Page 89 of Here in Your Arms
Tiernan.
Rose stood and stepped out of the brush.
His blue eyes locked on hers, and for a long second, they only stared.
He swung down from the saddle before the horse had fully stopped, calling her name in a voice raw with fury and something deeper.
And then he stormed forward, gripping her by the shoulders. “Where the bloody hell were ye going?” he barked, his voice low and harsh, but shaking.
Before she could have answered, he pulled her into his arms and crushed his mouth to hers.
It wasn’t gentle, and neither was it sweet. It was desperate and rough and filled with all the things they hadn’t said. She kissed him back with equal force, her fingers fisting in his tunic, until her knees threatened to give out from the sheer rush of it all.
Rose broke it off, shoving him back with both hands. “Don’t,” she said, her voice trembling now. “Don’t do this—"
“Why did ye run?” He barked.
“I wasn’t running!” she snapped back, yanking herself free.
His face contorted with rage. “Ye’re nearly twenty miles from Dunmara!”
She heard the accusation in his gruff tone. “But I didn’t do this,” she defended. “Someone did it to me—”
“Bluidy hell, Rose,” he seethed. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that same as before, I didn’t move myself. Someone moved me. I was at Dunmara, talking to this... girl, but she was strange—she gave me the creeps, honestly. I thought she was a time-traveler,” Rose said, recalling her first impression of the girl. “But I don’t think she was. And then I touched her but there was... she wasn’t human, I don’t think. And then...I blacked out and woke up in a forest—same as last time.”
He stared at her, chest heaving, as if trying to decipher the truth written on her face.
Rose sagged, held upright by his hand still on her arm. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not lying—about this time or the last time.” She shook off his hand, her relief replaced by a growing anger, provoked by the suspicion in his gaze. “What are you doing here anyway? How did you find me?”
Tiernan shook his head. Harsh lines formed around his mouth and eyes, his displeasure manifesting physically.
When he didn’t answer, Rose pressed, needing to understand. “How did you find me? You just said I was twenty miles from Dunmara.” She glanced around, looking for any landmark, some notable sign or marker.
A grimace twisted his features. “I dinna ken, but that... I had some sense you were south.”
Rose gaped at him. “South? You had some sense I was south, and you just... happened to find me in the middle of nowhere?” There was something he wasn’t telling her, she was sure of it. “Yousensedit?”
“Aye,” he agreed with agitation. “I dinna ken but that... I felt as if something had been whispered to me, telling me where to find ye.”
Rose froze and stared at him.
“It dinna make sense—I ken that,” he growled, quite obviously hating whatever it had been that had led him to her, even as his kiss suggested the result was to his liking.
Rose harrumphed softly. “Good. Now you know, don’t you? What it feels like to have something inexplicable happen to you?” He deserved that, she decided petulantly. “Something that makes me accuse you of being a liar?”
Tiernan changed the subject, shifting the focus away from himself. “Ye dinna run away?”
“No,” Rose answered, frowning. “Why would I? Where would I go?” The part of her that still ached from his leaving forced her to add, “Running away is what you do, not me.”
“I dinna run, Rose,” he spat. “I returned to Druimlach, as I’d intended.”
“Oh, that’s right, you left after sleeping with me,” she said, and the words were knives now, her pain rising all over again. “And why did you?” She asked, tears watering her eyes. “Why did you sleep with me? Was it just something to take the edge off? Did you compare me to Margaret? Were you picturing her when you touched me?”
“Dinna say another word that ye’ll later regret,” he warned, his voice low, his jaw clenched.
“I regret it now,” she snapped. “I regret trusting you. Thinking it might’ve meant something.”
