Page 1 of The Lass Defied the Laird (Explosive Highlanders 1)

FROM THE BACK COVER

Aileen McKendrick is on the way to her aunt when The McDougal abducts her. Both clans had been rivals for more than a century. No matter because seeing its chief Taran makes her so dazed she forgets everything. But he abducts her to seal an alliance between both clans with marriage. Not to him. To his eighteen-year-old son. No way will she allow her destiny to be decided by the implacable giant. Defying him makes millions of sparks fly over the loch as her will to resist their attraction dwindles by the minute.

Taran McDougal has had a bad marriage with his long-deceased wife and no intention of repeating the mistake. His plans for an alliance sound solid up to the minute he sets eyes on the uncompliant, dazzling lass. The untamable shrew fakes a scandal to thwart his designs and now they must marry. She makes his blood boil with vexation and desire. As the later starts winning the race, he is on the verge of losing control and giving in to their explosive passion.

Level of sensuality: hot, sizzling.

EXCERPT

“Stop it, Aileen.” He muttered the command with a trace of urgency, lacing her waist with one muscled arm. “Stop it before I go crazy imagining it!” Their bodies clashed.

Then she had to as his mouth came down to plunder hers in an assault of her senses. A blunt tongue pillaged her, entering full, merciless. The avalanche of sensations left her no choice but to hold on to him. Her arms seized his thick neck as she arched into him and lifted her head to meet is height.

His other hand tore out her pins making her glossy chestnut hair fall around her shoulders. His fist rolled her hair around it, dominating her while his tongue plunged deeper.

A moan originated in her throat, a veritable conflagration taking over every single corner of her skin. Her fingers sank in his sable hair, pulling him flush to her, their frames touching everywhere. His impressive erection imprinted on her belly and the fire melted her centre, transforming it in scorching liquid.

He turned his head to the other side, pulled her tighter, invaded her deeper, hotter, harder. She followed, her decaying person giving in to everything he demanded, wanting to fall lower, wanting him to appease the ache. Wanting relief for this desperate crave.

Hell broke loose. There existed no more limits. They went far, beyond any sensible boundary. They unleashed the demons and let them raze the little that stood yet.

Still not enough.

In whimpers, she demanded total perdition, and he responded pressing her firmer against the wall, his manhood a cement sculpture against her softness. A mirage of quench and an agony of hollowness rolled into one.

He came up for air, their eyes meshing, foggy, full of insane passion. Ragged breaths mingled, he dropped her hair, his mouth falling open on her silky neck where the pulse throbbed. A fuel they did not need, but hungered for anyhow. Gasps escaped her. Then this same hand grabbed her sleeve and yanked it down her shoulder to bare one full breast. He clutched his sinful stubble mouth to the mound as if his life depended on it. Her head fell backwards, the heat so overwhelming she thought he would morph her into ashes. He did not. He just made famine acquire an unsupportable new meaning.

His calamitous lips suckled relentless, she pressed his head to it on the verge of imploring him to do something, anything. Everything.

But no. It all worsened when he nibbled the poor dusky nipple only to fill his mouth again and drench her even further with torment.

CHAPTER ONE

The Scottish Highlands – 1809

Both carriage horses neighed at that moment, as the carriage quaked and stopped so abruptly, Aileen almost fell from the seat. A shout, more shouts, male, sounded out of it. An attack, if her instincts proved right. Mairi startled awake, but Aileen paid no heed. Quick as lightning, she opened the seat top and took a pistol and two sheathed daggers, stuffing them in her bodice and stocking. Her palm shoved the carriage’s door agape, and she jumped out. Greg and Brody already lunged at the men. The attackers displayed red and black plaids, McDougal clan. The same which had more than a century of blood feud with the McKendricks.

She would not die today!

More than that. She would reach her destination. By not meeting her destiny.

Crawling, if necessary.

Before this sudden and outrageous interruption, Aileen McKendrick’s bones had been about to crack with the carriage jostling. The Highlands roads anything but smooth. Her aunt’s manor lay a day away of the previous one they had already covered. Surprisingly enough, the late September weather did not hinder their progress, remaining rather pleasant.

A book had been forgotten on her lap, her clear mahogany eyes had admired the landscape outside, which gained the colourful shades of autumn. A sigh had escaped her lips at the fleeting perception she loved the Highlands, her place of birth. Against her father’s and brothers’ approval, she insisted on this trip, their pressure on her to choose one of the suitors too invasive, in her opinion. Alright, so at five and twenty, her late mother birthed her second child. But Aileen had no interest in marriage, not yet, at least. In search of a little breathing room, she used this expedient of a trip. And she intended to visit with her aunt for as long as it took for the stubborn men in her clan to realise she would decide for herself. Stubbornness being a strong trait in her family, one must say.

Well, she would visit with her aunt as soon as she got rid of these intruding McDougals.

A snore had taken her out of her musings while the wheels had ploughed the bumpy road. Mairi, her lady’s maid, with her head bent against the backrest, across from her, in fitful sleep. How the lass could sleep with this ceaseless rattle made up for an obscure mystery for Aileen. Mairi, Brody, the footman, and Greg, the coachman, accompanied her for protection and help.

From the carriage, her feet landed on dust, dry leaves and dung. Legs apart, torso inclined, she surveyed the skirmish.

Bloody villains!

Not pausing to question how they obtained information on her whereabouts, she threw herself fearless in the pell-mell of the fight. Her skirts not a problem since her brothers taught her to engage wearing them, to get used to it. Three McDou

gals, good, one on one. She advanced on the second threatening Greg from behind with a knife.

The stocky man’s arm flew up to threat the coachman, she grabbed and twisted it behind him. The man’s face flabbergasted as he turned to see a woman caught him. Not a match for his brawny constitution, he shook his arm free, a smug smile in his coarse features indicated he thought it would be an easy skirmish.

Poor him!

She dodged his advances, her slight body more agile than his. A powerful kick on his knee took him off balance, giving her time to snatch his dagger from a greasy hand with her left hand, leaving the right one for fisting. She registered Mairi screaming, Greg grunting and Brody yelling, but she did not waver the focus from her opponent who relied solely on his fists.

Brawny continued trying to take advantage of her less muscled person, to no avail. She punched and kicked in his weak points, like knees, elbows or neck, at the same time her swiftness got him tired, sweat and panting. In a jump behind him, she laced her left arm around his throat, the dagger on his skin and seized her pistol, which glued to his temple. The man froze, a scared twist in his ugly face.

“Everybody stop or he dies.” She thundered in a tone that admitted no questioning.

The entire tableau went dead still; the only sound, her finger pulling the safety slide with a meaningful click.

“You!” She pointed her high shin to the other attackers. “Slowly, put down your weapons.” Her stance more military than a general’s.

The men in red and black took whichever weapons they held and placed them carefully on the dry-leaf ground, faces crumpled at being bested by a woman.

“Smart lads.” She praised derogatory. “Brody, Greg, take the ropes from the carriage. We are going to tie them.”

“Not so fast.” A deep steely voice came from the woods nearby, matched with another pistol click.

Stillness resumed.

Without relenting her hold, her neck swivelled to her left. A man, no, a god, sat on a huge horse, coming out of the woods. She must consciously prevent herself from gaping. He must be one of the most magnificent males she ever lay eyes on, unfortunately. Long powerful legs clutching the horse’s flank, the broadest shoulders she could remember in a white shirt, all wrapped in red and black plaid. The worst was yet to come. Pitch black hair long enough to cover his shirt collar, framed high brows, sharp square jaw, hawkish nose and eyes as green as a panther’s with a glacial glint in them.

“What took ye so long?” Brawny asked scared.

“A tenant stopped me on the way here.” When her gaze fell to the lips which answered that, she was as struck as though a thunderstorm had assailed her on the spot. Sensuous and grim at the same time, they invited a thumb to smooth them down to show their lethal beauty in full.

“And you might be…“ She said, shaking the effect the go—man wrecked on her.

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