Conall: The 93rd Highlanders, Book Two Read Online Free Page B

sighed heavily as
she rose from a little stool and carried the box over to a crude
wooden shelf. “And how is it your business what I did or didn’t
do?” she asked, showing some of her spirit despite her obvious
weariness.
    Conall walked over to her
and gently turned her face up to him. She wore no bonnet, just a
set of ragged fur muffs over her ears. Her blue eyes were
bloodshot, as if she’d been crying. And the dark circles around
them made him unaccountably angry.
    “ It’s my
business because I care about you,” he told her curtly. “How much
sleep are you getting at night?”
    She jerked her chin out
of his hand. “Enough.”
    “ I doubt
that.” He looked around the tent, taking note of things he’d missed
this afternoon. “It’s freezing in here. Why haven’t you a bigger
stove?”
    A bark of laughter was
her immediate response. “And where am I to be getting a bigger
stove?” she asked. “And with what money?”
    “ Don’t the
men pay you?” he asked, vowing to have words with the men he knew
came to her for things, just as Munro had.
    “ That money
is for passage home,” she said. “Not for creature
comforts.”
    “ There’ll be
no home for you if you’re dead of the cold.” He swallowed and
turned away as he was assaulted with memories of the men he’d seen
at the hospital with frostbitten toes and feet literally breaking
off in the doctors’ hands. “I’ll get you a good stove.”
    “ You haven’t
the right.” She stood there proud and defiant before him. He knew
what she wanted. What she thought she wanted.
    “ What would
give me the right?” he asked, needing to hear her say
it.
    “ If I was
your woman, you could get me a stove. You’d share it then.” She
didn’t flinch from saying it, didn’t act coy or play the
seductress. Her Scottish practicality and stubborn pride stared
right at him, daring him to refuse again.
    “ Fine,” he
said. “I’ll make you my woman, and I’ll buy you a stove.” His heart
was beating so fast it made his knees weak. He was crossing a
bridge and burning it behind him. There’d be no going back. If he
took her tonight, she’d be his and only his. The air felt thick
with fate, as if this was a moment meant to be.
    “ It takes
more than words,” she said, her voice weak and breathless as though
she felt it too.
    “ I know,” he
whispered, reaching for her. She came to him with no protest,
wrapping her arms around him as he pulled her close and kissed
her.
    She tasted cold. It made
him tug her closer, hold her tighter. Her lips began to warm under
his, and then he tentatively slid his tongue along them, as she’d
done earlier today. Immediately she opened her mouth and welcomed
him in with a moan. He hadn’t known what he was about earlier, but
it didn’t take a brilliant man to figure out this kissing. The more
he did it, the easier it got. As her lips grew warm, her breath was
hot against him, heating him from the inside out.
    Avril slid her hands up
his chest and cupped his jaw. She tugged on his beard, deepening
the kiss, and it was Conall’s turn to moan. Her hands slid up into
his hair, knocking his hat off, and suddenly he was desperate to
feel her against him, beneath him. She wrapped her leg around his
and he roughly cupped her bottom and lifted her up so he could
press his cock against her. There were too many clothes between
them. He needed her like he’d never thought possible, in ways he’d
only imagined. He’d never known this kind of heat between a man and
a woman could exist. He’d heard other men talk of it, but he’d
dismissed it as foolish bragging. Oh, how he’d been
wrong.
    He broke the kiss with a
gasp and Avril began to press kisses to his cheeks and his neck.
“How can we do this without having to undress you?” he asked,
panting as though he’d run a far distance. “It’s too cold for
you.”
    “ You warm me
up,” she said with a thick burr. He grinned, loving that he brought
the Scottish out