Page 16 of The Highlander's Virgin Widow
The candlelight.
He couldseeher. He could see her nightgown. He could see her body.
A loud gasp escaped her lips as she reached for the covers on the bed. She yanked a part of them off the mattress—and consequently off him, even though it was too late for her to realize it—to cover herself.
Regret for her action hit her almost immediately.
With one hand holding the candle and the other holding the covers to her body, she felt the flush spread down her entire body. She had been so worried about him seeing her that it had never occurred to her that she could seehim as well.
His bare chest looked hard, as if it were sculpted by God himself. In the flickering candlelight, his shoulders looked massive and carried the kind of strength that could probably—no,most definitely—snap a man’s neck and cut him in half.
A thin layer of hair covered his chest and trailed down to the well-defined ridges of his stomach, which moved with every breath he took.
Keira swallowed, allowing herself, even if for a moment, to drink in the deep ridges of his stomach, the way the remainder of the covers hung dangerously low on his hips, revealing the veins that ran down his?—
“Are ye even listening to me?”
His voice snapped her back to the present, to the reality she was currently facing.
She swallowed again. She had heard nothing he said, but she couldn’t let him know that. So she resorted to changing the subject and, for once, taking her eyes off his chiseled body.
“Could ye please leave and find somewhere else to sleep for the night? Ye cannae expect the lady of the castle to find another place now just because ye decided to usurp?—”
“How many times am I going to tell ye that it was an agreement? I never invaded yer castle. It was surrendered to me.”
“It wasnae like ye gave me people much of a choice now, did ye? And what are ye doing in me room in the first place?”
Evander sat up on the bed, and then and only then was Keira able to glimpse what he was wearing underneath. A pair of dark trousers that hung loosely on his hips.
“What, ye thought after taking me castle, ye can take me body too?”
An angry frown creased his face. “Do ye take me for some kind of animal, Lady Blythe?”
He swung his legs over the mattress and rose to his feet. Keira, who was feeling more hemmed in with each passing second, turned around almost immediately. She didn’t want to see him, not when he was looming in the corner, staring at her.
“Ye havenae exactly shown me how different ye are from an animal.”
She heard footsteps—hisfootsteps—draw closer and squeezed her eyes shut. Before she could brace herself, she felt the firm hands she had unfortunately grown familiar with in the past few days grab her wrists and spin her around.
“If ye’re going to call me an animal,” Evander started, his eyes reflecting the glow of the nearby candle, “the least ye can do is at least look me in the eye while ye do it.”
Now that he was close, now that she could practically feel the heat radiating from his body, Keira didn’t know what to do with herself.
“Ye are way out of line, Mr. Kincaid. These are mequarters!” she protested. He instinctively flinched at the title.
“They’re the Laird’s quarters. And nay matter how hard ye try nae to acknowledge that, only one of us holds that title,” Evander retorted calmly.
Keira couldn’t believe he could still hold his cool.
She swallowed, completely at a loss for words. It did not exactly help that she was trying her best to keep looking him right in the eyes when his chest was right in her face. It was a strong battle of wills, resisting the urge to give in to temptation and look down at him—or even reach out and touch him.
She could feel his fingers tighten slightly around her wrists, his chest rising and falling, a thick silence settling between them. They were only a few inches apart, and it was hard for her to remember who leaned in first.
Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door, jolting her out of her daze. She wondered if she had imagined it. But then the knock came again.
“Keira?” a familiar voice rang through the door.
“Me friend,” she muttered, as if she owed him an explanation.
