The Ranger (Highland Guard #3)(35)

She’d guessed all right. But that sure as hell couldn’t be admiration he read in her gaze.

He clenched his jaw. “I fought off a few wolves—anyone could have done as much. You make too much of it. Come. Robby will be wondering what has happened to us.”

If he’d thought to put her off, he’d failed. “It was more than that and you know it. The wolves were too far away for you to have heard them. Yet you knew they were coming. You sensed it before any normal—”

He flinched. Even after more than twenty years of it, he still flinched. That angered him more than anything else. He grabbed her arm and hauled her close to him, bringing her mouth only inches from his. Even through the anger he felt the bolt of gut-wrenching, mind-numbing lust.

She was pushing him from every direction—her incessant flirting, her sweet face and sinful body, her tantalizing scent, her bloody questions—and she didn’t know how close he was to giving her what she was asking for. He didn’t flirt. He didn’t dance. He didn’t play around. If a woman offered, he took. Simple and uncomplicated.

And he kept it that way.

“Look,” he said tightly; fighting the urge to ravish her senseless had stripped him of niceties. Throwing her up against that tree was looking too appealing. “I don’t know what the hell you think you saw, but you’re mistaken. I heard the wolves and reacted. Just because you didn’t hear them, don’t start imagining things.”

“I couldn’t have heard them,” she persisted. “They were too far away.”

“For you. You aren’t trained to look for the signs. The unnatural silence, their scent in the wind.”

But she wasn’t listening to his explanations. He could feel her eyes on his face and regretted their closeness. “What are you trying to hide?”

“Nothing.” He let go of her. Not very gently.

Her scrutiny intensified, and he had to fight the urge not to turn away. God damn it, he didn’t turn away from anything.

“I think you’re lying,” she said softly. “I think you keep to yourself so people won’t see what I just saw. I think you’re pushing me away right now for the same reason.”

Arthur stilled. Everything inside him chilled except for a small place in the very deepest part of him. That was burning.

He didn’t want her compassion, damn it. He wasn’t a puppy that needed rescuing.

He reacted the only way he knew how. His gaze met hers. “Did it ever occur to you that I’m pushing you away because I don’t want you?”

She gasped, flinching from the bald cruelty of his words. She blinked rapidly, and he felt the burning in his chest squeeze and squeeze. But he wouldn’t comfort her. This was for the best.

Still, her wobbly smile nearly broke him. “Much to my shame, it didn’t. I’m sorry for any embarrassment that I may have caused you.”

As regal as any queen, she turned on her heel and walked away.

And despite the fire eating away in his chest, he let her.

Eight

It was the longest ride of Anna’s life. She’d never been so humiliated in her life. But by the time they’d returned to the castle, that humiliation had turned to anger.

“... I don’t want you.”

He’d lied.

She’d seen it in his eyes when he’d held her—he did want her. But for some reason he wanted her to think differently.

Determined to prove that she hadn’t been imagining it, when Robby came over to help her down from her horse, she handed him the puppy instead.

“Sir Arthur,” she said with exaggerated sweetness. “If you would be so kind.”

He gave her a blank look, but she was beginning to be able to read those “blank” looks and saw the flicker of suspicion.

It was warranted.

When he took her hand to help her down, she leaned too far forward, forcing him to catch her to prevent her from falling.

For one long heartbeat, she was stretched out against him, her arms laced around his neck, and her hands brushed against the thick, wavy hair that was every bit as silky soft as it looked. She wanted to dig her fingers into it and pull his face down to hers.

He made a sharp sound at the contact—a groan. That’s what it was. A deep, masculine groan. And when she looked into his eyes, she knew he was lying. He did want her. And if the white lines around his mouth and the tic twitching under his jaw were any indication, it was rather badly.

She wasn’t unaffected herself. Despite the fact that it was hardly a surprise where she’d ended up, she gasped and her heart thumped wildly against the hard, cold steel of his chest—mail or flesh, it was hard to tell the difference.

When her head stopped spinning, she unlaced her arms, allowing her body to slide down his before letting go. He was as hard and unyielding as a rock, every muscle pulled taut. She could feel the tension licking off him like flames from a fire.

“So sorry about that,” she said with a careless smile. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

His eyes narrowed, but she didn’t care. She’d proved her point. She knew it, and more importantly, he knew it.

“Have care, my lady,” he warned in that dark, smoky voice of his. “You wouldn’t want to get hurt doing something foolish.”

“How sweet of you to be concerned.” She almost gave him a fond pat on the cheek but thought that might be rubbing his nose in it a little too much—she had her victory. “But you needn’t worry, I know exactly what I’m doing.”