Page 62

"Correct. Go do your little sword twirls." I pull the book more firmly into my lap and snuggle up into the blanket.

Lachlan turns his back to me, rolling his massive shoulders until the joints crack like gunfire. He steps into the center of the flagstones, drops his weight into a low stance, and begins to move.

Oh, yum.

Oh, shit. I am in so much trouble.

And suddenly, any desire I had to read about fourteenth-century ward metaphysics completely evaporates from my brain.

Lachlan doesn't just swing a sword. What he does… that’s art.

The sheer weight of the five-foot blade should make his movements clumsy, but in his hands, the steel flows like water. He pivots on the balls of his combat boots, the blade slicing through the cold air with a sharp, terrifying whoosh that kicks up dead leaves in a circle around him. Every line of his back coils and flexes beneath the tight shirt, the dense slabs of muscle bunching with every thrust, every brutal parry.

His breathing falls into a rhythmic rasp, pale plumes of steam blasting from his lips with every strike.

The silver beads in his dark hair click against each other. The faint gold glow of the handfasting mark on his wrist blazes with every rotation of his forearm, trailing faint embers through the morning frost.

Jesus.

My mouth goes dry. The coffee in my mug sits forgotten.

I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, feeling an embarrassing rush of heat climb straight up my neck and burn across my cheekbones. I stare down at the yellowed Latin text on the page, desperate to find anything else to look at.

Paragraph three. De sanguinis ligamine.

I read the same sentence four times: “The elder blood yields neither to blade nor will, answering only to the pulse of the root.”

Makes no fucking sense, regardless of whether Lachlan is looking delicious in the room.

A thud makes me jerk my head back up.

Lachlan has driven the tip of the broadsword into the ground again. He’s breathing hard, his broad chest heaving under the gray shirt, beads of sweat glistening across his temples and running down into his beard.

He grabs the hem of his compression shirt with both hands.

In one smooth motion, he peels the damp fabric up over his head and tosses it onto the stone steps behind him.

My Higher Brain Function officially files for bankruptcy.

He’s naked from the waist up. Wakey, wakey, that hot guy is half-nakie.

It is an obscene amount of sculpted Highland muscle. The long, jagged scar across his ribs stands out stark and pale against his golden-tan skin, framed by broad pectorals and a wash of dark hair that tapers down the center of his flat stomach into an unapologetic line disappearing beneath the waist of his trousers. The muscles across his lats and traps are corded like steel cables, glistening with a light sheen of sweat that catches the weak morning sun.

Beside me, Kirk gives a wooden chirp, his carved head tilting as he tracks a bead of sweat rolling down the center of Lachlan’s back.

"Kirk," I whisper out of the corner of my mouth, my knuckles white on the edge of the grimoire. "We are in serious trouble."

Kirk taps a hard wooden paw against my knee in silent agreement.

Lachlan rolls his neck, stretching his arms across his chest. He doesn't turn around, but the faint trace of a knowing smirk curls the side of his mouth under his beard.

"Still absorbing that discipline, lass?" his voice rumbles across the courtyard.

"Fascinating theory," I squeak. “Lots of, ah, theories.”

I clear my throat violently, trying to force my voice back down into its normal register. "Truly groundbreaking work. Don't let my rigorous scholarship interrupt your little training session."

Lachlan lets out a wicked bark of laughter. "Aye. Wouldn't want to distract the great scholar."