Page 56 of Sinful Scottish Laird
“Are you jealous, Cailean?” she called after him. “Has jealousy caused you to end your friendship with me?”
He stopped. He stood with his back to her, his shoulders flexing, reminding her of a hawk readying to take flight. But he slowly turned back to her, and with his eyes locked on hers. He deliberately walked back up the path to where she stood. “Are you so certain of him?” he demanded, his voice dangerously soft. “For if you are, you might put his true intentions to a wee test.”
What was left of her patience evaporated. “Oh, how you amuse me, Laird Arrandale,” she said hotly. “How perfectly ridiculous you are! There is no need totesthim.”
“No? Then tell me, how and when did he learn of your husband’s death? How is it that all of England knew of it, and no’ him?”
Daisy flinched. That question had already been raised in her mind when he’d given her the necklace.
“Then you might inquire as to what he means to occupy him now that he’s resigned his commission, aye? Surely acaptainof the Royal Navy would no’ resign a commission without some thought as to what he meant to do.”
She hadn’t asked him. She’d just assumed they would marry. “Everything happened so fast. I’m sure he’s not had to time to think of it.”
Cailean smirked. “Watch how he will flatter you, Daisy. So much that others around you might expire of the treacle he spills all around.”
Daisy clucked her tongue.
“Aye, he will flatter you,” Cailean said, slipping into the tiny sliver of space her doubt had left in her heart. “But he willna give a damn about your hopes or fears. It’s all part of his scheme—”
Daisy suddenly shoved him in the chest, pushing him back a step. “Why are you trying to ruin this for me?”
Cailean remained silent, and it infuriated Daisy. Her frustration with him, with her situation, with the simple fact that she had no control over her destiny was mounting, exploding. She shoved him as hard as she could again.
He didn’t move.
“What do you want me to do?Refusehim? Marry the stranger Craig presents? Why are youdoingthis?” she shouted, dangerously close to tears.
His face softened. “Och, leannan,I gave you my word I’d be honest, aye? I donna trust him.”
“And I don’t trust you,” she said, her voice shaking. Her whole body was shaking, she realized. With grief, with fear, with such raging disappointment that she feared she might collapse into it. “How shall I know if a man truly esteems me?” she asked, throwing her arms wide.
Cailean looked at her as if she were daft. “You know.”
“I don’t!Allmen are very flattering. Should they be any other way? Should they disdain me?Allmen are helpful and solicitous. Should I look for a man who cares nothing for me? Isthathow I am to judge?”
“Diah, leannan,”he said and caught her face between his hands. “You will know it in the way a man looks at you. In the way that he touches you. You will know it in the way he wants to know even the smallest thing about you.”
Daisy’s heart slammed hard in her chest. “That’s odd,” she said softly. “For the one man who has looked at me in any meaningful way, or has touched me, or has wanted to know anything about me at all is only myfriend,” she said. “And he doesn’t esteem me.”
Something changed in Cailean’s expression. His gaze turned dark. “I am no’ your friend,” he said. And he kissed her. Hard. He kissed her with such ferocity that Daisy began to dissolve into an appallingly and equally ferocious wave of desire. Nothing had changed—she still craved him, still wanted to feel his body in hers. His lips were succulent, his body hard and supple at once. She was lost in that kiss, lost in her desire and the way her heart seemed to beat so strongly whenever he was near.
Cailean twisted her about, put her back to the tree and muttered something in his native tongue before dipping to kiss her neck, her chest. This was madness, utter madness, and she was careening down a dangerous path with abandon, with no regard for her future. Robert could find her at any moment. She would risk everything, and yet she couldn’t tear herself away from him. She wanted Cailean so violently that it confused her. ShewantedRobert. These feelings for Cailean were to have dissipated the moment she saw Robert on the terrace.
And yet...and yet.
Was it so wrong?Was it so wrong to want him as she did? To wish this man would fill her up? Was it wrong to feel such passion for him when she would make a match with another?
He crushed her to him, holding her tightly in his arms as he kissed her, nipping at her bottom lip, his hand kneading her breast. Daisy returned the kiss with the physical hunger that had been gnawing at her since the moment she had met him, and the pressure kept building, kept pushing, kept seeping into every fiber.
Cailean slipped his hand into the bodice of her gown, his fingers cool on the hot skin of her breast, her nipple rigid between his fingers. She gasped with pleasure and clutched at her gown, trying to pull it up, around her waist.
But just as suddenly as he’d kissed her, Cailean stopped. “No,” he said, his breath short. “I canna give you that.”
No.She tried to kiss him, but he leaned back.
“Daisy, no,” he said. “What you want—whatIwant—I canna give you, aye?”
“Cailean—”
