The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(92)

She gasped, eyes wide.

He stilled. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head, a joyful smile curving her mouth. She cupped his cheek in her hand. “Nay. I love how you make me feel.”

Love. The look in her eyes …

Something shifted in his chest. Something he’d thought impossible.

Holding her gaze, he started to move. Long, slow, sensual strokes that dragged him deeper with every thrust. His jaw clenched against the raw pleasure surging inside him.

He was hot, heavy. Trying to make it last, but it felt too good.

Her lips parted. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes fell to half-lidded slits. Her breath started to come in sharp little gasps. Her fingers tightened in his shoulders …

And then her hips started to lift, meeting his thrust with one of her own.

It was too much. Sensation surged hard inside him. He couldn’t hold on. He pumped harder, grinding into her with each frantic stroke, needing to take her with him.

Her body arched. She started to cry out.

He let go, coming into her with a ferocity he’d never experienced before. Each pulse, each spasm, each sharp burst of pleasure seemed wrenched from the deepest part of him.

The entire time he was looking into her eyes. Being pulled in.

He barely had the strength to roll to the side before his muscles gave out. He collapsed beside her, breathing hard, more spent than he’d ever been in his life. Even being forced to run up the Cuillins during MacLeod’s training hadn’t taken so much out of him.

He was glad he was too exhausted to think for a while, because when he realized what he’d just done, the moments of sated bliss were all forgotten.

Shame burned in his gut. How could he have done that? How could he have tried to hurt her like that?

He’d played a dangerous game and lost. He’d wanted to prove to her that it didn’t mean anything, but it was he who’d been proved wrong. He could no longer deny it: He cared for her. More than he’d cared for anyone in his life.

And still he’d hurt her. What the hell was wrong with him?

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice raw.

She rolled on her side, gazing up at him, with a sad smile that ate at his conscience. “I know.”

She didn’t know anything. She didn’t understand him, damn it. She looked at him like he was someone he wasn’t. Like she saw something in him that wasn’t there. She expected too much from him. He could never be the man she wanted him to be. Didn’t she know he would always hurt her?

A storm of conflicting emotions unfurled inside him. Longing. Resentment. Confusion. Anger. She was twisting him up in knots, making him forget what was important.

His jaw clenched. “This doesn’t change anything.”

She stared at him for a long moment. He steeled himself against the shadow of hurt in her eyes. “So it was just f**king, is that right, Lachlan?”

She threw the ugly word back at him like a taunt, daring him to agree with her.

His chest pounded. He felt as if the walls were closing in. As if he were walking into a dark tunnel. Why couldn’t she stop pushing him? Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?

Freedom, damn it. No ties.

He looked her right in the eye. “Aye.”

She held his gaze for a long time. “You’re a liar, Lachlan MacRuairi. You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.”

Without another word, she picked up her clothes, pulled them on, and left him alone to the dark hammering of his own heart.

Bella waited for him to change his mind. From the time Sir Alex woke her in the early hours of the morning to ride the short distance to the coast, to the anxious minutes she waited in darkness while the men swam in the frigid waters of the sea to steal a galley out from under the noses of the sleeping English soldiers who commanded it, to the long hours being battered by the wind and waves as the three men struggled to man a ship usually sailed by ten times that number, she told herself Lachlan would admit the truth.

He cared for her. It wasn’t just lust between them. She knew the difference, and what they’d shared was nothing like what she’d known before.

He pretended to be a mocking brigand who didn’t care about anything, but she knew it was just a mask. He cared far more than he let on—about her and the men he fought with. He wouldn’t turn his back on them.

Even when they finally arrived at Dunstaffnage Castle late that evening to a hero’s welcome from Robert and a small contingent of his men, she convinced herself it wasn’t too late. Lachlan wouldn’t let her down. He wouldn’t deny the promise of what lay between them. He wouldn’t just walk away from her. Not after all they’d been through together. Not after what they’d shared. It wasn’t lust, but two people making love. The connection was real.

This couldn’t be the end.

He was scared, she told herself, confused. Just give him time.

But it turned out time was the one thing she didn’t have.

They’d been ushered into a small solar off the Great Hall and given food and drink while Lachlan reported on all that had happened. In addition to herself, Lachlan, Boyd, Seton, and the king, four other men sat around the trestle table. The oldest, Sir Neil Campbell, one of Bruce’s closest advisors, was well known to her from the months they’d spent in hiding in the hills of Atholl after Methven. The most forbidding, Tor MacLeod, a West Highland chief from the Isle of Skye, and the tall, devilishly handsome Norseman, Erik MacSorley, she recalled from that time as well. They’d stuck out as unusual, and now she could guess why. They must be part of this secret band of warriors.