The Highlander's Lost Lady (The Lairds Most Likely 3)

Well, she sounded sure about that at least. “That’s good.”

Another comprehensive, if swift survey of his chest. She really should stop doing that. It tested his self-control. He wished his shirt wasn’t hanging from a hook on the other side of the room.

When she edged closer, he read the troubled expression in those clear blue eyes. “Are you?”

“No.” At this precise moment, he wasn’t sure he meant it.

“I’m glad.”

A thorny silence descended until unable to bear the crackling tension, he said, “Let me pour ye a wee dram. It might help ye sleep.”

“Will you join me?”

He’d rather someone hurled a caber at his head, but his turmoil wasn’t her fault and he wanted to start his marriage with some vestige of civilization. “Aye, but first, you’ll need to pass me my robe, then turn your back.”

The rounded eyes that focused on his lap did nothing to quell the storm in his blood. She made a move toward where the red velvet dressing gown Fergus had lent him lay tossed across a chair near the fire. “You sleep naked?”

St. Peter and all the little fishes… Did his bride think he was bloody well made of stone?

Although one part of him did its best to imitate good Scottish granite.

“Aye,” he bit out with a snap of his teeth.

When that uncertain blue gaze rose to his face, his discomfort increased. “I’ve never seen a naked man.”

If she hung around much longer, that would change. He ground his teeth and told himself to settle down. Then he realized just what she’d said.

What the hell? That couldn’t be right. Perhaps the thunderous pounding in his ears meant that he’d misheard.

“But your husband…”

Her lips turned down. “When we…did that, it was always in the dark. Ian would lift up his nightshirt, and then…”

Almighty God above. He couldn’t sit here and listen to her talk about the sexual act. Not without jumping out of this bed and giving her a good eyeful of what a naked man looked like. A rampantly aroused naked man, at that. “He took ye.”

She looked thoughtful, as she considered his response. Her hands remained linked at her waist, but at last they were still. “Yes, it was taking.”

“Did he hurt ye?” he couldn’t help asking, although the wisest move was to exile her to her room with orders to stay there.

“At first. I had no idea what to expect, and I fought him.”

Sick pity clenched Diarmid’s belly. How could he resent her reluctance to sleep with him, after she’d been through such suffering?

If only she’d never met the Grants. Deep within her, she contained the promise of passion, but that promise would never find fulfillment.

What a crying waste. The idea of awakening an innocent Fiona to the potential of pleasure stirred not just his raging senses but his aching heart.

And it was all too blasted late.

Damn the Grants. All of them. Allan. Ian. Thomas. And the rest of the pestilential breed. They deserved to fry in the lowest circle of hell.

“Fiona…”

She went on before he could express his horror at the way those brutes turned something magnificent into violence, degradation, and misery.

“At least it never lasted long, and once Ian’s health started to fail, he lost the capacity to…” Her gesture encompassed both her husband’s impotence and her relief at no longer having to endure his attentions.

“You’re safe now.”