Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] by Master of The Highland (html) Read Free Book Online

loosing a fresh tide of the strange tingles.
Tingles no longer cold and menacing, but fluid and warm.
Heated and beguiling.
And spilling unchecked into long-neglected areas of his body, the prickly sensation now a stunningly golden warmth. Dangerously seductive, and spiraling round his nether parts . . . much like a woman’s gently curling fingers.
Nay, more like the swirling tongue of a well-skilled temptress.
A very well-skilled temptress.
“Dia!” Iain near shot off his saddle, his maleness set afire, tightening in immediate and direst response to the exhilarating waves of tingling heat whirling across and through his groin.
He did slip, lurching crazily to the left and almost losing his seat.
“Before you!” Gavin MacFie cried, his shout slicing through the madness.
The spell shattered, Iain grabbed his saddlebow, righting himself just in time to hurtle round a looming mound of broken creels and barnacle-encrusted drying nets.
Barreling up beside him, Gavin seized his reins, jerking Iain’s steed to a skittering halt. “Have you run mad?”
he panted, his eyes wide, his face pale beneath his freckles. “You near plowed straight into that stinking pile.”
Iain only stared at him, his hands clutching the saddlebow so tightly his knuckles gleamed white. He couldn’t have answered if his life depended on it . . . his throat had completely closed and his mouth felt drier than cold ash, his tongue withered and more useless than the tarse he’d believed good for naught but relieving himself.
Aye, I’ve run mad he wanted to shout, his inability to do so vexing beyond belief.
He’d run full mad and then some, for the golden warmth that had sluiced through him with such a vengeance had done more than stir his long cold vitals . . . it had begun to melt the outermost edges of his heart.
Yanking back his horse’s reins, he stared up at the heavens, utter turmoil whirling through him, the last aftertremors of the strange, crackling heat still rippling the length of him, curling through his limbs.
He blew out an agitated breath, indulged himself by tossing a glower at Gavin.
How could he ‘lose his hotheadedness’ when he might well have lost his mind?
His quandary heavy on his shoulders, he kicked the sides of his still-heaving mount and, leaving MacFie to follow or nay, spurred down the remaining stretch of beach, the familiar cold already stretching its icy fingers back round his sorry excuse for a heart.

And several nights later, as his brother’s well-manned birlinn sped him across the silver-glinting waters of the Hebridean Sea, a wholly different kind of cold plagued Madeline Drummond.
Many miles distant, she tossed and moaned in a fitful sleep. The best she could hope for in the dubious shelter of an abandoned cothouse. Fist-sized chinks in the walls bid entry to the knifing wind, while the cold damp of the earthen floor seeped with ease through her borrowed cloak.
Beneath two nubby-wooled plaids, Nella’s generous warmth pressed protectively against her, but even that well-meant comfort failed to banish the chill.
Nor ease the darkness of the anguished heart hammering so fiercely in her breast . . . a heart not her own, but clinging to hers in need. As it had done each night since she and Nella had left Abercairn.
’Twas a strong-pounding heart, a man’s, and a good one.
Just badly damaged and in direst need of repair.
The succor of light and warmth.
Another blast of icy wind whistled through the gaps in the wall, sending more shivers down Madeline’s spine, a fresh bout of gooseflesh across her chilled skin. But neither the cold nor her troubled dreams kept her heart from reaching for the pained one seeking such desperate union with hers.
So as she slumbered, even long after the blustery night had calmed, some needy part of her own deepest self sent the shadowy man of her dreams all the golden heat and brightness she could summon.
And hoped upon hope that if good fortune hadn’t abandoned her completely, one of these nights