Page 36 of The Scot Who Loved Me

“Isn’t that what you want?” Eyes wide, she looked genuinely startled.

He squeezed the knot his stockings made.I want a lot of things, lass.

A pair of sconces caught the shine in her rich black hair. Somehow a mere hand’s breadth separated them. Anne’s mouth was a ripe red curve, her eyes a fascinating green.

“It’s what you bargained for. Today, in my salon.” Her pretty mouth moved, saying astonishing things. “I’m prepared to give you what you want, but I ask a boon. That we wait until the gold is in our keeping. Otherwise, sex might become a... distraction.”

His bare toes pressed hard on the cold floor to keep him from toppling over. His mind was reeling over one fact after another. Only one of them needed absolute clarity.

“You think I’m helping you because I want sex?”

She blinked. “Isn’t it?”

He flinched, the blow like a punch below the belt. Holy Mother of...

She thoughtthatof him?

A carnal creature roared inside him. He could take her. He still ached behind the placket of his breeches, but another beast reared its head, long of claw and cruel in nature. Anne was the one to satisfy both... just not the way she was thinking.

She raised her hands to touch him? To comfort him?

He manacled her wrists, his voice whip sharp. “Don’t.”

Anger came off him in waves, evaporating all tenderness. Anne gawked. She was the heart of his fury. Her petticoats tangling his shins, black hair wrapping his hands. They were confoundedly, inexplicably tied together. He couldn’t let her go. In eight years, he never had. Truth slammed him like a musket ball.

Hestillloved her.

Eyes wide, he absorbed this astonishing fact.

He’d not left England these eight years because of Anne. Since his release from the prison hulk, he’d made a habit of donning his kilt and closeting himself with the best ale and whisky his money could buy, then drowning his woes on a certain August day. Until this year, he’d committed his kilt-wearing crime in private. But this year he’d been desperate.

And the reason was standing before him.

The woman in his clutches, stunned, beautiful, and utterly maddening.

He let go of her and stalked two, three paces by the salon door where their bargain began. He was exploding inside, his body restless, his heart worse. Emotions ricocheted like black powder set afire by a dozen fuses. This should be a glorious moment. Rare was the day a man realized he loved a woman. For him, it happened twice... to the same confounding woman.

His back to her, he rubbed his chest. Everything ached. He wanted to break something and not think, not feel. This morning, in her late husband’s bedchamber, he knew what he’d wanted. Sex was never part of the arrangement made in Anne’s salon. After their blistering kiss, he understood why she’d think as much. But, bartering her body? To get his help to steal the gold?

Pacing again, he couldn’t be sure which was worse: love unreturned or her body traded in a bargain. With him.

“I canna believe it.” He swung around chewing words. “You’ve gone all day thinking I bargained to use you for...reitheachas.” He practically spat the word.

Reitheachas. Rutting. Ramming. Base use of a body.

Anne’s eyes were sharp slits.

“I see you understand me,” he said, breathing hard.

“Thanks to your cousin, my Gaelic education continues.”

Her tone was formal, lady-of-the-house, while he could barely contain his rage. His armor was off, splintered in a thousand pieces.

“Don’t hide behind your coolness, madame. Tell me the truth,” he said in a harsh voice just above a whisper. “You were going to trot me up to your bedchamber and play harlot for the sake of stolen treasure?”

“I wasn’t going to trot you up to my bedchamber,” she hissed back. “Cecelia’s there.”

He felt his jaw drop. “You were going to lie down with me... in your late husband’s bed?”