Highland Vow by Hannah Howell Read Free Book Online Page B

closer to his. “After all, I fell asleep with ye at my side. ’Tis no great surprise that I would expect to see ye there when I woke.”
    “Someone could have cut my throat in the night and taken my place.”
    “I believe I might have noticed that.”
    He grinned briefly, then kissed her. That led to another, deeper kiss. Cormac told himself that the kisses meant nothing—they were merely idle pleasures, easily stolen and just as easily forgotten. It was clear that Elspeth felt the same.
    It did not explain how she made him feel, however. His blood was pounding in his veins. He wanted to crawl inside her and stay there. Never had one kiss stirred his desire so swiftly or so fiercely. Here was danger, he thought, but he could not find the will to pull free. He needed her and he could not make himself believe it was because of a lengthy celibacy.
    Elspeth clung to him, tasting his growing desire and letting herself be swept away by it. She tilted her head back at the first touch of his lips on her throat. A small part of her was afraid of the strength of the passions flowing between them, of the ferocity of them, but she ruthlessly quelled the fear. This was what she wanted, what she needed, what her heart had longed for before she was even old enough to understand.
    When she felt his warm, lightly callused palm cover her breast, she realized he had managed to half undress her and she had not even noticed. No man had ever touched her there and she felt it was both strange and beautiful. He rubbed his thumb over her nipple and the feeling that ripped through her was so sudden and so powerful she flinched, pulling away slightly. One look at his face told her that she had managed to break the spell they were under and she inwardly cursed.
    Cormac yanked himself away from her and staggered to his feet. His groin pulsed with eagerness to continue and his hands shook slightly. He stared at tiny Elspeth in a mixture of wonder and dismay as she calmly fixed her bodice.
    “Jesu,” he groaned. “What did ye do to me?”
    “Me?” Elspeth got up and started to roll up her blankets. “I believe I was sound asleep when all this began.”
    She was not going to let him get away with blaming her for the madness that hadseized them, nor with making any other excuses. He wanted her. Denying it as he might, excusing it as he so obviously wanted to, or trying to ignore it would not work. She would not let it.
    “Weel, nay completely asleep.” He ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to clear his head. “Ye are a weelborn lass, a maid, and a woman I owe a great debt to. ’Twas verra wrong of me to try to take advantage of our situation.”
    “Ye fret too much. Did ye hear me screaming a protest?”
    “Ye should have.”
    Elspeth shrugged and moved to start a fire. “Mayhap. And I may be a maid, and weelborn, but I am no child. I am nearly twenty, far past marrying age. I believe I am old enough to worry about my own chastity.”
    “Ye didnae seem to be worrying verra hard.”
    “How verra tactless of ye to point that out.”
    “I dinnae understand ye.” He frowned and rubbed his hand over his chin. “And what do ye mean ye may be a maid?”
    So like a man to hear that and little else, she thought crossly. “’Twas just an ill choice of words. Why are ye so upset?”
    Cormac did not really know, but he quickly found a suitable answer for her. “Because I am nay free to dally.”
    “Dally, is it?” Elspeth murmured, briefly contemplating the pleasure of hurling the small iron pot she held at his head. “And just how are ye not free? Ye said ye werenae betrothed and werenae married. Thus ye are free.”
    “True, I may be neither wed nor betrothed, but I have exchanged vows with a woman. We did so when I was but a lad and she a year younger. Those bonds still hold true.”
    “How touching and honorable.”
    Elspeth decided it was time to get away from him before she lost her temper. She handed him the little pot,