Read Online Ian by Elizabeth Rose - Free Book Online Page B

never even cried the day she broke her arm the first time she’d dove from a cliff into the water trying to keep up with the three madmen.
    He knew now t hat he never should have agreed to kiss her in the first place. Because now that they had kissed and they’d almost coupled, he knew he would never be able to put her out of his mind. He’d been so caught up in the moment, that if she hadn’t mentioned her brother’s name he would have been thrusting into her in another minute and finding his release as well. He was happy that she’d had her first kiss and also found release with him even if he hadn’t entered her. Damn, he thought, she must have had years of pent-up desire inside her to have come so fast, being the first time and all. For that, he was glad in a way, but for the fact he’d been the one to bring her to that point – he wasn’t proud.
    He’d almost ruined her, and he could never forgive himself for that. He was supposed to be protecting her from men trying to get beneath her skirts, but instead he was doing just the opposite of what he’d promised Aidan he would do.
    He’d almost taken her virginity, and now he knew he was going to have to tell his good friend the truth when he returned. Because something like this could not be kept a secret between friends. Not when it had to do with the man’s sister. What the hell had he been thinking?
    “I’m sorry, Kyla,” he said once again, walking toward her. “This ne’er should o’ happened.” He reached out for her but she moved away.
    “Dinna be,” she said, and flashed a smile that he knew was fake. “I was only havin’ fun, jest like the rest o ’ the lassies ye bed. And it didna mean a thing te me either.”
    “I canna be yer lover, nor yer husband, Kyla. Ye are the sister o’ me best friend, and now after what we’ve done, I’ve probably ruined me friendship with Aidan as well.”
    “I was only havin’ fun,” she told him again, “nothin’ more. And I dinna want ye fer me husband, Ian MacKeefe. After all, I’ve seen me husband-to-be in the flames of the Samhain fire, and I assure ye – it wasna ye.”

    Chapter 8
     
     
    “What do ye mean ye saw yer husband-te-be in the flames o’ the fire?” asked Ian curiously. Could she have possibly seen the same vision as him? He had to find out. If so, then perhaps he wasn’t going mad after all, and something odd had really happened.
    “Aye, I saw him,” she said, fixing her hair and then crossing her arms over her chest. “Jealous?”
    “Nay. Jest curious. What did this man look like?”
    “What difference does it make te ye?”
    “Did he have dark eyes and a beard and mustache?”
    “Mayhap he did. So what o’ it?”
    “And did he have an ugly scar in the shape o’ an x on his hideous face?”
     
    Kyla’s heart jumped when she heard Ian describing perfectly the man she’d seen in the fire. Her husband-to-be. He seemed awfully curious about it, and she really didn’t want to tell him anything more after he’d just denied her something she’d been hoping for her entire life.
    “Was he auld and have a darknes s about him thet was . . . evil?” Ian just kept on firing the questions at her one after another. And when he described the man, she suddenly felt revolted that she was probably going to have to marry the wretched man she’d seen in her vision.
    “Nay,” she lied, not wanting him to feel satisfied when he discovered her husband would be all those undesirable qualities that he’d just listed . “Nay, he was young and strong, and verra handsome,” she said, hoping to make him jealous.
    “He was?” His eyebrows dipped in and his mouth turned down into a frown. “Are ye sure?”
    “O’ course I’m sure. Me husband was big and brave and had a smile thet could light up the room.”
    “Are ye sure ye’re no’ describin’ someone else, lassie?”
    “Like who?” She raised her chin and he just shrugged his shoulders. “Like ye?” she asked.