Read Online Highland Temptation by Jennifer Haymore - Free Book Online

rose, too, facing him, watching him guardedly as his expression changed from confusion to anger.
    She reached toward him, but he stepped back, the muscles in his jaw working.
    “Everything’s all right,” she soothed. The look on his face made a prickle of unease run up her spine.
    “Nay,” he bit out.
    She tilted her head in confusion.
    “Nay, ’tis
not
all right.”
    “You’re all right. The nightmare is over.”
    His head swung from side to side. “Aye,” he said bitterly. “ ’Tis over. They’re gone.”
    “
They
were never here.”
    “They were. I was trying to kill them, if they didn’t kill me first.”
    She nodded. “You succeeded.”
    He turned away from her, grabbing the bedpost and leaning his forehead against it. “Do you not see, Emilia?”
    “See what?”
    “They’re gone, but you could be, too. I might’ve hurt you.”
    “You didn’t. You wouldn’t,” she said.
    “I didna see you. I might have thought you were one of them. I might’ve slit your throat.” His words were brutal, hard, and anguished, and his eyes shone like gold in the almost nonexistent light.
    “No. You would never think that.”
    “I would. I did.”
    “You didn’t hurt me, Colin. You didn’t even come close.”
    He shook his head. “What if I had?”
    “But you didn’t!”
    He closed his eyes and groaned. “What was I thinking, insisting I come with you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m a damned idiot,” he said. “A selfish, foolish man.” He turned to her. “I wasna thinking of your safety.”
    “Of course you were.”
    “Nay. I only kent I wanted to be with you. That I like being near you. That I wished to take you away from Pinfield. But I didna bother to think about how I might be as dangerous to you as he is.”
    She ground her teeth. “Never compare yourself to him. You’re nothing like him.”
    “I’m dangerous, Emilia.”
    “I know that. But not to me!”
    “I might’ve hurt you.”
    “Stop saying that.”
    “I might’ve
killed
you just now.”
    “No,” she said stubbornly. She’d been cautious of the blade, but only because she hadn’t wanted to be accidentally cut when he’d been slicing it through the air. She’d never once thought that he’d deliberately hurt her. She still didn’t.
    “I’m going to send for one of the other Knights to take over,” he muttered.
    Panic nearly choked her. “No! Please don’t. I don’t want anyone else.”
    He narrowed his eyes at her.
    “I only want you. Please.” Compelled by some force she didn’t understand, she stepped up to him, wrapped her arms around him, and buried her head in his chest, squeezing tight. “I don’t think I’d survive this with anyone else. Please don’t leave me.”
    “Why?” His voice had dropped to a murmur, and his arms came up and around her, resting just above the top line of her wounds.
    “Because, you’re…you. You make me feel safe. You’re the only one who can keep me safe.” Panic pulsed desperately in her throat. The thought of him leaving her made her dizzy with the need to convince him to stay.
    “Impossible.”
    “It’s true.
Please,
don’t send for another Knight.”
    “Emilia,” he whispered. “You dinna understand. There’s something…” She felt him shaking his head.
    “I know,” she said. “I
do
understand. Do you think I don’t see the darkness in you? I have always seen it. It lurks there, behind almost everything you do. Whatever it is tortures you. And whatever it is caused that nightmare, I’m certain of it.”
    He sucked in a breath and was quiet for a long moment. She hugged him tighter, pressing her cheek against the hardness of his pectoral muscles.
    “How can you…How could you have seen all that?” His voice was soft with wonder.
    She closed her eyes. “I’ve watched you. From the very first time you came to the house to guard my father.”
    “Why?”
    Her breath caught in her throat—because that was the question, wasn’t it? Why had