Page 23 of Bound to a Highland Beast
“The night?” Isabeau asked, hooked on the story.
“The night turned… even darker,” Tiernan said rather lamely. Isabeau let out a disappointed hum, but she was not deterred.
“An’ then what happened?”
“Then… then this great beast rose from the waves,” Tiernan said, deciding it was time to embellish his story a little. “Twice the length o’ our boat an’ three times as wide.”
Isabeau laughed softly, clearly not believing him but playing along nevertheless. “A whale?”
“Nay,” said Tiernan. “Nae whale has such teeth. Ten rows o’ them an’ sharp like spikes.”
“A shark!”
“Nay. It had a hundred eyes. Terrible, vicious eyes an’ skin like a snake.”
Tiernan had no idea where all this was coming from. Some deep part of his imagination had been activated and he felt like a boy again, playing make-believe in his grandmother’s garden with the other children—pirates, brigands, great explorers of the world.
“There is nay such creature,” said Isabeau with a teasing smirk.
“There is,” said Tiernan. “I saw it with me own eyes.”
“There isnae.”
“There is.”
In their mock argument, they kept coming closer and closer to each other, until their noses were almost touching. Tiernan could feel Isabeau’s soft breath on his skin, the almost imperceptible movements of her body under his arms, the gentle rise and fall of her chest.
When their gazes met in the dark of the room, his breath was cut short. Time stretched once again, running slow as molasses, with every moment slowly bleeding into the next. Isabeau’s gaze fell to his lips, and Tiernan found himself doing the same, glancing at that plump mouth that he would have loved to kiss. He could.
If only he closed the distance between them, he could kiss her.
His heart beat so loudly he was certain Isabeau could hear it in the quiet of the room. He felt as though he was about to say something entirely stupid, something that he should never utter to a woman like her, whom he couldn’t have.
“We should rest,” he said instead, muttering the words as he turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He didn’t know what he expected Isabeau to do; if he expected her to pull away or saysomething or even accuse him of leading her on, but she only sighed and settled against him, leaning her head on his shoulder.
Slowly, her breath evened out as she fell back asleep. Tiernan, though, had no such luck. All he could do was stare at the ceiling, lying there in silence as doubt and fear crept into every crevice of his mind, chilling him to the bone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Isabeau woke with the leisure, stretched her legs, luxuriating in the warmth of her chambers, the softness of the bed covers, the mattress that was like a cloud under her body.
And then she realized that neither the covers were soft nor was the mattress like a cloud. And most importantly, she was not alone.
Opening her eyes, she came face to face with Tiernan only to find that he was already awake and staring at her. The sudden sight of his face startled her and she jumped a little, not expecting to see him so close. But she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the firmness of his shoulder under her head.
Somehow, in the middle of the night, their limbs had tangled together, their bodies so close that Isabeau didn’t know where hers ended and Tiernan’s began. She was surrounded by his warmth and the security she felt in his arms was like nothing she had experienced before.
It didn’t last long. When she started, Tiernan did as well, pulling back from her so abruptly that he almost fell right off the bed, legs dangling over the edge.
Under any other circumstances, Isabeau would have laughed, but now her heart fluttered like the wings of a frantic bird, her stomach twisting itself into knots.
How did I allow this tae happen? We shouldnae have shared a bed!
Isabeau could still feel the lingering heat of Tiernan’s body, the ghost of his touch. She craved it, longed to feel it again—longed to kiss him, even, to feel the tender touch of his lips on hers. But such acts didn’t become a lady of her station. She was the laird’s sister and so she had to remain entirely pure, the perfect, unspoiled bargaining chip for a beneficial marriage.
She knew that her brothers, though protective, never truly considered her a bargaining chip. It was the council, with the elders and their rigid ideas of right and wrong, who would rather see her hang than wedded to a man like Tiernan. She couldn’t disobey them. Even Ewan, as the laird of the clan, had to listen to them. What power did she have against such influential men?
She was glad that Tiernan had pulled away so fast. There was no denying the desire that coiled deep in her core the closer she got to him. There was no denying that she wanted him, and she was quite certain he wanted her, too. She knew what it meant to be desired; many men had approached her ever since she had made her debut at sixteen years of age, noble hopefulslooking for a suitable wife, wealthy merchants and their sons, and even peasant men with little sense. In Tiernan, she saw the same desire, the same heat, though none of the ambition or entitlement. For all he seemed to want her, Isabeau doubted he would ever try his luck with her.
