Page 14 of The Beast of the Highlands
On just such a day, after completing the evening’s duties, he hurtled through the network of hallways to reach the library. As he ran, he went through his evening list, to make sure everything was done and he had not neglected his priorities: the guard were in position, watching for skirmishers; the castle dwellers were fed; the protective beacons were lit; the portcullis had closed for the night, and all was quiet.
Will she be there?
He asked himself the same thing every evening, and she never failed him.
Bursting through the library door, his heart soared as he saw her sitting in her usual chair. Her gaze lifted from Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur,” and a beaming smile turned her beautiful face angelic.
“I thought I would be alone tonight,” she said softly, raising up the book. “I am looking for a passage to torment Leighton with. He is deeply stubborn when it comes to other languages.”
Flynn smiled back. “A trait from our da.”
“Ah…” She chuckled, and the sound was the sweetest music to his ears. “That would explain his assertion that, “If it isnae the language of me forefathers, I daenae want to hear it.” I presume he means Scottish Gaelic, so I plan to learn it and teach him… in exchange for him learning French, Latin, and Greek.”
Flynn crossed to where she was. For a moment, he felt the urge to crouch down in front of her, as he had done in her bedchamber on that first dawn. He wanted to place his hands upon her thighs and push up her skirts, to bury his face, his mouth, his tongue, beneath those cumbersome layers of fabric.
Instead, he stood there, transfixed by her beauty in the candlelight. Her smooth skin seemed almost translucent, and her bosom heaved as their eyes met, quickened by… He did not like to suppose, in case he was mistaken.
“Might you show me where I can find such a book?” Autumn set down her Malory and rose from the chair.
The breath rushed out of Flynn’s lungs as they stood together, so close and yet… within an untouchable distance. No matter how close she came to him, he could not give in to his endlessly troublesome desire for her.
He clenched his jaw. “Of course.”
Pulling himself away from her intoxicating proximity, he took a lantern and moved through the caverns of his library. At the far right of one of the smaller caverns, he stopped and placed the lantern on a shelf. To his surprise, Autumn brushed past him and scoured the leather-bound spines.
“Ah… here it is.” Her eyes fixed on a book overhead. Standing on tiptoe, she strained to reach it, but it was just out of her reach.
Instinctively, Flynn stepped forward to take it down for her, inadvertently pressing her up against the bookshelf as he reached up. The graze of her spine, her buttocks, her shoulders, the back of her head, against his body set off a chain of fizzing bursts of elation throughout him.
If ye would only turn around…
As though hearing his thoughts, she twisted in front of him. In the dense silence of the library, he heard only the rasping pants of her breath, and saw nothing but the passionate glitter of her blue eyes, turned black by the dark around their pool of personal light.
“Do you have it?” she gasped, pressing her back flat to the bookshelf.
Flynn took a step closer, until he was flush against her. “Almost.”
Beneath the thick wool of his belted tartan, and the tunic beneath, his loins had stirred. There was nothing he could do to stop his hardened length from pressing against her, as long as she was standing there, so close he could not breathe from the longing inside his chest.
Ye cannae have her, nay matter how much ye want her…
Her hands came to rest upon his waist, her body pushing even closer. “Can you reach it now?”
“Aye… I can.” But he did not want to, for the moment he claimed the book, she would pull away. He was sure of it.
But if that were the case, she’d have just stepped away. She wouldnae be clutchin’ onto me like this.
Grasping the book of Scottish Gaelic, he brought it down. To his delight, and anguish, she did not move away from him. Her fingertips remained on his waist, and she would not drop her gaze, making his predicament all the harder.
And then, her hands tugged on his shirt, ever so slightly… and every fragment of sense, and propriety, and duty vanished in a flash of desire. It was almost a signal that she wished him to be closer. A permission that he had craved for the last three or so weeks.
“Och, lass.” He set the book on a lower shelf and wrapped his arms around Autumn. At the same moment, her arms encircled him, her fingernails gripping onto his shoulders as though she feared he might let her go.
His head dipped toward hers, his lips pausing just shy of hers. If he kissed her, he knew there would be no going back. It was the tiny rock holding the dam together, and if he took that away, havoc would reign.
Ye had so many chances to tell her… Ye have to tell her.
“Do not use your lips to read to me,” she whispered, her voice raspy with passion.
