Page 4 of Dark Side of the Laird
He stalked toward me, the way he always did. Sensual, powerful and determined. My body immediately came alive, recalling how many delicious things often happened in the wake of his pursuing me. Hot, torrid, dangerous.
His thighs brushed my forearm as he stopped right beside my chair and I craned my neck to look up at him, taking in his raw, dangerous beauty. Logan leaned down, his eyelids lowering and I swallowed as his lips neared mine.
Every kiss made me shiver. Every kiss excited me. Every kiss made me want to strip bare. This one was no different. I sank back in my chair, unable to hold myself steady, and he followed me, lips on fire. Logan tantalized me with his tongue, skating it over my lips, sinking it into my mouth only to withdraw when I touched mine to his. He teased me, taunted me, until I was breathless and then he pulled away, a satisfied smile on his lips.
He knew what his kisses did to me, how they made me feel and he liked it. Cherished it. Aspired to it. I was a hot and bothered mess. Goosebumps up and down my arms. Nipples hard as stones, slick sex, clenching thighs, breath heaving.
“Ye’ve not eaten or slept in days,” he murmured.
I nodded, watching the way his body unfolded in the chair opposite mine, legs stretched out, his bare knees poking from beneath his pleated plaid.
“Tell me,” he urged, steepling his fingers beneath his chin and studying me.
“What?” I shrugged. “There is nothing to tell.”
“Tell me what is on your mind.”
I chewed on my lip. He’d promised me that he’d speak to the king. Promised me that we’d be together. And yet… “Lady Isabella is still here.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed and lips turned down in a frown. “Aye.”
He didn’t elaborate. Justaye. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Frustration mounted inside me and old insecure monsters reared their heads. I shoved them down, beat them down. Logan had never made me feel small, insignificant. He’d never told me I was worthless. Never made me feel like less of a person than Steven did. If anything, he’d worshipped me.
I waited, holding my breath. When a number of moments ticked by and my lungs started to burn I let it out, sat forward, my eyes locked on his.
“Aye?”
He nodded. “Not of my choosing.”
“Did you…speak to the king at all about us?”
Again he nodded, but slowly. “Aye.”
My breath hitched. “Logan—”
Sensing my frustration he cut me off. “My desires were not met well by my liege.”
I nodded having deciphered that much on my own.
“I kept your name hidden from him, though I’m guessing he surmised that ’twas ye.” Logan pushed out of the chair and walked to the window, pulling back my shutters and looking out. He crossed his arms over his chest, tense all over.
I approached him, slipping my arms around his waist from behind, leaning my cheek against his back.
“He can’t win,” I said.
“I fear he already has.”
2
Logan
’Twas hard to keep my anger in check when every inch of me felt the intense urge to leap upon my horse and chase the king down. At every turn, James had been there making decisions without regard for me. Over the last dozen years, he’d bribed me with gifts—bawdy women, barrels of fine wine, jewels, silver. And I’d been happy to tilt my head in thanks and receive my gifts with pleasure. But lately, his enticements had not…enticed me. Not with Emma showing me what I’d been missing.
Since she’d walked into my life, I’d never been the same. And I’d realized something—that those gifts had been a means of shutting me up. Of making me bend to his will. Of doing his dirty work. I’d been ruled round for over a dozen years by that spoiled piece of shite.
I gritted my teeth, keeping my anger on a tight leash so as not to scare Emma. The lass had been through enough—more than enough. Hell, she wasn’t even from this time. Five hundred years separated her from now and where she came from. I couldn’t say belonged, because I felt she belonged here with me. Her time-travel didn’t bother me at all. Magic happened frequently when the stars aligned and it wasn’t something I’d been foreign to. There were others who proclaimed to have come from another place. Though her travel was a fact I’d only just learned recently, ’haps in my heart I had known all along.
I’d been drawn to her like a ship to a beacon light upon the land, she led me home, centered me.
