he ordered, and for once, Eliza did not argue with him.

She toddled towards the stairs, her hand gripping the balustrade a bit unsteadily as she began to climb. The room that they’d been given was all the way at the top, and Conall wanted to make sure that if she began to stumble, he would be behind her to stop her from tumbling down the stairs.

The sound of her humming filled the small space, and they passed door after door. Sounds emanated from a few of them, the cries of pleasure from varying women and men rising up to greet them.

I wonder what Eliza sounds like as she finds her pleasure.

Conall bit the inside of his mouth, the taste of blood filling it as he tried to distract himself from those thoughts. He glanced ahead of him and almost immediately realized his mistake.

With Eliza climbing the stairs ahead of him, her backside was nearly level with his eyes.

She was holding her skirts high, clutching them so they didn’t sway around her ankles and trip her. And the way she was holding them had the fabric of her dress pulling tight over the curve of her rear.

Conall gulped, feeling heat flicker through his body. He looked down again, trying everything that he could to stamp down his urge to reach out, and caress her.

“Is this it?”

Eliza’s voice flickered down to him, and he nearly ran into her as he realized that she’d stopped on the landing right in front of him. It was the last door, painting white with winding vines spiraling out from the knob.

“Aye,” he grunted, moving past her to insert the key.

The hall was cramped, meaning Eliza was pressed nearly flush to his body as he unlocked the door. He cleared his throat, the sound of the lock turning getting lost in the night.

A touch grazed his side, light as a feather. It was so fast and so hesitant, Conall could almost believe that he’d imagined it. That was, until it happened again.

Fingertips brushed against his thigh, moving the fabric of his kilt gently. As quickly as they appeared, they were gone.

The door is unlocked, ye need to open it.

Conall did not move.

The fingertips brushed against his side again, rising up to his bicep, and then to the exposed flesh of his arm from where he’d rolled the sleeves of his tunic.

“Eliza.” He gritted his teeth, using her name as a warning as he turned toward her.

She was staring up at him, large doe eyes fixed on his face.

“Yes, me laird?”

Her eyebrow cocked up, a clear challenge. She wanted him to correct her, wanted him to remind her to use his name. And by God he wanted to. He wanted to watch as her lips moved, forming the syllables of it.

Instead, he turned the knob of the door and thrust it open. The room beyond was dark, but he dipped his head toward it anyways.

“In,” he commanded, and he didn’t wait for her to respond.

Reaching out, he grabbed her hand, doing his best to ignore the feeling of her hand in his. He gave it a quick tug, more gently than he normally would have. But with her a bit unsteady with drink, it was not hard to get her to move.

Eliza stepped past him, her smell drifting up to tickle his nostrils. He wanted to lean into it, wanted to inhale the way her musk mixed so intoxicatingly with the smell of the whisky and the beer that she’d been drinking.

In the hall, he grabbed one of the lanterns off of their sconces, using it to light their chambers as he stepped through the threshold.

The room was modest, with only a small writing desk next to the window, an armoire, and a washbasin side by side. The bed was large, though, occupying most of the space from where it was pressed into the corner.

Three large windows dotted the wall, and Conall knew they would be waking with the sun.

He walked across the room, the sound of his boots on the wood floor echoing loudly as he did. Hanging the lantern on the wall hook near the bed, he turned to look at Eliza.

She was still standing in the center of the room, brown eyes fixed on him. There was something in her posture, something to the set of her shoulders that he was finding near impossible to read.

But when his eyes met hers, his breath caught in his throat.

They were molten, alight with a desire that shook him. Immediately, he felt himself hardening beneath his kilt.

Conall shifted on his feet, trying to tuck his rising desire away so that she would not see it.

“Why did ye kiss me the other night?” Eliza’s voice was hoarse with need, but she did not move.

Something that Conall was thankful for. If she walked to him in that moment, he was unsure if he had it in him to turn her down.

I need to get control of meself. I am nae some lad that has to bed every woman that shows me interest. I can have some control.

“It was a momentary weakness,” he said, gesturing to the bed. “Now ye need to lay down.”

Eliza’s eyes darted to the bed, her expression shifting. She didn’t argue with him; not like he expected her to. Instead, she started to cross the space.

She didn’t walk to the other side of the bed, though. Instead, she crossed to him. Conall’s breath hitched as she raised her hands, placing them on his large, barrel chest.

His heart began to pound, and he was confident that she could feel it beneath her delicate healer’s hands.

“What would it take,” her voice was barely more than a breathy whisper, flickering over Conall’s skin and making him feel like he was on fire, “for ye to have another momentary weakness?”

He groaned, reaching up to place his hands over hers. But he didn’t remove them. He didn’t push her away. Not yet.

“I cannae,” he said, his voice gruff.

“And why can ye nae?”

He looked down at her, one mistake in a long line of mistakes throughout the night.

Eliza’s tongue darted out to wet her lips, and immediately he wanted to pull that lip between his teeth. He wanted to feel his mouth on hers. He wanted to claim her.

“Because I cannae.”

He wrapped his hands around her wrist. The direct contact of skin made the heat that had been building in his belly flare anew.

“Why?”

Eliza blinked up at him. The word had been nothing more than an exhale of breath, barely audible. But it threatened to fracture every bit of resolve.

“Ye’re drunk,” Conall grunted, taking his eyes off hers and focusing on her hands.

They were still placed on his chest, fingers splayed with his hands wrapped around her wrist. Her fingers were long and slender, small scars across the tops of them.

Fighting against the urge to ask what the scars were from, to trace them with the line of his fingertips, he tightened his grip on her wrists and tugged her hands off of her chest.

“I willnae bed ye when ye’re drunk.” His tone was harsh. Final.

For the first time that night, doubt flickered across Eliza’s face, her confidence from just a few moments before fading into the background.

“Now step out of yer boots and get to bed,” Conall grunted.

Dropping her hands, he gripped her shoulders, moving her body gently out of the way. She pouted up at him, clearly unsatisfied with his answer.

As he walked, he felt his hardness beneath his kilt and kept his body shifted away from her just enough that she would not notice. He could not let her know how bad he desired her; how much he wished that he could fall on top of her right then and sink into her.

But he would not. He would not ruin her. He would not soil her. She deserved so much more than that. So much more than the little bit that he could give.

Conall did not look at her again as he crossed to the other side of the bed. He turned his back to her, sitting on the edge of the straw-filled mattress.

The back of his kilt rode up, allowing his thighs to brush across the quilt's fabric. It was a bit scratchy and stiff, the odd sensation helping to bring him out of his spiraling desire for the woman he was sharing the room with.

He busied himself with taking off his boots, focusing on untying each, individual lace.

Eventually, a resigned sigh sounded from behind him, and he felt the other side of the mattress shift as Eliza sat down. Her boots made two thunks as they fell to the floor, and he felt more shifting as she pulled back the blankets and settled into the bed.

Conall stood, deliberately not looking in Eliza’s directions as he moved toward the lantern. Now that his boots were off and he was only in his socks, his footsteps made much less noise as he moved.

He turned down the lantern, the flame sputtering until it went out entirely, casting the room in darkness once more. Relief flooded him, and he used the sudden darkness to reach down and adjust himself.

He was still hard, but at least now Eliza would not be able to see it. She would not know just how much she was affecting him and how much he was craving to sink into her soft, beautiful flesh.

He walked softly back to his side of the bed, sinking into it with a sigh. Slowly, his vision started to adjust to the dark. Soft, silvery moonlight was filtering in through the large windows.

Glancing to the right, he found Eliza leaning up on one elbow, looking in his direction.

“Ye dinnae answer my question,” she purred, and Conall could smell the whisky still on her breath. “What would it take to get ye to have another moment?”

Conall shook his head. He wasn’t sure if she could see it or not, but he felt certain that she could feel it.

“It is nae a good idea, Eliza,” he grunted.

“And why not?”

He didn’t need to be able to see her face clearly to hear the pout in her voice.

“It just isnae. Now roll over and go to sleep.”

He felt the mattress shift, but he didn’t see the shadow of her form rolling. Instead, it seemed like it was growing larger – growing closer.

Her hand came up to rest on his chest, the heat of it seeping through the fabric of his shirt. And a moment later, he felt her breath on his cheek.

She placed a soft kiss to it, sending goosebumps dancing across his skin. It took an inhuman amount of strength for him to not lean into it.

He reached up, hand wrapping around her wrist once more. Turning his face away from her so that she could not kiss him again took every ounce of his willpower.

“Go to sleep, Eliza.”

He made his voice hard, made it sound cruel. It did not matter that he did not want to. It did not matter that he wanted to roll over and press his mouth to hers. That he wanted to press his body to hers.

What he wanted did not matter. Not now. What mattered was what she wanted and what he could give her.

And what he could give her was nothing.

Finally, the rejection seemed to seep into Eliza. She extracted her wrist from his hand, the bed shifting and groaning beneath her as she finally rolled over onto her side.

Thank you, God.

He sent up a quick prayer, thanking the Lord that she finally saw reason. He hadn’t been sure how much longer he would have been able to deny her.

Conall stared up at the ceiling, watching as the moonlight painted it all in shadow. A tree outside their window moved gently, likely rustled by a nighttime breeze.

The shadows that it cast danced, and Conall studied them. He focused on his breathing, trying as hard as he could to get his desire for the woman beside him to die down. But it would not.

Eventually, Eliza’s breathing evened out, her breaths deepening and then turning into soft, quiet snores. She had drifted off.

But he could not. As Eliza slept, all Conall could think about was rolling over and claiming her.

It is goin’ to be a very, very long night.