Moon Awakening

'Are you certain of that?'

'Yes.'

'You are very arrogant,' she said speculatively. 'Perhaps it is only that arrogance speaking now.'

She had no idea what the drought of her being attracted to another man did to him, how angry it made him. But he could tell from the way she spoke that she was not trying to make him jealous. She was genuinely worried about her morals.

It would have been bloody amusing if she didn't look so upset.

'Did you ever want to touch one of your father's soldiers?' he asked, convinced the answer had to be a negative for her to be as wholly innocent as she was.

'No.' She clasped her hands, as if pleased by that reminder. 'And they were not all surly men. Some were quite pleasing to look at, but I did not feel the things I do when I am near you.' Then her expression took on a worried cast again. 'Of course I did not spend much time with them. It would not have been proper.'

'You rode on Angus's horse with him. Did his nearness affect you the way mine does? You smiled at him,' he reminded her. It rankled, that smile. For she'd given his soldiers many such looks while ignoring him completely the evening before.

'That was to confuse him, but no… I did not want to get nearer to him as I did when I rode with you.'

Everything she did confused Lachlan, but he wasn't about to admit that sorry truth. The woman was a puzzle, but an appealing one. 'Are you sure you had no desire to have Ulf kiss you, or one of my other soldiers?' he teased, knowing the answer to that question with certainty.

She grimaced, distaste at the idea written all over her expressive features. 'Of course not.'

'Then how can you believe yourself to be a woman of misplaced morals?'

'It is not my morals I'm concerned with, but my urges. It is you,' she stated with conviction. 'I must stay away from you. You bring out the worst in me.'

He did not agree. 'I bring out the woman in you.'

'I am supposed to be a lady, but you give me impure thoughts. It is wrong.'

He pulled her close into his body so she could feel the evidence of his desire, the result of his own thoughts where she was concerned. 'It is hot.'

'Hot?' she asked, her voice squeaking with alarm.

'Very hot.' He rubbed himself against her and groaned. 'And now, unless you want me to act on those impure thoughts, we need to cool down.'

'How can you act on my thoughts? You don't know what they are.'

'Don't I?'

'Do you mean to say you have the same ones?'

That made him smile. 'You are too innocent to have my thoughts.'

'But you said—'

'That it is time for your swimming lesson.'

'I am not taking my tunic off. It would not be decent.' She couldn't believe he had suggested such a thing.

'You cannot learn to swim wearing it.'

'My shift will be as good as gone if it gets wet.'

'Then do not wear it in the water.' He made that impudent suggestion without so much as blinking an eye.

'I can't do that!'

'Why not?'

'You are not serious.'

'Explain this aversion you have to disrobing.'

'I don't mind disrobing.' But even saying the word made her blush. 'In the privacy of my chamber, by myself' she stressed, 'but I'm not about to do so in front of you.'

'I admit doing so is not likely to have the calming effect on my sex I had wanted, but naked works best for swimming.'

She knew the Highlanders looked at things differently, but this was totally outrageous. 'You can't mean men and women swim naked together.'

He shrugged. 'Balmorals learn to swim when they are still babes. It is the way of things here.'

'I am not a child.'

'No. You are not.'

'You said it works best to swim without your clothes.' She paused, finding it difficult to utter the question that comment elicited. 'Do you mean to say that you intend to take your plaid off as well?'

He gave her the devil's own grin and she knew he was enjoying her discomfort far too much. 'Aye.'

'You're daft! If your kisses are not bad enough, you cannot possibly expect me to do as you suggest.'

'I told you daft is not a polite thing to call a laird.'

'It is much ruder for you to demand I take my clothes off.'

'I did not demand it. I suggested it.'

'So I can keep them on?'

'Not if you want to avoid sinking to the bottom of the loch.'

She went cold at the thought and felt her face draining of color. 'This swimming thing is a bad idea. We will have to accept that I do not know how and leave it at that.'

He shook his head. 'You are becoming too excited over this. I am not suggesting you take your clothes off in front of my soldiers.'

'Just you.'

'You are going to be naked for me one way or another, Emily. You do not find my kisses bad at all… they make you hot, and merely being near enough to touch you makes me hotter than Hell in the summertime. I will try to preserve your maidenhead, but I am going to see you naked and caress you and learn your body's secrets.'

Her entire body suffused with heat at his words and it wasn't embarrassment. He did make her hot like he said, but that didn't change anything. She could not give into him. 'No.'

'Yes.'

'I am promised to Talorc.'

'That is not something you should remind me of often. It makes the beast in me want to claim you as mine.'

Did he really consider his lust a separate beast within him? Perhaps it was. She certainly felt urges that did not come from any place inside herself that she recognized. It was as if there was another Emily when she was in his company… a woman who craved things ladies were not even supposed to think about.

'Because he is your enemy?'

'Because you do not belong with him.'

'You are so sure?'

'If you reacted to him the way you do to me, you would not have seen the kidnapping as a reprieve.'

'I must marry him. I have no choice.'

'You could stay with the Balmorals.'

'You would give me sanctuary?'

'Yes.'

But he said nothing about wanting to keep her for himself. In fact, as much as he wanted her, he had been careful to make no promises for the future. He was not looking for a wife, but for a woman who would slake the lust that raged like a beast inside him. She should be offended, mortified and a lot of other things her stepmother would have screeched at her, but all Emily felt was longing.

Nevertheless, she sighed and said, 'I cannot stay.'

'Tell me why.'

So she told him about Abigail and her fear that her sister would be sent in her place.

He said nothing, but his expression turned thoughtful. 'You wanted to bring your sister to live here in the Highlands.'

'Yes.'