The Chief Read online

  He’d been damned close to kissing the lass earlier and knew it. For a man who prided himself on control, the lapse was unfathomable.

  He should be focusing all his thoughts on Nicolson. Tor had learned from MacDonald that Nicolson was not heeding the summons to Finlaggan. Nicolson had sent his regrets, but pressing matters required his attention.

  Aye, Tor thought, pressing matters like mounting an attack against the MacLeods.

  MacDonald had sent another messenger to Nicolson, demanding his immediate presence, but Tor dared not wait. He needed to return to Skye immediately to begin preparations for war.

  But it was not the prospect of war that invaded his thoughts, stiffened his cock, and made him feel like a lion penned in a very small cage.

  He was distracted. By a woman, of all things.

  He shook his head. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the company of women. But other than light conversation at mealtimes, he related to them best in bed. In that he understood them well. But in truth he’d never given any one in particular much thought. He hadn’t had the time or attention to spare. Since his parents’ death when he was a lad of ten, he’d been focused on one goal—restoring his clan to prosperity. The better part of the last twenty years he’d spent on the battlefield, returning to Skye when he could.

  He’d known his wife, Flora, the daughter of an Irish king, for only a few days when he’d married her, and thinking back, had probably spent less than a few months with her the entire time they were married. Long enough to give him two fine sons, but little else. He attended his duties and she hers. The marriage suited him perfectly.

  He frowned, wondering whether the situation had suited her as well as it did him.

  Attributing the odd thought to the whisky he’d consumed, he put aside the jug, lay back on the cool sheets, and closed his eyes, allowing the darkness and the drink to soothe the tension from his coiled muscles.

  But the drink hadn’t helped. The images burned in his mind were not so easily dislodged. As soon as he closed his eyes it all came back to him. Her lovely face. Her exotically tilted eyes. Her sinful mouth inches from his.

  And her bare breast.

  He groaned, his cock jerking hard as the image came to him full force. A generous mound of creamy, untouched ivory skin topped off by a tight pink nipple the size of a pearl. It was the most spectacular breast he’d ever seen, designed for a man’s pleasure. A perfect blend of innocent and erotic at the same time—much like the lass herself.

  He was hard as a smith’s hammer. Knowing he wasn’t going to get any sleep like this, he wrapped his hand around himself and gave over to the images—her breast, her face, that wide harlot’s mouth sucking—and released his frustration into a drying cloth. A warrior’s practical solution, if not a particularly satisfying one.

  At last he fell into a fitful sleep. But the morning couldn’t come soon enough.

  —

  Christina couldn’t stop shaking, shivering uncontrollably not from cold but from fear. She trudged down the corridor and up the stairs one halting step after the other, as if her father had her at the point of his sword.

  She couldn’t believe she was doing this. The only thing that kept her feet moving forward was the thought of her father’s rage and the knowledge of what would happen to both her and Beatrix if she didn’t do as he ordered. The more she thought about it, the more her father’s plan seemed fraught with possibilities to go wrong, but what could she do?

  Pray.

  Her father leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Move your feet and stop that blasted shaking. You’ll wake him the moment you try to climb in bed.”

  Her father’s warning stopped her shaking because instead she froze. How was she going to do such a thing?

  She wanted to run and hide, but it was too late.

  “Here,” her father whispered, pointing to the small door on the right. They’d reached the top floor of the tower keep. Thankfully, the MacLeod chief had been given one of the few private chambers in the castle. Only his status as an esteemed guest had prevented this farce from taking place in the Great Hall or barracks surrounded by pallets of sleeping men.

  “Hurry,” her father said impatiently. “Give me your cloak.”

  She clutched the folds of wool until her knuckles turned white, not wanting to let go. “I…”

  “Now,” he said impatiently.

  She wanted to beg him to reconsider, but one look into those hard black eyes flickering in the candlelight and she knew it would be futile.

  Fingers trembling, she untied the cloak and handed it to him. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling naked though she still wore a linen chemise.

  “Go,” he ordered.

  “You won’t leave?” she said, her voice sounding pathetically like that of a child afraid of being left alone in the dark.

  “I have to make a show of looking for you, but after I ‘force’ your sister to tell me where you have gone, I’ll return.”

  He’d thought of everything. “In a few minutes,” she said.

  “In a few minutes,” he assured her. “It will be over before you know it.” He pushed her to the door. “Stay quiet and he’ll never know you’re there.”

  Christina put her hand on the latch and took a deep breath, praying for strength.

  God forgive me, she murmured and opened the door.

  Before she lost courage, she slipped inside and closed the door behind her. Standing stone still, she listened for any sounds of disturbance but heard only the drum of her own frantic heartbeat pounding in her ears. After a few moments, she could just make out the soft rise and fall of his breathing. She exhaled with relief.

  The room was pitch black, and it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. Even then, it was hard to make out anything other than shadows. But she recognized the large one opposite the door—the bed. And on the bed, rolled to the side, a sleeping man, which was fortunate because although the bed was big, the tall, hulking warrior took up a large portion of it. There would barely be room for her to squeeze in beside him.

  Her stomach knifed, and her already frayed nerves seemed tied in tight knots.

  It will all be over in a few minutes. Little consolation under the circumstances.

  Willing her feet forward, she crept to the bed, her footsteps nearly soundless, a talent she’d perfected since her father’s return from imprisonment. Though she kept her gaze safely away from the figure on the bed, with each step her awareness of him grew until the pressure built to near bursting. One touch and she was sure she would scream like a banshee.

  The room seemed too warm, almost sultry, the air heavy with whisky and a dark, masculine scent that she recognized as his. Her body responded on a base level she didn’t understand—the clean, spicy scent seeping through her pores, warming some of the ice from her blood.

  She’d reached the side of the bed.

  Holding her breath, she ventured a look at the sleeping figure, getting far more than she’d bargained for. It was dark, but not dark enough to prevent her from being able to see that not only was he lying atop the bed coverings, he was doing so without any clothing—completely and utterly naked.

  He was facing away from her—small mercy!—and she could just make out the hard lines of his strong back and broad shoulders, the rocklike bulges of his arm, the thick, heavily muscled legs, and the finely carved slope of his buttocks, which were as hard as the rest of him.

  Good gracious, he was magnificent. His long, lean, muscled body was built to be worshipped like a statue in some ancient Greek shrine. Apollo, perhaps.

  She sucked in her breath, her body flooding with heat. Shocked and embarrassed, but also something else. Curious? Nay, the strange, warm tingling in her breasts and between her legs told her it was more than that.

  She was attracted to him—aroused by his nakedness.

  Quickly, she dropped her gaze, ashamed by her body’s reaction. What was wrong with her? All those muscles, all that raw power, sh