Page 13 of Kilty Plea
Finally, he exhaled. “The Abbey really is a shite place, is it no’?”
She didn’t want to speak about the Abbey. “I’m with ye now. Ye’re taking me away from there.” Did she sound too eager? Love a duck. “I can be useful, Sir Hunter.”
“Call me Payton,” he growled.
Payton.
She shifted in place and was surprised when his free hand clamped down atop her knee, holding her in place.
“Stop that.”
Stop moving?
Oh.
She was suddenly,acutely, painfully and wonderfully aware that his thighs weren’t theonlything hard beneath her buttocks. Something long and hard pressed against the cleft of her arse, and her eyes widened when she realized what ‘twas.
Payton MacIntyre, the honorable King’s Hunter who’d said he wanted no wife…was aroused.
Byher.
Well,suck a duck.
Completely unbidden, Flora’s hand rose to her braid and she tugged at the tip. Even when she’d lived under her father’s roof and been allowed to eat her fill and heat her own water for her bath, she’d never been considered beautiful.
Her eyes were too wide-set, her teeth too crooked, her build too skinny—too much like a lad’s, Da had always said—to attract a man.
Of course, her months at the Abbey had taught her that men mightclaimthey wanted a beautiful woman, but they could be satisfied with a lass who would stay quiet as they pawed and groped her, no matter how she looked.
But Payton…
She’d thought him different.
Clearly, he wasn’t.
She hadn’t bathed in months, she was half-starved, and she was fairly certain something small and multi-legged had taken up residence in her chemise. But he was still aroused, just by holding her?
He’s a King’s Hunter. He’s no’ that desperate for female companionship.
Except…evidence said he was.
Ye can use this.
“I can be useful,” she murmured again, before she’d even thought the words through.
Aye.
If the Hunter wanted her, and he could get her to her brother…
Well, she wouldn’t be the first woman to trade her body to achieve her goal, would she? And thanks to the Abbot, their mating would be at least sanctioned.
And ye cannae lie to yerself. Ye wouldnae mindhimbeing the one to paw over yer body.
This was true.
“Come here,” he muttered under his breath, which confused her, until his arm closed around her middle and he pulled her off-balance, causing her to yelp and grab for him.
“Cheese and rice!”
