Highland Fling

Darach threw back his head and laughed. Mayhap she had a strange way with words, but her meaning was clear. Ah, but he was enjoying himself with Katie Wexford. Most of the lasses fair swooned over him. Certainly none had complained about his personality. And he thought Katie was not being exactly truthful. He reached out and tested a measure of her hair between his fingers. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. With great care he tucked the curl behind her well-shaped ear, his fingers lingering against the delicate shell. Her swift intake of breath echoed the pounding of his heart. “Aye, so that means you do not fancy me now?”

She wet her lower lip with the tip of her tongue and lust knotted his gut. “Not particularly,” she said. Her breathy tone belied her words.

Aye. She was lying. She wanted him as much as he wanted her and it wasn’t arrogance on his part. It wasn’t fear that left her trembling at his slightest touch. There was fire between them and if he had unraveled this correctly, she needed to admit it. He skimmed his palm over her bare shoulder and heat raced through him. “More’s the pity.”

She held her ground, despite the shiver he felt run through her, and narrowed her eyes at him. “Why do you say that?”

He rested his hands on the smoothness of her bare shoulders, her skin warm and soft beneath his callused palms. He curled his fingers against her sweet flesh. “Because it seems to me that it was lust that brought you here…”

“Perhaps.”

“Then it stands to reason that if you satisfy that lust, you should go back to where you came from.”

“Congratulations! That’s probably the strangest pick-up line I’ve ever heard. And I don’t think so.”

“I’m just trying to help you out, Katie-love.” He bracketed her shoulders with his hands, her skin soft beneath his palms.

She shrugged off his touch. “That’s terribly generous of you.”

He trailed one finger down her arm. “I’m known for my generosity.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll just bet you are.” She swatted his hand away.

Satisfied that she wanted him, he smiled at her, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m just trying to help you get back to where you want to be.”

KATE PACED to the other side of the room. Not only did pacing help her think, but it got her out of Darach MacTavish’s immediate vicinity, which was a bonus in the being able to think department.

Maybe she’d told a little white lie—okay, a whopping white lie—when she said she wasn’t as attracted to him as she had been. It was more a matter of she shouldn’t be as attracted to him as she had been. But here she’d met this man, under circumstances beyond weird, and he was proposing they have sex? She didn’t think so.

She took a deep breath and her practical side kicked in. Wasn’t she bringing twenty-first century mores to a situation where they didn’t exactly belong? What were they going to do? Go out to dinner a couple of times? Go to a movie and perhaps a night out at the museum to get to know one another better?

What was the courting ritual in eighteenth-century Scotland? Damn if she knew. And she didn’t want to be courted, she just wanted to go home.

For one panic-inducing moment the thought crept in that she might not be able to get back home. What then? What if she was stuck here? No! She refused to think that way. And maybe Darach MacTavish was on to something. She knew for certain she didn’t want to hang out here any longer than necessary.

She liked the twenty-first century. No, that wasn’t true. She loved the twenty-first century. And she’d worked too damn hard to get that assistant appointment. She wasn’t about to lose her job because she’d been squandering time in the past. And she supposed if she was going to have sex, there were worse specimens out there than the one before her. It probably wouldn’t be too bad—if she could just get him to keep his mouth shut.

And much as she didn’t want to think in the direction of being stuck here, if she was stuck here for more than a couple of hours, being the chief’s lover was probably the safest position to take. But could she just turn off all her years of upbringing and hop in bed with a man who was essentially a stranger? She knew some women fantasized about stuff like this. She wasn’t one of them. She just didn’t know if she had it in her.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe sex together is the key.”

The bastard actually laughed. “I’ve seen men more enthusiastic who were about to be hung.”

“I’m in a different freaking century and I have no clue whether I’m actually going to make it back to where I want to be. You’re a stranger and I’m supposed to be jumping up and down at the prospect of having sex with you?” Bottom line, she was scared. Nearly spitless. “I’m sure sex with strangers is nothing new to you, but it’s not part of my regimen.”

All the arrogance and amusement vanished, replaced by a kindness she hadn’t noted before. “I think things are very different where you come from, I’m sure of it. But no, few strangers show up in these parts and those that do, I don’t bed as a rule.” He reached out and drew her to him, but it was a gesture of comfort, an offer of protection, which felt almost as foreign to Kate as sex with a stranger. “This must be a terrible situation to find yourself in, Katie-love. We won’t take any more action tonight. Rest and on the morn we’ll work on this.”