The Highlander's Touch

by Karen Marie Moning

  They wrestled in silence, except for his grunts when she landed a particularly painful shot and her gasps when he finally captured her hands and held them above her head and stretched her on her back on the floor. His grasp nearly slipped when his hand closed around a band of metal on her wrist. As he forcefully restrained her arms, it slipped off and he closed his fist over it, then placed it in his sporran for later inspection—it might yield clues to her identity. He deliberately let the full weight of his body settle atop hers, knowing she would not be able to breathe. Submit, he willed silently as she bucked against him, trying to win her freedom. “I am stronger than you, lass. Cede this battle to me. Doona be foolish.”

  “And let you kill me? Never! I heard your men.” She panted, trying to draw air into her lungs while crushed beneath his weight.

  Circenn scowled. So that was why she’d laid a trap for him. She must have overheard Galan and Duncan as they’d retired to their rooms; they’d obviously said something about his killing her. He’d have to speak with those two about discretion, perhaps encourage them to revert to Gaelic while within the walls of the keep. He suffered a momentary lapse in concentration while admiring her resourcefulness, and she exploited it by bashing her forehead into his chin, and it hurt. He shook her forcefully and was astonished when the woman didn’t yield, but tried to head butt him again.

  She showed no signs of giving up the fight, and he realized that she would beat at him until she passed out from lack of breath. Since the only part of their respective bodies they both had free were their heads, he did the only thing he could think of—he kissed her. It would be impossible for her to head butt him with her lips pressed against his, and he’d learned long ago that the best way to control a fight was to get as far into his enemy’s space as possible. It took nerves of steel to handle six feet and seven inches of ruthless Brodie a breath away from one’s heart.

  While congratulating himself for the inventive strategy he’d employed to keep her from hitting him with the only part of her body she could move, he acknowledged his attempt at self-deceit. He had wanted to kiss her since the moment she’d materialized in front of his bath—yet another violation of his careful rules. He knew that physical intimacy with this woman might skew his impartiality. But their skirmish had brought him into contact with every inch of her body, her curves were pressed against his hard length as if they were naked together, and her fierce, intelligent ambush had aroused him even more than her beauty had.

  He had the scent of her in his nostrils: fear and woman and fury. It made him rock hard.

  He sought to subdue her with his kiss, to make her understand his complete dominance, but the crush of her breasts beneath his chest heated him, and he found himself plunging his tongue between her lips with the intention of seducing rather than conquering. He sensed the moment when his kisses stopped being his way of controlling her and became nothing but a savage desire to indulge his appetite for the woman. All he need do was push aside his plaid, peel off her strange trousers, and push himself inside her. The temptation was exquisite.

  His breathing quickened, sounding harsh to his own ears. It had been too long since he’d been with a woman, and his body was tightly strung. He angled himself away, drawing back to stop the painful press of his arousal against the cradle of her hips.

  When she went motionless beneath him, he girded his will. Loath to lose the fullness of her lower lip, he sucked it hard as he drew away. He gazed down at her; her eyes were closed, her lashes dark fans against her cheeks.

  “Are you going to kill me now?” she whispered.

  Circenn stared at her, conflicting directives warring within him. In their tussle, he’d freed his dirk, and now he laid it against her throat. One swift plunge and it would be over. Brief, merciful, simple. His oath would be fulfilled, and there would be naught to do but remove the lass with the torn neck and forever-silenced heart and return to his carefully orchestrated world. Her eyes widened in alarm as she felt the chill metal brush against her skin.

  He made the mistake of gazing into them. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Cut, he ordered himself, but his fingers didn’t so much as tense around the handle of the short knife. Cut! he raged at himself. Perversely, his body hardened against her, and he felt a sudden wave of desire to drop the knife and kiss her again.

  Kill her now! he commanded himself.

  Not a finger flinched. The knife lay useless against her skin.

  “I can’t die now,” she whispered. “I haven’t even lived yet.”

  The muscles in his arm recognized defeat before his mind did. There were no other words she could have said that would have dismayed him more. I haven’t even lived yet An eloquent plea to taste what life had to offer, and, whether she realized it or not, quite revealing. It told him much about her.

  His arm relaxed, and he removed the knife from her throat with far greater ease than he’d placed it there. He muttered a curse as he flung it across the room and it sank into the door with a satisfying sound.

  “Nay, lass, I will not kill you.” Not tonight, he appended silently. He would question her, study her, determine her involvement. Judge her: guilty or innocent. If he found evidence of subterfuge or a shallow and avaricious personality, his blade would easily find the mark, he assured himself. “I need to ask you some questions. If I let you up, will you sit quietly on the bed and answer me?”

  “Yes. I can’t breathe,” she added. “Hurry.”

  Circenn shifted so his weight was not resting fully on her. He allowed her to regain her freedom in regulated stages so she understood that he was giving it to her. It was neither a freedom she had earned nor one she could ever hope to take. He granted her passage, permitted her range of motion. It was imperative she understand that his control over her was absolute.

  Despite his uncomfortable state of arousal, he forced her to keep close contact as she slipped her body from beneath his. It was a purely male show of dominance. He scarcely gave her room enough to find her knees beneath her. He leaned back minutely so she was forced to falter to her feet by clutching his shoulders, which put her lips a mere breath away from his. He would be all over her, until she acquiesced to his dictates.

  She kept her gaze defiantly averted, refusing to look at him while she used his body to pull herself up. Had you met my gaze, lass, I would have pushed you farther, he thought, for had she still possessed enough defiance to meet his eyes he would have provoked submission some other way. He rose in tandem with her so their bodies touched at many contact points, and didn’t miss her swift intake of breath when he deliberately shifted so her breasts brushed against his abdomen. He backed her to the bed and, with one gentle push, seated her upon it.

  Then he turned his back on her as if she were nothing, no threat, insignificant. Another lesson she must learn—he had nothing to fear from her. He could turn his back on her with impunity. His movement had the secondary boon of giving him time to quell his desire. He took several deep breaths, bolted the door from the inside, and whipped his dirk from the wood and slapped it into his boot. He lit tapers before turning back to face her. By then he was breathing evenly and his plaid was carefully bunched at the front. She didn’t need to know what toll their enforced closeness had taken on him.

  She had buried her face in her hands and her coppery hair slipped in a glossy fall across her knees. He reminded himself not to look at her long legs in those revealing trousers. Scarcely concealed by the pale blue fabric, a man could follow the slim line of her ankles over muscled calves and up shapely thighs to the vee of her woman’s privacy. Those trousers could seduce a Templar Grand Master.

  “Who are you?” he began quietly. He would continue in a gentle voice until she demonstrated resistance. Then he might roar at her. With a small measure of amusement, he conceded the probability that this lass would roar back.

  “My name is Lisa,” she murmured into her palms.

  A good start, obedient and swift. “Lisa, I am Circenn Brodi
e. Would that we had met under different circumstances, but we did not, and we must make the best of it. Where did you find my flask?”

  “In the museum where I work,” she said in a monotone.

  “What is a museum?”

  “A place that displays treasures and artifacts.”

  “My flask was on display? For people to see?” he asked indignantly. Hadn’t the curse worked?

  “No. It had just been found and was still in the chest. It hadn’t been placed on display yet.” She didn’t raise her head from her hands.

  “Ah, so the chest had not been opened. You were the first one to touch it.”

  “No, two men touched it before I did.”

  “You saw them touch it—truly touch the flask?”

  She was silent for a long moment. “Oh my God, the tongs!” she exclaimed. Her head shot up and she stared at him with an expression of horror. “No. I didn’t actually see them touch it. But there was a pair of tongs lying next to the chest. I’ll bet Steinmann and his cohort never touched the chest or the flask at all! Is that what did this to me—touching the flask? I knew I shouldn’t have pried into business that wasn’t mine.”

  “This is very important, lass. You must answer me truthfully. Do you know what the flask contains?”

  She gave him a look of utter innocence. She was either the consummate actress or was telling the truth. “No. What?”

  Actress or innocent? He rubbed his jaw while he scrutinized her. “Where are you from, lass? England?”

  “No. Cincinnati.”

  “Where is that?”

  “In the United States.”

  “But you speak English.”

  “Our people fled from England several hundred years ago. Once, my countrymen were English. Now we call ourselves American.”

  Circenn regarded her blankly. A look of sudden revelation crossed her face, and he wondered at it.

  “That was silly of me. Of course you couldn’t possibly understand. The United States is far across the sea from Scotland,” she said. “We didn’t like England either, so I can empathize,” she said reassuringly. “You’ve probably never heard of my land, but I’m from very far away and it’s imperative that I get back. Soon.”

  When he shook his head, her jaw tightened, and Circenn felt a flash of admiration; the lass was a fighter to the last. He suspected that if he had attempted to kill her, there would have been no pleas from her lips but vows of vengeance to the bitter finale. “I am afraid I cannot send you back just now.”

  “But you can send me back at some point? You know how?” She held her breath, awaiting his reply.

  “I am certain we can manage,” he said noncommittally. If she was from a land across the sea, and if he could find a way to accept not killing her, he could surely find a ship to put her on, if it was decided that she could be released. The fact that she was from so far away might make it easier for him to free her, because it was doubtful her homeland had any interest in Scotland; and once she was gone, perhaps he could force himself to forget he’d broken a rule. Out of sight might well be out of mind. Her appearance in the keep could truly have been a vast mistake. But how had his chest gotten to a land so far away? “How did your museum obtain my chest?”

  “They send people all over looking for unusual treasures—”

  “Who are ‘they’?” he asked quickly. Perhaps she was innocent, but perhaps the men she’d mentioned were not.

  “My employers.” Her gaze flickered to his, then away.

  He narrowed his eyes and studied her thoughtfully. Why had she averted her gaze? She seemed to be making a genuine effort to communicate with him. Although he saw no sign of outright deception, he sensed strong emotions in her; there were things she was not saying. As he pondered the direction of his inquisition, she stunned him by saying “So how do you send me through time? Is it magic?”

  Circenn released a soft whistle. By Dagda, how far had this lass come?

  LISA SAT ON THE BED ANXIOUSLY AWAITING HIS REPLY. She found it difficult to look at him, partly because he frightened her and partly because he was so damn beautiful. How was she supposed to think of him as the enemy when her body—without even briefly consulting her mind-had already decided to like him? She’d never felt such a visceral, instant attraction. Lying beneath his overwhelming body, she’d been flooded with a frantic sexual desire that she’d hastily attributed to fear of dying; she’d read somewhere that happened sometimes.

  She forced herself to remain motionless so she would betray neither the panic she felt nor her unacceptable fascination with him. In the past few minutes she’d been transported from fear and rage that her life might end so inauspiciously, to astonishment when he’d kissed her. Now she settled into wary numbness.

  She realized—the man had some seriously intimidating body language—that he was in complete control, and unless she could catch him unaware, she didn’t have a chance of escaping. She had already blown her best opportunity to catch him off guard when she’d ambushed him at the door. He was well over six-and-a-half-feet tall, more massive than any professional football player she’d ever seen, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he weighed in at three-hundred-plus pounds of solid muscle. This man didn’t miss a thing; he was a natural-born predator and warrior, scrutinizing her every move and expression. She fancied that he could smell her emotions. Didn’t animals attack when they scented fear?

  “I see I must approach this from a different angle, lass. When are you from?”

  She forced herself to look at him. He’d lowered himself to the floor and was leaning back against the door, his powerful bare legs outstretched in front of him. The jeweled handle of his knife protruded from his boots. There was blood trickling down his temple and his lower lip was swollen. When he wiped absently at it with the back of his hand, tendons and muscles rippled in his forearm. “You’re bleeding.” The inane comment slipped from her mouth. And wearing a tartan, she marveled. An actual plaid, woven of crimson and black, draped about his body, carelessly revealing much more than it concealed.

  The corner of his lip curved. “Imagine that,” he mocked. “I was ambushed by a spitting banshee and now I am bleeding. I was tripped, bashed in the head, rolled over broken stoneware, head butted, kicked in the—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  “You were trying to kill me,” Lisa said defensively. “How dare you get mad at me when I was mad at you first? You started it.”

  He ran an impatient hand through his hair. “Aye, and now I am ending it. I told you I have decided not to kill you for the moment, but I require information from you. I have fifty men outside this door”—he gestured over his shoulder with a thumb—“who will need reasons to trust you and let you live. Although I am the laird here, I cannot keep you safe all the time if I doona give my men plausible reasons why you are not a threat.”

  “Why do any of you want to kill me in the first place?” Lisa asked. “What have I done?”

  “I am in charge of this inquiry, lass.” With deliberate leisure, he folded his arms across his chest.

  Lisa had no doubt that he’d struck the pose to make a point. It made all the muscles in his arms bunch and reminded her how small she was compared to him, even at five feet ten inches. She’d just learned another lesson: He could be courteous, even demonstrate a droll sense of humor, but he was always deadly, always in command. “Right,” she said tightly. “But it might help if I understood why you consider me a threat to begin with.”

  “Because of what is in the flask.”

  “What’s in it?” she asked, then berated herself for her incessant curiosity. Unchecked curiosity had created this situation.

  “If you doona know, your innocence will protect you. Doona ask me again.”

  Lisa blew out a nervous breath.

  “When are you from?” he asked softly, circling back to his initial question.

  “The twenty-first century.”

  He blinke
d and cocked his head. “You expect me to believe you are from a time seven hundred years from now?”

  “You expect me to believe that I’m in the fourteenth century?” she said, unable to conceal a note of peevishness in her voice. Why did he expect such madness to be any easier for her to deal with?

  A quick smile flashed across his face, and she breathed more easily, but then the smile vanished and he was again the remote savage. “This conversation is not about you, lass, or what you think or what you believe. It is about me, and whether I can find a reason to trust you and let you live. Your being from the future and your feelings about being here mean nothing to me. It is irrelevant where or when you are from. The fact is that you are here now and you have become my problem. And I doona like problems.”

  “So send me home,” she said in a small voice. “That should solve your problem.” She flinched as his intense gaze fixed on her face. His dark eyes latched on to hers and for a space of time unmeasured, she couldn’t look away.

  “If you are from the future, who is Scotland’s king?” he asked silkily.

  She drew a cautious breath. “I’m afraid I don’t know, I’ve never followed politics,” she lied. She certainly wasn’t about to tell a warrior who was fighting over kings and territories that seven hundred years from now Scotland still didn’t have a recognized king. She might not have a college degree, but she wasn’t a complete fool.

  His eyes narrowed and she suffered the uncanny sensation that he was gauging far more than her facial expressions. Finally he said, “I accept that. Few women follow politics. But perhaps you know your history?” he encouraged softly.