The Highlander's Haunted Kiss Read Online Free

pleasures of a marriage bed. Curse Iain Darroch. He’d put those thoughts in her head with his discussion of virginal maids and experienced women.
    â€œIain Darroch.” She tried out the sound of his name on her lips, the same way he’d done with hers.
    â€œFrom the most powerful clan in the Highlands.”
    â€œThere are no more clans,” she reminded him, recalling her history lessons. “The clan system was outlawed over a hundred years ago.”
    Sweet heaven, she wouldn’t even lose her virginity in her
dreams
at this rate. Why discuss history with an intriguing Highland warrior so close she could breathe in the scent of pine and musky male?
    â€œSpoken like an Englishwoman,” Iain—she liked thinking of him as Iain—chided her.
    â€œI am an American.”
    The hearth fire dimmed and he still watched her intently from his seat upon the tick. Would her sheets hold the heat of him for long after he left? She couldn’t deny a high level of curiosity. She had never been so close to a man, her husband having never so much as entered her bedchamber.
    Let alone
her.
    At the time, she’d been relieved. But if a man such as Iain Darroch had been her bridegroom on that night when she’d been dressed in no more than the frailest of lace chemises, her body washed and scented for a man’s pleasure, she suspected she would have been far more…amenable.
    â€œAmerican?” His Scots accent was pleasing to the ear, the lilting syllables a sweet music all its own.
    â€œFrom New York,” she added, trying desperately to focus on their conversation and not the way Iain’s nearness made her feel.
    â€œNo wonder. You have the fire of a colonist in your blood.” He shifted to one side, creating room for her on the bed he’d commandeered.
    â€œThank you. I’m fine.” She feared sitting close to him in his state of dishabille would not help the fire in her blood in the slightest.
    â€œTake your seat where it’s comfortable, lass. You are weary and I have disturbed your slumber.”
    True enough. She’d been sound asleep before she’d awakened to find him at her bedside. He’d barged right in…right through a barred door, she realized as her gaze moved to the door. She’d lowered the bar herself before she’d lain down to rest.
    â€œIain.” She came fully alert.
    His broad chest rose up and down slowly with deep, relaxed breaths.
    â€œI like hearing my given name on your lips.” A wry grin lifted one corner of his full, sensual mouth. “Shall I call you Lily, then?”
    â€œHow did you get in this chamber?” she demanded. “The door was bolted from the inside.”
    If she tested the barrier now, would it still hold fast? And if so, wouldn’t that mean he was not real? Was she truly going mad and this attractive, compelling man had been conjured by her lonely heart and agitated mind?
    Panic made her breath come faster even as she neared the proof she sought.
    â€œThat does not always stop a determined visitor. The main doors of Invergale were barred to you when you arrived and you simply let yourself in another way.”
    What other way? She peered around the room, seeing no possible entrance.
    â€œYou could never have scaled the walls to a tower room. Not without equipment and men.” She held up the light of logic to chase away foolish tricks of her mind.
    He frowned, straightening to meet her gaze head-on.
    â€œIf you must know, I took advantage of a secret passageway.”
    Her jaw fell open as she peered around the chamber.
    â€œI don’t believe you.” A nervous trembling took root inside her.
    The warmth of his body felt all too real. The sensible explanation for his presence caught her off guard.
    â€œI’ll show you.” He rose to his feet, a veritable tower of a man. “Come.”
    Her heartbeat jumped wildly as he edged past her and moved