Page 28 of The Highlander's Pirate Bride

One of the candles guttered and went out, leaving them in a dim light. He could scarcely make out her face but he met her gaze,the candlelight reflecting in her eyes. He saw trust there and a softness she’d hidden from him until now.

“I was yet young when Sutherland took me.”

“Aileen,” he interrupted. “I dinnae wish ye tae tell me anything if it causes ye pain.”

She shook her head and went on. “He trained me in obedience. I was a willful girl, used to getting me own way, nae ready tae dae his bidding.” She gestured to her exposed arm. “Each one of these was a punishment. Only when I accepted him as my master did the punishment cease.”

She raised her head with a defiant jutting of her chin, as if bracing herself for his criticism.

Instead of disdain, he met her gaze with gentleness in his blue eyes, sensing her hurt. He had no words that could express what he felt. There was rage. That was certain. But it was not rage directed at Aileen. For her he had only compassion, the urge to take her in his arms and protect her from the cruelties of the world. Yet, that was not possible. For the first time since he’d come aboard her ship, he wished fervently he was at home in the castle at Barra, surrounded by his loved ones. It was there he wanted to take her so that she’d be enveloped in the strength of his family and their warmth and protection.

He took her other arm and slowly peeled away the kidskin. What was revealed was another devastated limb. Only on this one,along with the same scarring as her left arm, there was puckered skin that had once blistered and was still an angry red.

The bastard had burned her.

He bent and pressed his lips to her skin, layering a series of featherlight kisses along the ridges and furrows. He turned her hand palm upwards and did the same with the same lightness of touch along her inner arm. When he’d reached her wrist, he took her wounded arm and treated it as he’d done with the other, with the softest of kisses. Even if he didn’t look at her face he could feel her crying.

He picked up the gloves, one of which had been cut by the knife blade that had wounded her. Maxwell put out a hand. “Give those to me, lass. I never wish to see your arms covered by these torturous things again.

She passed them to him. Without gloves, her arms felt lighter and free.

“But me scars have made me hideous.”

“Nay, lass.” He tossed the offending gloves across the room. “The scars will fade in time. Ye’re a true beauty and those scars willnae change that. Ye mustnae fash so.”

She stepped across the room and picked up the gloves. But instead of putting them back onto her arms again, as he fearedshe might, she walked to the fire and flung them into the heart of the flames.

“There!” She returned to him smiling. A wan smile to be sure, but a smile where before there had been tears.

With her good hand she reached up and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. He joined her on the bed and enfolded her in his arms.

“If ye’ve any kisses left now, may I please have one on me lips?”

CHAPTER TEN

He dipped his head with grace and certainty and took her lips in a tender kiss. Aileen lost herself, sinking into the warmth of his body in an embrace that was at once wistful and dreamy, yet compelling and profound. Her senses reeled at the touch of his hands on her skin, the sound of his soft breath, his taste of honey and whisky and his rugged scent of peat and the earth.

It was as if a spell was being woven around them.

All the bristling antagonism, the sparring and testing they’d been dealing with since that first meeting floated away, lost somewhere at sea or in the clouds. It was a longed-for moment of heartfelt surrender to whatever possibilities existed between them.

They opened slowly to each other, their tongues joining in a delicate exploration of exquisite, slow-burning intimacy.

This was not a kiss of passion – although rivers of heat surged and rushed beneath it – but a melding of souls, a generous coming together that warmed Aileen’s heart. Feeling Maxwell’s lips on hers and his arms around her, all the hurt and shame that had whispered to her for so long and kept her bound in servitude to Andrew Sutherland, faded from her consciousness. What replaced them was a sense of being cherished, of being held dear, of being placed in high esteem.

When at last the kiss came to an end, she felt precious, almost shy as she looked up him, marveling in his beauty and what she glimpsed in his blue eyes. They were no longer ice-cold, but dark as a midnight sky.

She traced his perfect lips with her finger.

“I’ve never been kissed like that before.” Her voice came out low and husky in wonderment

He gave a soft chuckle. “Those are me words ye speak. That was a kiss like nay other.”

She joined him with a breathy chuckle of her own and nestled deeper into his arms. “I cannae believe that. How many lasses have ye bedded?”

“Nay idea.” He threw up a hand. “Too many tae count. The lasses were falling out of the trees as I walked in the woods and washing up on the waves as I sauntered on the beach.”

“Well, then,” she teased, “ye must have had many kisses as fine as ours.”

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