Incarnate: The Moray Druids #3 (Highland Historical) Read Free Page B

the flash in her eyes, he could tell he’d said the wrong thing.  “Aye, I live here, and it’s a palace compared to where I was before.”
    At her words, his heart broke, but he tried to keep the pity from his eyes, lest she interpret it as condescension.  “I didna mean to offend ye.  It’s only that this place seems…” cold, dark, broken, not fit for a forest creature’s den, let alone a delicate woman. “Lonely,” he finished.   She didn’t belong in this place, either.  No one did.  He prided himself on the prosperity of his people, upon the procedures he had in place to economically buoy those who were vulnerable.
    “It does get rather lonely here.”  Her voice lowered to a husky rasp of honeyed suggestion.  “Most especially at night…in the dark.” 
    She moved closer to him, his cloak sliding down her shoulders to her elbows.  Her lavender eyes glittered like gems in the fading light against the dreary surroundings.  Ebony hair gleamed like silk and velvet.
    Malcolm’s body’s reaction was instantaneous.  Suffused by lust and awareness, he hardened beneath his kilt.  A spell seemed to make the evening darker, and her skin brighter.  It was as though his body was no longer his own.  He couldn’t even swallow, let alone step away from her as a nobleman in his position should .
    It was invitation he read in her eyes, there was no mistaking it.  But something else lurked in their depths, a hesitancy, a vulnerability maybe, that kept him in check. 
    And pain.  There was plenty of that. 
    Giving himself a stern cursing, he remembered that she’d been hit over the head not an hour ago.  “I want you lie down,” he ordered gently. 
    She blinked as though he’d stunned her.  “You want me to—lie with you?” 
    “Nay,” he said vehemently, and at her puckered frown he amended. “Not, nay , just not… now.  I mean, perhaps not at all.  That is… I doona expect anything…but…”  Christ, what was he, a pubescent youth?  He clenched his teeth and tried again.  “I want to examine yer head again, to make certain ye’re not concussed.”
    She blinked a couple more times before replying.  “I see.”
    Lowering to her furs, she cast his cloak to the side and stretched out on her back, hair fanning out beneath her shoulders.
    Malcolm could see her nipples beneath the thin garment she wore.  It molded to her long torso, and flared with her hips, dipping in between legs that seemed to go on forever.  To say her shape was fine would be like saying the night was dark or the December wind was bitter. 
    “You’re staring.”  She smiled up at him. 
    “Sorry.”  Kneeling beside her, he reached for her scalp again.  “May I examine ye?”
    “I’m at your mercy.” 
    Heat flared beneath the chill of the evening at her words, and Malcolm again reached into her soft tresses in search of a bump.  Still finding none, he gently put his finger beneath each of her remarkable eyes and leaned in to check her pupils for signs of inconsistency.  “Is yer vision blurry at all?” he queried. 
    “Nay.”
    “Are ye nauseated or faint?”
    “Nay.”
    Her breath mingled with his, and a strange kinetic kind of energy seemed to leap between their skin.  “Ye should stay warm,” he said, lamenting the husky note in his voice as he reached for his cloak to cover her again. 
    Malcolm found it strange that she seemed perplexed as he tucked his cloak around her.  She had to be chilly; it was colder than a sow’s teat in autumn. 
    “What about yer headache?”
    “It’s better now.” She shook her head back and forth as though to prove it.
    Malcolm paused, his hand resting on her shoulder.  There was naught left to do, and yet he didn’t want to leave her here. 
    A soft hand snaked from beneath the cloak and covered his.  “Is there… aught I can do to repay you for your kindness?”  She moved his hand from her shoulder to her breast, emphasizing her