Page 70 of A Highland Healer Captured
The wind sighed through the elm leaves above them. The festival grounds hummed with voices farther off, but here it was only the two of them, the half-built perch, and the space between their bodies that felt thinner than a breath.
Zander clenched his fists at his sides. “We should go,” he said.
“Aye,” she whispered, but she didn’t step back.
Saints, she was too close.
He could smell the vinegar sharpness of herbs on her skin, the faint sweetness of honey from the surgery clinging to her shawl. It was all tangled with her own scent, something warm and female and maddening. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, his throat dry. He told himself to move, to lead her away, to think of his son.
Instead, he looked at her mouth.
And when he did, he knew he wouldn’t last much longer.
Zander couldn’t move.
She stood within arm’s reach, shawl slipping low against her elbow, lips parted just enough that the torchlight brushed the damp curve of them. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t mocking him as she so often did. She was just… there. Watching him with eyes that gave nothing and everything away all at once.
He felt his neck go taut, the cords drawn like bowstring. His tongue thick in his mouth, useless for words. A vein of heat coursed low and fierce through him, and he cursed himself for letting it. She was meant to be a healer, a captive, a means to save his son. Not this. Not temptation.
And yet?—
When her hand lifted, almost absently, to tuck back a loose strand of hair, his body moved before his head could reason. He caught her wrist, gently, almost reverently, his callused thumb brushing the pulse that leapt there.
“Skylar,” he rasped.
Her breath hitched, and that was all it took. He dragged her against him, the shawl crumpling between them, and crushed his mouth to hers.
The kiss was nothing of restraint. Desperation poured out of him—the weeks of holding his temper, of denying the thoughts that had stalked him at night, of pretending her fire didn’t spark his own. He kissed her like he needed the taste to breathe, and when she kissed him back, fierce and unyielding, he lost the last of his hold.
Her hands fisted in his shirt, dragging him closer, as if she hated him and wanted him all at once. His palm slid to her nape, fingers threading into her braid, tugging her head back just enough to claim her mouth deeper.
The sound she made was something like half growl, and half surrender, and it burned through him until he thought he might come undone just standing there.
He pressed her into the elm, the rough bark biting around her shoulders while his body caged hers. His thigh shoved between her skirts, holding her still, keeping her his. She arched wildly, and the friction of it nearly undid him.
“Christ above,” he groaned against her lips, voice raw, “ye’ll be the death of me.”
Her answer was another kiss, hot and hungry, her teeth catching his bottom lip before she released him with a ragged gasp. Her eyes blazed, defiance and want wrestling in them.
He slid his hand down her side, over the curve of her waist, memorizing the shape through wool and linen. All the while, his mind shouted that he shouldn’t. That Grayson, the clan, her family, all of it, would crumble if he took her now.
But his body didn’t care.
His body only knew she was fire, and he wanted to burn.
Her hips shifted against him, a motion so slight he might have imagined it. It drove him mad. He pressed his forehead to hers, panting, trying to ground himself, but her breath mingled with his and made grounding impossible.
“Skylar…” He whispered it like a prayer, like a curse. “Tell me to stop.”
For one terrifying, perfect heartbeat, she didn’t. She only stared at him, lips swollen from his kiss, her chest rising hard against his. His gut twisted. He would take her right there, against the elm, if she didn’t?—
“Stop,” she said, the word cracking like kindling. She shoved weakly at his chest, though her palms lingered longer than they should.
Zander braced his hands against the bark on either side of her head and stepped back, dragging in a breath like a drowning man. His heart thundered, his blood still singing with heat, but he forced his body to obey.
She wrapped the shawl tight around her shoulders, trying to hide the tremor in her hands. “We cannae,” she said, voice raw.
He stared at her, fury at himself rising sharp. “Aye. We cannae.” His tone was harsher than he meant, a shield against how much he wanted her still.
