Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Then he cornered me, alone.
Then he kissed me, and my entire world shifted on its axis. He kissed me, and I was lost, and I’ve been lost ever since.
I’ve done everything in my power to deny it—to lie to myself and tell myself that Lord Bruce is a brute of a man I want nothing to do with. I’ve told myself that I want nothing to do with a roughened, hardened, warrior of a man like Callum. I’ve told myself that a man eleven years my senior—thirty to my nineteen—is only after one thing with a girl like me.
Except, a month later, it’s not working. A month later, his lips are the only things I want to feel when I close my eyes. His whispered words—filthy and commanding—are tattooed across my heart. And if he is only after one thing with a girl like me? Well, a month of wicked, sinful fever dreams and even more sinful daydreams later?
…I’m ready to give him damn well anything he wants at this point.
I shake my head, shivering as I sink down into the hot bath.
What I feel about Callum Bruce scares the hell out of me. And it’s for that reason that I bolted when my father told me the news this morning. That’s why I snuck away to the stables, saddled my horse, and came straight here, to my grandmother’s rambling, falling-apart old tower of a hideaway.
To get away from the sinful temptations of a man I should want nothing to do with. To escape the hungry looks of a man who sends heat teasing through me, who poisons my dreams into sinful fantasies that leave me hungry, eager, and….
I blush, sinking down into the water up to my chin as I hug my arms around my knees.
Hungry, eager, and wet.
I close my eyes, sitting up a little and forcing myself to take deep breaths—my attempt at clearing my head. I relax my shoulders, pushing thoughts of Callum Bruce from my head as I take another slow, steady breath.
Breathe.
Slowly, as I breath, I can feel as the tension starts to loosen. I’ll deal with the fact that the most wicked, enticing, sinful man I’ve ever met wants to marry me later. For now, all I need to do is clear my head and—
The sound of hoofbeats across the ground has my eyes flying open, my thoughts scattering. Aerie Doon Keep is way off of any traveling road. Nor is it on any map. It’s also old enough and ramshackle enough to look just like the boulder-strewn hills it sits amongst from a distance.
And yet, someone is riding right for it, and here I am alone, naked, and sitting in a damn bath.
I scurry from the tub and wrap a cloth around myself as I scamper for the window. I crouch low, pulse racing. For a moment, all sorts of horrible scenarios flit through my head—that it’s bandits, or ruffians of some kind. Or worse, an exploring party of Danes—Viking marauders looking for their next castle to sack and girl of noble birth to steal away.
I tremble, my hands tight on the cloth and my mind scrambling to come up with a plan of escape as I slowly raise up and peek over the edge of it.
My heart leaps into my chest, and my entire body trembles. Because it’s not ruffians, or bandits. It’s not Vikings.
…It’s him.
It’s Callum
My eyes go wide, my jaw drops, and a forbidden, fierce and wicked heat sizzles through my body to pool between my thighs.
It’s just him, riding a huge black horse at full gallop as he nears the crumbling old keep. But even at this distance, I can see the hardened look on his face—the tightness in his jaw and the fire in his eyes, that dark hair blowing behind him.
My hands grip the cloth tight, my body shivering. I tense to move—to go run, or hide, or… I don’t even know what. But suddenly, his eyes dart up the high tower window I’m crouched behind, and there’s no use in even trying to hide in time. Because this time, his eyes lock right onto mine, and when I feel the fierceness in that gaze, I’m rooted to the spot, my pulse racing.
Callum’s eyes flicker with heat, his jaw tightens, and he grunts as he urges his horse on, riding hard and fast right for me.
And something tells me, there’ll be no running from him this time…
Chapter 2
Callum
Found her.
My jaw tightens as my heart thunders in my chest and my hands clench the reigns of my horse. I grunt, urging the steed faster as my eyes lock onto the high window of the tower.
Slowly, a hungry grin spreads over my face.
For most of my ride here, I questioned if she’d even be here. It was her father, Lachlan McDougall, who told me where I’d most likely be able to find his daughter after she disappeared from his castle.