The Hawk (Highland Guard #2)(38)

If she’d hoped her disciplinary tone would distract him, it didn’t.

“God’s wounds, what were you doing? They’re raw and blistered like you soaked them in lye and then pounded them on rocks.”

She lifted her chin, too embarrassed to point out that she’d overestimated the amount of lye in the water tenfold until Meg corrected her. It was all his fault anyway. “You were the one who told me to help out.” She jabbed his chest with her finger, but it was like trying to dent granite. “So stop complaining when I do.”

He looked down at her hand, and she hastily removed it from his chest.

“I didn’t intend for you to be a scullery maid. I’d wager you never washed linens in your life.”

Her cheeks flamed. “What difference does it make? I saw something that needed to be done and I did it.” Admittedly, with some help.

An ominous tic appeared below his jaw. The sign of temper fascinated her—a small crack in the careless facade.

“Well, you won’t do it again. Your days as a laundress are over.”

“Why? What difference does it make to you?”

His jaw hardened as if he didn’t like her questioning him. The man was far too used to getting what he wanted. She’d wager he could count on one hand the times he’d been told “no” in his life.

“Because I’m responsible for getting you home in one piece, and I won’t have you claiming that I forced you to do hard labor.”

She knew she was playing with fire, but she couldn’t help laughing. “I thought Vikings liked to take thralls.” His eyes flared, but before he could respond she added, “Why do you care what anyone thinks? You are a pirate.”

She dared him to disagree with her. He might look like a pirate, but he certainly didn’t act like one—or at least the way she thought a pirate should act. Pirates were ruthless and immoral—plundering scourges of the sea—not good-humored rogues who rescued captives (twice), promised to return them, and then became concerned when their hands were a little chapped and raw.

Something about this wasn’t right. But what else could he have been doing in that cave? And why was he running from the English?

He met the challenge in her gaze with an angry glare and took a step closer, almost as if he knew how much having six and a half feet of strapping warrior looming over her would rattle her.

“Having doubts, Ellie?” Lady Elyne, she almost corrected. Only her family called her Ellie, and she still wasn’t used to hearing the intimacy in his deep, husky voice. “I thought we’d decided all this?”

She fought the urge to step back. Why did he have to be so tall? And who had shoulders that broad and arms that muscled? Forged in battle …? She didn’t think so. He’d probably purposefully made himself look so strong just to make women weak-kneed and woozy.

She was forced to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. “We did—I did,” she corrected. Hating how he managed to fluster her, she took a steadying breath. “You just seem to have an unusual streak of nobility for a pirate. And why did one of the village fishermen call you taoiseach?” It was another word for chieftain.

If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, she would have missed the hard glint in his eye before he shrouded it with a lazy grin.

“Let me guess, old Magnus? He forgets his own name most of the time.” He paused. “I think I know what this sudden change of heart is about.”

She arched a brow. “You do?”

He nodded. “Aye.” His gaze slid to her mouth, and heat poured through her like a draught of molten fire. “I think you are wondering how you could enjoy the kiss of a pirate.”

Angry splotches of color fired on her cheeks. “I didn’t enjoy—”

The look he gave her stopped her protest cold. One more word and she had no doubt he had every intention of proving her wrong.

She flushed hotter, and he continued, “So you’ve convinced yourself I must be something else.”

Shame washed over her. Was he right? Was that kiss clouding her vision, making her see what she wanted to see?

Nay! There was more to him, she was sure of it. If he didn’t seem like a pirate, then Thomas seemed like even less of one. She’d been surrounded by knights her entire life, and Thomas was steeped to the eyebrows in the knightly code.

Hawk—what was his real name anyway?—was just trying to distract her with his closeness. It was working. She was close enough to see the rough stubble of his beard shadowing the hard lines of his jaw, the thin lines etched around his eyes from smiling and long days in the sun, the dark V of skin just visible above the opening of his cotun, and the soft, sensual curve of his incredible mouth only inches from hers.

Her gaze lingered on that mouth.

She realized that he’d gone very still, every muscle in his body rigid. Their eyes met. She startled, taken aback by the raw intensity of his gaze. He was looking at her as if …

As if he was holding himself back by a very thin rope. But from what? From throttling her? Nay, he was angry, but there was something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something hot and intense. Something that made her feel strange—restless—as though her skin suddenly didn’t fit right. The private place between her legs started to tingle again.

Embarrassed by her body’s reaction, she dropped her gaze.