Page 23

"Good," he said, and there was nothing repentant in it at all. "I'd hate tae be dull company."

She should have taken the chair herself. She thought about it seriously, for the length of two full breaths, thinking about the option, and then she lay down anyway, on her side, facing him, because the bed was warm and he was there and some traitorous, exhausted part of her had stopped wanting to fight the fact of it sometime in the last hour without telling the rest of her.

"If ye touch me without asking," she said, "I'll break yer nose."

"Understood."

"I mean it, MacKinnon."

"I ken ye do." His eyes, close now in the firelight, had gone very steady, very warm, all the wickedness banked into something quieter. "I've nae intention of touching ye without asking, Neilina. I'd like tae think ye know me well enough by now tae credit that much."

"I dinnae know ye at all."

"Ye know more than ye're willing tae admit." His voice had dropped, rough at the edges, and the distance between them on the narrow mattress had become a thing she was suddenly and acutely aware of, inches, nothing, the heat of him reaching her before any other part of him did. "Ye know I came through a postern gate alone for ye. Ye know I sat across a supper tray and told ye the truth when a lie would've served me better. Ye know I broke a man's jaw in the street tonight for putting his hand where he'd nae right tae put it." His gaze dropped, briefly, to her mouth, and came back up like he'd caught himself doing something he oughtn't. "That's nae naething, whatever ye're telling yerself tae make tonight easier."

"Ye're very good at this," she said, and her voice had gone unsteady despite every effort she'd made to keep it from doing so.

“Can I kiss ye?” he asked.

Her eyes widened, and she didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure she wanted to respond the way she should. And that hesitation was answer enough.

His mouth was on hers, careful at first, testing. He tasted of salt and heat, and the suddenness of it knocked the air from her lungs. Neilina let out a sharp, needy gasp against his lips, the sound snapping the last of his restraint.

His hand slid from her jaw into her hair, and hers found the front of his shirt and closed on it tightly, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. And the heat she'd spent the whole ride telling herself was only comforting because of the cold night air turned out, up close, to be a great deal more than that.

She felt his breath catch against her mouth. Felt her own catch back.

This is a terrible idea, she thought, distantly, from somewhere very far beneath the part of her that had both hands in his hair now and no intention of letting go. This is the worst idea I've had in twenty-seven years and I cannae bring myself tae care.

His hand found the curve of her waist, drew her in until there was no cold night air left between them at all. He groaned, a low, guttural sound that vibrated through her entire body, and he began to grind his hips into her. Through the layers of their clothing, she felt the thick, rigid length of him pressing hard against her thigh, that made her core throb and dampen instantly.

Neilina arched her back, her chest heaving, a small, helpless moan escaping her throat. She felt undone, stripped bare by the intensity of his touch.

The sound startled her and she pulled back.

He let her.

She looked at him in the firelight, at the dark auburn hair and the blue eyes and the jaw and the whole of him, and she felt the heat in her face that had nothing to do with the fire and everything to do with the fact that she had just kissed Marcas MacKinnon.

What in God's name, she thought.

"I—" she started.

"Ye should sleep," he said.

His voice was even. His face had settled into the controlled mask he wore when he had decided not to show something, and she could not determine whether that made her feel better or considerably worse, and she decided, in the interest of what remained of her dignity, to accept the exit he was offering.

"Aye," she said. "I should."

She turned away from him and lay down and pulled the blanket over herself with the focused attention of a woman performing the ordinary act of going to sleep and absolutely not thinking about anything that had just occurred.

She heard him settle somewhere behind her.

The fire crackled.

The inn made its small sounds around them, timber and wind and the distant noise of the village.

It was nothing, she told herself. It was a moment and a fire and exhaustion and it meant nothing and it will nae be mentioned and in the morning we will continue tae be exactly what we are, which is enemies.