Read Online How to Handle a Highlander (Hot Highlanders) by Mary Wine - Free Book Online Page A

was no way to explain her way out of it. So she turned, intending to leave, but he blocked her way with one arm. His lightning-quick motion startled her. She’d allowed herself to trust him being so very close to her.
    But the man was a Highlander, and one with vengeance on his mind. She was a fool to allow him so close.
    “Sandra would have fluttered her eyelashes and done her best to beguile Achaius,” he said. “She was a bitch with a calculating mind and a heart of stone. She used a woman’s wiles like weapons.”
    Their gazes were locked, and she felt the burn of his stare all the way to her toes.
    “Ye’re nae trying yer hand at that game, but maybe ye are playing a different one,” he pressed.
    He was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. She tried to lean back, but the wall was solid, and the pitted surface pressed into her palms. Her heart accelerated and, oddly, she was convinced she could smell his skin.
    “What is so hard to understand?” she asked in frustration. “The Church preaches that a woman should follow the direction of her family and laird.”
    His lips parted. “Agreeing with the sermon is much easier when ye’re in the house of God. Once ye are standing on the steps of the keep with an old man pinching yer bottom, that’s when I’d expect ye to tell yer brother to go to hell.”
    “I wish—” She slapped a hand over her mouth to stop her words. But he gripped her wrist and pulled it away.
    “Ye wish what?”
    The contact of his grip caused a flood of sensation. It was like something was unleashing inside her, a hidden part of her that she had never realized existed, some instinct that told her to move closer to him.
    “Release me,” she breathed.
    One dark eyebrow rose like a challenge. “Why? I am nae hurting ye. I know me strength and control it well.”
    “Yer touch unsettles me.”
    Something flickered in his dark eyes, and it frightened her because she felt an echo of it inside herself. It was worse than pain—that was something she knew how to endure. His touch was eroding her control and making her fight the urge to touch him back.
    She wanted to but shook her head.
    “And I will nae have ye accusing me of trying to seduce ye.” She didn’t sound as steady as she’d have liked, but at least she hadn’t stumbled over the words. She twisted her hand, trying to free herself, but he turned her arm up and placed a kiss against her inner wrist. It burned, but then the sweetest delight rippled through her from the contact.
    “Ye are unnatural,” she accused. She was almost breathless, but she was also frightened of him, afraid of what he was unleashing inside of her.
    When he raised his head to look at her, his expression was purely sensual and strangely inviting.
    “Because ye enjoyed that?” His gaze lowered to her lips. “So did I. And it was very natural, lass. We were made to respond to each other.”
    The delicate skin of her lips tingled. She was almost desperate to discover what his kiss felt like before she lost the chance forever by pledging herself to Achaius in holy matrimony.
    “Well, ye should nae teach me such things. Ye should go before ye ruin everything.”
    His grip tightened, and she flinched. “Now ye are hurting me.”
    “What am I going to ruin?” he asked softly, easing his hold on her wrist. But he was still watching her suspiciously, and she knew he was lowering his voice to deceive her.
    Her temper flared up, rescuing her from the flood of new sensations, and she jerked her arm away from him.
    Moira gave him a withering look. “Any hope of happiness I might find here. Ye are a selfish man to show me what a kiss might feel like if me husband was nae so old. I do nae need to dwell on the facts that cannae be changed.”
    “This wedding is designed to cause trouble. I’m trying to make ye see it before it’s too late,” he argued.
    “And just what do ye think will happen if I do nae take me vows?” She closed the gap between them