Page 7 of The Highlander’s Hunted Wife (Legacy of Highland Lairds #2)

7

S ome peace, at last.

Hector spread his arms across the rocky ledge of the hot springs, tilting his head back as the perfectly warm water loosened the knots in his muscles, easing the aches and pains that plagued him. It was his sanctuary, the one place where he knew no one would disturb him. Not many people knew of its existence, and those who did wouldn’t presume to visit.

I wonder how long it would take me clan to notice if I built a hut over here and moved meself here indefinitely.

He smiled at the thought, taking a precious moment to imagine a different life for himself. One where he had no one to answer to, his broad shoulders free of the burden of lairdship. An existence where he had never fought a war, much less a pointless one that had come to nothing. A life where his sister was still alive, happily married to a nice shepherd, with the horde of children she had always wanted.

An owl hooted from somewhere deeper in the forest, setting off a chorus that splintered through the wondrous quiet. A fox screamed, inspiring another to answer. Night creatures rustled through the undergrowth all around, a badger appearing at the edge of the hot springs, sniffing the air. Irritated crows, awoken from their slumber, echoed Hector’s sentiments.

Even in this serene place, he could have no real peace.

Mumbling his annoyance under his breath, he pushed off the ledge and dove under the water. He swam blind, the glorious heat like a kiss on his face, relieving some of the tension from his temples.

I should have let her go.

In the dulled silence of the pool, his thoughts crept cautiously.

I’d have saved meself plenty of hassle if I’d just let her go.

He had gone over the same thing countless times since leaving Katie in a more suitable bedchamber, wishing he had followed his own command to leave them. Katie would have run on to the cottage she had spoken of and scolded her brother so badly that he’d think twice about ever leaving the village again, and Hector’s life would have gone on without another thought of her.

He could still feel the frantic rise and fall of her chest, unable to shake off the visions of her, wide-eyed and gasping, leaning into him. His mouth burned with the desire to graze her skin, to discover if it was as soft and smooth as he had imagined.

The springs would help heal those scratches on her arms…

He burst out of the water, groaning in the back of his throat as he pictured it. Katie standing at the edge of the pools, stripped bare of that muddied dress, her pale skin gleaming in the gauzy moonlight. Resembling a forgotten goddess of the old ways, fierce and beautiful, sliding into the water to imbue it with her charms, gliding toward him to punish him with a kiss for daring to look upon her naked form.

More than a kiss. Slick bodies moving together on the flat of the ledge, spring-warmed limbs tangled together, feverish breaths and cries of pleasure rising to the winking night sky. The taste of her on his tongue, the heat of her as he shed all his worries and woes and sank deep inside her, the squeeze of her thighs around his waist, drawing him deeper still.

Treading water, he shook the droplets from his hair and rubbed his hands over his face. “Ye’ve been at war for too long,” he muttered, swimming over to the opposite ledge.

If ye want a lass to distract ye for a night, have Flynn find ye one.

As he’d said to his grandmother, Katie wasn’t a plaything. She was a captive with a sentence to serve.

He had just turned to drape his arms over the rocks again when a sound splintered through the usual night chorus of the forest. The crunch of tentative footfalls, picking their way across the uneven terrain. No animal would wander with such hesitation, and no one from his castle would venture so far from the safety of home at such an hour.

Well, perhaps one.

He smirked at the thought that Katie had already disobeyed him. Again. It would make it all the easier to dispense with her, when she evidently had no intention of serving her sentence. He would do what he should have done in the first place—exiling her and her siblings, making them another laird’s problem.

But not without teaching her the lesson she kept failing to learn.

What better way to end a tryin’ day than with a chase?

There was, after all, no benefit to being too relaxed. A laird needed to have his wits about him at all times, and this was the perfect tool to hone them.

He turned around, gripping the rocks in readiness to haul himself out.

Lantern light bobbed like a will-o-the-wisp through the crooked yew trees, his eyes trained on the glow. It stopped and started, doubling back before heading in the same direction again, a sure sign that the wanderer was completely and utterly lost. The faint whisper of an expletive confirmed it.

What was more, she had no idea she was being watched. The ledge hid Hector from view.

“Did ye nae hear what I said earlier, lass?” he called out. “Or do ye prefer the dungeons to yer guest chambers?”

A startled gasp greeted his ears, widening his smirk as he pulled himself out of the water.

Go on, lass.

He waited for a moment, dripping onto the smooth rock beneath his feet.

Run…

Katie fumbled to stop the lantern from slipping from her hand at the sound of Hector’s voice, seemingly coming out of nowhere.

I was so careful! How has he managed to come after me?

She swung the lantern this way and that, but she didn’t need its light to see what stood off to her left, through the trees. A gleaming statue of a man, entirely naked, poised at the edge of what appeared to be a steaming pool. The mist of it wafted up, while more steam wisped away from his skin, making it seem like he had stepped out of some ethereal realm… or some fiery place where devils resided.

Frozen in shock, her wide-eyed gaze roved over his carved muscles, interrupted by the sharp lines of silvery scars, as if the sculptor’s hand had slipped with the chisel. He had so many scars that she couldn’t have hoped to count them all, though she traced them down his body.

Her stomach flipped at the sight of powerful thighs and deep grooves that cut down from his hips, naturally drawing her eyes to?—

Run, Katie! For heaven’s sake, run!

She took off, hastily blowing out the lantern as she sprinted through the darkness, letting the thin streams of moonlight guide her toward safety. The trouble was, she had no idea if she was going in the right direction, or if one wrong turn would put her in a circle that led her straight back to him.

The forest floor became a living, breathing monster with a thousand clawing fingers, every root and bramble and briar and shrub trying to make Hector’s task easier by tripping her. She stumbled and staggered, pressing ever onward, jumping straight up when she fell palms-first into the mulch, swearing instead of stopping when her leg collided with a fallen branch, running with the thought of Lyall and Bonnie in her heart and mind.

I can endure anythin’ for them.

Veering around trees that seemed to pop up out of thin air, leaping over ditches and logs that she noticed at the last minute, she grew in confidence the deeper into the forest she ran.

I can do this. I can get there. I have to get there. I have to see me siblings and explain…

Here and there, she thought she heard Hector’s footsteps, but a glance back over her shoulder revealed nothing of his naked, breathtaking figure. Not that she believed he’d given up, but if she could just make it to the village, to the cottage, Pipkin would make him think twice about entering. If nothing else, there were more places to hide. The village was her domain, where she would have the advantage.

To her gasping disbelief, the trees began to thin, the ancient oaks and alders replaced by wiry birch trees that permitted a view, at last, of what lay on the near horizon: the gentle slope of moorland that stretched toward a familiar river.

I’m goin’ the right way!

Spurred on by the rush of excitement and relief, Katie wound through the thin trunks of the birch trees, sprinting as the edge of the forest came closer and closer.

Five paces from the border between woodland and moorland, she heard it—the steady thud of someone running up behind her.

Nay, nay, nay! Nae now.

She urged her tired legs to run as fast as they could, refusing to look back to see how close Hector might be. So, it came as something of an unpleasant surprise when arms locked tight around her waist, sweeping her off her feet, putting a firm end to her bid for freedom.

“Caught ye,” Hector said, swinging her around and setting her back on the ground, on the very edge of that wretched forest.

She had one foot on moorland and one foot on woodland. A cruel division.

Infuriated by how close and yet how far she’d managed to get, Katie wrestled herself out of Hector’s grip. However, she was under no illusion that he would let her go.

“What did ye expect?” she muttered, unable to find the words to explain. How could she, when he was still unclothed?

He canted his head. “Do ye enjoy havin’ me chase ye? Does this little show of defiance give ye a thrill?”

“Nay… It’s nae about defiance,” she replied, turning her back on him so she could find the will to speak again. “And there’s nothin’ thrillin’ about it. See how ye like someone racin’ after ye through woods that want ye to break yer neck.”

“That would be a pity,” he said in a gravelly voice, his footsteps moving quicker than her reflexes.

Her breath hitched as his hand came up to sweep her hair back over her shoulder, his fingertips brushing the cut on her neck. She should have moved away from him, but she couldn’t, the caress so tender that her body ignored the threat he posed.

His touch lingered, his callused palm pleasantly rough against her skin as his hand cradled her neck. All of a sudden, his other arm was around her waist, the bulk of his muscular body pressing her forward, pushing her up against the ridged bark of a sentinel oak that kept watch over the forest and the moors. A gasp escaped her lips as her hands shot out to brace herself, the abrupt stop bringing him flush to her back.

“Ye cannae tell me that this game doesnae make yer blood rush,” he growled against her neck. She imagined the graze of his teeth, ravenous for a taste of her.

She pushed back against him, her head pulsing with the sudden wave of heat that surged through her veins. Her blood wasn’t just rushing—it was roaring . Her skin tingled, her stomach tightened, her breaths short and sharp, her entire being uncertain of whether to dart away or lean further back against the warmth of his bare skin.

“It… scares me,” she panted.

He suddenly grabbed her wrists, pulling her arms above her head, pinning her hands to the tree trunk with just one of his own. She didn’t dare to wonder what his other hand might do, too afraid that she might like the thought.

“Ye wouldnae need to be scared if ye didnae run in the first place,” he murmured, pushing his hips upward, stealing away her reason. “I dinnae allow disobedience, lass.”

She felt him, hard against the curve of her backside. The part of him that had nearly stopped her from running before. The part of a man she had never seen before, though she had heard the village girls gossip about it often enough.

“It wasnae… disobedience,” she whispered thickly, stifling a moan as his free hand began to wander, smoothing slowly up the flat of her stomach to the plump swell of her breasts.

“What was it, then?” he breathed against her neck, his mouth chasing the tingle of it with a burning kiss. The hungry press of his lips, like a brand she was only too happy to bear.

He kissed her neck again, slow caresses tracing down to the curve of her shoulder.

Katie had forgotten what she was going to say, had forgotten why she had been escaping the castle at all. The only thing that existed in her mind was that fiery kiss and the greedy stroke of his hand and the feel of the tree bark beneath her fingertips as she clawed at it, her whole being becoming a feral thing at his arousing touch.

It was like a madness taking over, and it wasn’t enough. She needed to feel him, needed to let her hands explore flesh and muscle, not the rough bark of a tree.

“Please…” she gasped as his tongue brushed her skin. “Please.”

She couldn’t elaborate. Her mind and voice had been separated by the wildfire of his attention, the former too distracted to allow her mouth to create anything more than breathy gasps. She couldn’t think, much less speak.

Nevertheless, he seemed to understand the unspoken meaning.

He released her pinned hands and rested his palms on her waist, spinning her around to face him.

“Is that better?” he purred, pressing her back against the tree.

Before she could answer, his lips found hers, kissing her with a hunger that stole her breath and senses away. A kiss she could not have imagined in her wildest, most private dreams. A kiss that almost made her want to start running again, knowing he would be all the more ravenous, all the more attentive, when he inevitably caught her.