Highland Outlaw (Campbell Trilogy #2)(66)

“None of those things matter.”

He looked at her as if she were a fool. “Only someone who has never known otherwise would think that.”

Her cheeks burned. “All I meant was that I have those things already. I do not need to marry Robert to get them.”

He stiffened, and she feared she'd pricked his pride again. No man wanted to have his wife provide for him. How could she explain that without him by her side nothing else mattered? He started to turn away from her, and her heart dropped.

I'm losing him.

She clasped his arm again. “Please.” His eyes met hers. She opened her mouth, but no sound would come out. She had to tell him how she felt, but the idea of leaving herself so exposed, so vulnerable, terrified her. A cold sweat dotted her skin. Fear churned in her stomach, and for a moment she thought she might be ill.

She was a coward. But if she didn't take a chance, she would never know, and that would be infinitely worse. “I can't marry Robert Campbell.”

“Why?”

She wanted to close her eyes and hide, but she forced herself to say, “I don't love him.” She heard his sharp intake of breath, and his gaze intensified. “I …” She took a deep breath and let it out in one fell swoop: “I love you.”

The silence that followed was as loud as thunder and as painful as a thousand bolts of lightning striking her heart. She stared at him, willing him to say something—anything. But he stood motionless, as if turned to stone, and didn't say a word. Not one word.

Her heart started to thump and her breath quickened as horror slowly drained over her—as thick and heavy as the mud that she'd slipped in that hideous day.

I was wrong.

She looked away, wishing she were anywhere but here. In this warm, dark room, inches away from the man she loved who didn't want her.

“Lizzie …”

She tried to breathe through the knife plunged deep in her chest. “You don't need to say anything. I”—she choked— “just … thought. It seemed”—tears burned in her throat— “I thought you wanted me.” God, it hurt. The pressure in her chest was unbearable. She couldn't breathe. Her voice came out in a ragged whisper. “Obviously I made a mistake.”

He swore and grabbed her arm, pulling her against him in one harsh movement. More furious than she'd ever seen him. “You didn't make a mistake. God, can't you feel how much I want you?”

Shocked by the violence of emotion she'd unknowingly unleashed, she nodded and was suddenly very conscious of the hard column of steel thrust against her stomach. He did want her. And if the size of him was any indication, badly. But was it more than lust? She gazed up at him through blurry eyes. “Then why are you doing this?”

“For your own good. You'll be better off with Campbell.”

Her heart soared. He wasn't rejecting her, he was only trying to do what he thought was best for her. Honorable to the core. She lifted her hand and cupped his cheek, savoring the rasp of dark stubble on her palm. “Shouldn't I be the judge of that? Am I to have no voice in deciding my own future?”

“Elizabeth …” His voice sounded tortured.

“Do you still want to marry me?”

His smoldering green gaze burned deep into her soul. “More than anything in this world.”

In his eyes, she saw the truth. He cares for me. A wide smile broke through her shimmery tears. “Then it's decided.”

His gaze fell to her mouth, and she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he dropped his hold and took a step back. “I can't do this,” he said quietly. “It's wrong.”

She saw the steely determination in his eyes and knew that his mind was made up. A low rumble started from somewhere deep inside her and built until her entire body seemed to shake with it.

Just when she'd given up hope, she'd found the man she'd always dreamed of, a man who wanted her for herself. She'd be damned(!) if she would let him walk away out of some overprotective male sense of honor.

Lizzie had always been the quiet one. The serious, bid dable girl who did what was expected. Well, she was tired of hiding in the shadows and letting life pass her by. Not this time. This time she was going to reach out and take what she wanted, to Hades (the blasphemies were really flowing now!) with the consequences.

She met steel with steel, her gaze every bit as fierce and determined as his. “I'm afraid I don't agree.”

She felt a supreme moment of satisfaction at the slight wariness that appeared in his gaze—wariness that turned to full-blown alarm after she stormed back over to the door, lowered the bar, and turned around to face him.

There was only one way to bend steel, and that was with fire … lots and lots of fire.

“What are you doing?”

She arched a brow. “I would think that is fairly obvious to a man of your perception.” She moved back toward him. “We appear to have a difference of opinion, and I think it is better that we are not disturbed while we sort it out.”

She pulled off the thin beaded shawl she'd draped around her shoulders and dropped it on the pallet where he'd stacked his belongings. It seemed to land with the resounding thud of a gauntlet. To the winner went the spoils. And this was not a battle she intended to lose.

His hot gaze washed over her, soaking up every inch of bare skin—especially the bare skin around her br**sts. Her ni**les tightened under his scrutiny. His eyes flared. The pulse at his neck twitched dangerously.