Dark Side of the Laird (Highland Bound) by Eliza Knight Page B

“What does lockdown mean?”
    “No one leaves. No one comes.”
    “ That’s what I figured. How long will you be gone?”
    He shook hi s head. “I know not. The king has gone to Falkland Palace. If the weather cooperates, we could be there in three days, just on his heels. If not, could be as long as a week to reach it.”
    “A week there and a week back, and how long to speak with the king.” Already I was dreading the time he’d be away.
    “He will see me right away. I could be there for two days, three at the maximum.”
    I cringed at his timeline. “So three weeks at the most?”
    “ Aye, but will likely be less.”
    He appeared so cold. So hard. There was something wrong, I could feel it in my bones.
    “What happened?” I asked softly.
    He jerked his gaze back to me, eyes scrutinizing as he searched my face.
    “What makes ye think there is something wrong?”
    I shrugged. “I can tell. You are…” I looked at him, so stiff and straight, intense and awkward. “You’re not yourself.” Not even the man I’d first met who was extremely cautious around me. This man was suffering greatly.
    “’Tis nothing. I simply must seek out the king and straighten out this farce. We canna have Isabella here. I canna marry her. ’Tis preposterous.”
    It did not go unnoticed by me that he didn’t lament about how he wanted to marry me. That he loved me. I could see his anger, a fury so intense it darkened his eyes to black. The man was possessed by it, and I tried not to take offense at his lack of sentimentality. After all, he was a warrior. I’d known that the moment, I met him. But I’d also seen the softer side. Been inside his heart and heard him declare his love and passion for me. But this man before me now was a man disturbed.
    A man on a mission.
    A man spurred on by something that greatly troubled him.
    What had Isabella done?
    Call it woman’s intuition, or just gut instinct. “Are you sure that’s all?”
    He glowered down at me. “I’m positive.”
    I forced myself to stand where I was, and not to take a step backward. Suddenly all of his intensity was pointing toward me, and my stomach did a little flip.
    Logan reached up and grabbed hold of my face with one hand. A thumb on one side of my chin and his fingers on the other. He tugged me forward, his lips crashing on mine in a brutal, forceful kiss.
    “Ye’re mine,” he growled, his teeth pulling at my lower lip. “And I’m yours. Yours alone.”
    There it was. The declaration I’d been waiting for. I was his and he was mine.
    “Yes, mine…” I murmured. “And yours.”
    Wrapping my arms around him, hands splayed on his lower back, I arched into him. Logan held my face with one hand and roughly gripped my hip with the other. He stroked my flesh, rubbing in circles, roaming over my buttocks and ribs, but never quite touching the parts that ached to be caressed. Teasing, taunting, always.
    Logan liked to see me strung up tight. To feel m e quiver with wanting, and to witness the way my body responded, wet and coiled. And I liked to show him how much I wanted him.
    Cock pressed tight to the juncture of my thighs he walked me backward into the shadows. I clutched to him. Mouth a tangle of frenzied licks and sucks. Hands stroking over his flesh, and his burning a path over mine. Minutes before I’d been running from the shadows, not wanting to discover what was within them. But now, with Logan pushing me past my fears, I eagerly retreated. Willingly, I walked without being able to see what was behind me, only in front. And before me was a powerful, sensual, wicked man. I wanted nothing more than to feel his hot rod of pleasure as it drove inside me.
    Pressing me up against the wall, Logan dragged in a breath. “God, lass, ye drive me to the brink.” He skimmed his lips over my chin, burning a sizzling path, until he reached my ear. I was shaking with need as he spoke. “I’ve never wanted someone more in my life than I want ye. I’ve