Page 52 of The Laird who Craved her

He hadn't noticed the shallow cut at his collarbone until she said it, just visible above the open collar of his shirt, a thin dark line against wet skin. Without thinking, she reached a hand toward it over the rail.

"A scratch," he said, though he didn't pull away.

"It should be cleaned properly."

"I've taken worse wounds shavin'." A tired smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, and her stomach dipped the way it had the first time she'd jumped a fence on horseback as a girl, that same lurching, giddy drop.

"Ye are impossibly stubborn."

"A requirement of the position." He caught her wrist before her fingers reached his skin, his grip warm and sure, and instead of pushing her hand away, he drew it down slowly until her palm rested flat over the wild drum of his heart. She could feel it hammering under her fingers, fast and uneven, nothing like the calm control on his face. "Ye're shiverin', lass."

"I'm nae cold." It was, perhaps, the least convincing lie she had ever told, and her voice cracked slightly on the last word to prove it.

"Ye're a terrible liar," he said, and she recognized her own words handed back to her from the night before.

"And ye're too observant."

"I observe what matters to me." His thumb moved slowly over the racing pulse at her wrist, back and forth, unhurried, and her breath caught somewhere high in her throat.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, a helpless motion, and she sensed his gaze drop and fix there, his jaw clenched as if by restraint. He leaned over the rail, and the world narrowed to the charged space between them, the rain, wet wood, and the heat of his skin bleeding into hers.

"Ye shouldnae look at me like that," he said, voice rough.

"Like what?" She didn't move away.

He didn't answer with words. His free hand braced against the fence near her waist, caging her without touching. His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingering long enough to make her breathe stutter. The rain kept falling, cold and running down her neck, unnoticed. Behind him, she heard Douglas barking orders, wood striking wood, a world that hadn't stopped while hers did.

"Finn," she whispered, and it was half a plea and half a warning.

He tilted his head, close enough now that his breath was warm against her cold, rain-slicked skin, close enough that she could count the individual drops of rain caught in his dark lashes.

His mouth found hers before either of them decided it should, slow at first, then deepening the moment she made a small sound against his lips and curled her fingers into his shirt.

“Finn…”

The horn split the air, interrupting the moment.

"Riders approaching!" the watchtower guard bellowed, and the iron warning bell began to toll a heartbeat later, harsh and relentless.

Finn went rigid. Whatever had been building between them shattered instantly, replaced by the cold, coiled alertness of a man already calculating threats. He stepped back from the fence, and the loss of his heat hit her like a physical thing, a sudden emptiness where warmth had been a second before.

"Sound the alarm!" Douglas roared, abandoning the drill, real steel already in his hand.

"Enemies?" Finn shouted up to the tower, snatching his leather cuirass from the fence post.

"Nay, me Laird! They bear the stag! Allied riders!"

"Open the gates!"

He turned back to her, and the man who had leaned over that fence a moment ago was gone, replaced by the Laird. "Go inside, Claire."

"Finn…"

"Go inside." No room in it for argument. He was already pulling the leather over his head, already half turned toward the gates, already a hundred miles from the fence and the rain and whatever had almost happened between them.

She held his gaze a moment longer, her chest still tight from wanting something that hadn't come, then wrapped the sodden shawl tighter and turned back toward the keep. She didn't look back. She didn't trust herself to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE