Tender Feud

“Let it go, Katrine!”

“No, I won’t!”

Raith shook his head in disbelief. “You’re a dreamer, Miss Campbell. You came to the Highlands chasing dreams, and you’re still dreaming.”

“What is wrong with dreaming?”

“It blinds you to reality. You can’t see the world as it really is.”

“And you can? So you resort to violence? Is that reality, Raith? Killing, abduction… Raith, people will die if you go through with this. Your clansmen will die…”

His hard handsome face showed he had no intention of relenting. “It isn’t your concern.”

“Confound it, it is my concern! I’m the reason your kinsmen have been imprisoned. If I weren’t here, Argyll never would have taken such a step.”

Fire smoldered in her eyes as she glared at him, but beneath her anger she felt pain and fear. Pain because Raith was shutting her out of his life. Fear because what he was planning was far more dangerous than altering the duke’s ledgers. Seeing that she was getting nowhere, however, she forced herself to adopt a calmer tone.

“I don’t want to see you hurt,” Katrine pleaded quietly. “I love you.”

She read an answering pain in his eyes, but his stance remained rigid, his manner distant, even hostile.

“Raith,” she implored, “please, I want to help.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“What if I were to petition the duke for a hearing? He might listen to me.”

“No! I won’t have you fighting my battles for me.”

“Why not? You fight everyone else’s battles. Why can I not help you with yours?”

“My clan is my responsibility.

I won’t have you interfering.”

“Raith, please…I beg you, don’t do this.”

A pair of tortured blue eyes slid closed. Wanting to comfort him, Katrine moved silently across the room to stand before him. When she reached out to touch his arm, Raith jumped as if burned, almost cringing as he leaned as far away as his chair would permit. “Katrine…for the love of God…get out of here.”

There was a wealth of emotion in his voice that startled her, until the truth suddenly dawned. Raith wasn’t as concerned about her persuading him to abandon his plans as he was troubled by her presence in his bedchamber.

Diverted by the notion, Katrine glanced around the masculine room with its dark wainscoting and huge, velvet-draped tester bed. She stared at the bed for a long moment before her gaze returned to Raith. He was wearing only breeches and a cambric shirt; she was wearing only her nightshift. She took a small step closer.

“You’re afraid to be alone with me, aren’t you?” she murmured, her tone both breathless and challenging. “You’re afraid of me.”

Raith let the claymore slide to the floor with a clatter as he abruptly rose to his feet. His stance was threatening as he towered over her, his hands fisted at his sides. But Katrine stood her ground as she stared up at him, not giving an inch.

For several heartbeats they remained that way, only inches apart, their body heat melding, gazes smoldering. Raith looked as if he might throttle her, yet behind the fierceness she saw desire and dawning recognition of inevitability in his eyes. There was anger there and something more, something raw and naked and hungry.

She knew she had won when he growled a low curse and closed his fingers around her upper arms. When he hauled her against him, she gave a glad cry.

His lips, hard and vengeful, slanted over hers, his arms wrapping around her, crushing her to him as if he could exorcise her from his system by sheer force. But she reveled in his fierceness, knowing she had finally broken through the barrier he had erected between them.

And in only a moment, Raith, too, recognized the futility of resisting her any longer, of fighting himself. His lips gentled, his embrace softened. In response, Katrine molded herself against him, her fingers blindly seeking his thick raven hair.

Moments of sweet madness followed, when mouths and tongues and bodies and hearts seemed as one, seemed destined to become one.

“Katie,” he murmured, his voice dipping into hoarseness as he drew away.