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)
…Not exactly the reaction I anticipated after asking for her hand in marriage, but then, what do I know. Thirty years old, a lord with my own lands, titles, and castle, and never married. It was fighting in the Crusades in the Holy Land that took years from me. But even after I and my friends who fought with me returned, there’s never been a woman to turn my head the way she does.
…There hasn’t been a woman at all since I returned, at that.
It’s not for lack of choices. I’ve been approached by numerous lords and ladies looking for me to wed their pretty young daughters. Gods, I’ve been approached by the ladies themselves looking to warm my bed whilst their husbands are off drinking or hunting.
Needless to say, offers like those repulse me, no matter how tempting the woman offering may be.
No, I’ve kept to myself since we returned from the Holy Land. I’ve denied myself—quite purposefully—the touch of women, or the comfort of a warmed bed and an eager body to share it with. And I’ve had no problem with that, or with keeping myself focused and strong willed. That is, until a month ago.
…Until I laid eyes on her.
On Catriona McDougall.
It was her wildness that drew me in. It was that untamed fierceness in her eyes that had my pulse racing and the beast inside of me roaring to break free—to claim her, and take her, and make her mine and mine alone. Honeyed blonde hair, sharp blue eyes, hips that were made for my rough hands to hold so tight, and lips that begged to be tasted.
Her friend Una was marrying my good friend Hamish, and when I questioned around about her, I learned two things. One, that she was not betrothed to another. And when I refused to believe that, I learned the second thing: that it wasn’t for lack of trying on other men’s parts.
No less than nine men had been granted her hand by her father. And yet, every single one of them had gone home empty-handed. Every one of them had revoked their offer. And the more I asked around and looked into it, the more I learned that it seems Catriona had a bit of a reputation. “Headstrong,” they called her. “Strong willed,” “difficult,” and even “untamed.” These were the reasons men had walked away from her?
It made me laugh.
The idea of these strong and noble lords having their lordly feathers ruffled by a girl simply because she wouldn’t smile politely, avoid eye contact, and gushingly promise to do their every whim was amusing to me. Lords of the highlands were supposed to be fierce warriors, and proud, strong men.
…It seems they had “proud” down quite well. But the idea that a woman having thoughts and a will of her own would send them running made me chuckle. Perhaps it was my time in the wars. Perhaps it was that warrior spirit that roared through my veins. After all, I’d been born into the life of the sword. The castle and the titles and lands had only come after I’d fought in the Crusades.
Whatever it was though, I suppose it set me apart from most other highland lords. And Catriona McDougall and her “strong-willed sass” was maybe a perfect example of that. Other lords saw “challenging.” I saw a challenge. Other men were put off by a woman like Catriona and her fierce, untamed willfulness.
…I was hungry for it.
Again, maybe it’s the warrior in me. Maybe it’s the fighter’s blood in my veins. Whatever it is though, one look at her, and one whisper of her reputation for being fiercely independent and strong-minded, and I was hooked. I was drawn to her like a moth to flame and consumed with the notion not to tame that wildness in her, but to ride it. It’d been years since I even gave a passing thought to a woman. But one look at Catriona and my every damn thought was hers and hers alone.
One look, and I knew she’d be mine.
It was at Hamish and Una’s wedding that I first tasted those soft, full, tempting and wild lips. It was that night, after fighting off an attack on Hamish’s castle by the Viking marauder Tor Odinson, that I found myself alone with her, under the pretense of her using her nurse training on a truly benign cut I’d taken in the fighting.
But one kiss, one taste, one tease of her soft moan in my ears, and I knew. I knew I’d move the heavens above, the rings of hell below, and the earth itself to make her mine.
There was a part of me—the savage, untamed, wild beast part of me—that thought of just taking her. I imagined stealing her and running off with her and making her mine until her soft moans filled my ears. And after all, it was my and Hamish’s other good friend, Malcolm, who’d done just that a few weeks ago, running off with Catriona and Una’s friend, Ailith.