The autumn wind screamed her words through the canyon until they whipped against his scarred flesh, and stung lashes already healed. He ran and swam shirtless, even though the cold turned his skin white and pink as it drove the blood inward to protect his heart and vital organs.
There was a lesson to be learned here. He would do well to protect his heart. And hers.
She was safe here from everyone that would do her harm.
Everyone but him.
She’d been mistaken, his governess, he did ken how wrong it was to have kissed her, to have awakened these desires, almost violent in their ardency. This obsessive, wicked curiosity he had about her bordered on the profane. She made him want things. Dark things. Had him considering sins that would not just condemn his soul, but hers as well.
Mena Lockhart.
A name? A state of being? A woman with a locked heart.
Was it her innocence or mystery that drew him? Her keen intellect? Her troubling secrets? The depth of the understanding in her eyes, or the depth of her warm, lush body?
He wanted all of it. All of her. He wanted to uncover her, body and soul. To lay her bare and wide and make a conquest of her.
He wanted to own her. To claim her. To brand her skin with his mark and to see the same, violent desire mirrored in her eyes.
Aye, he knew how wrong it was. He knew that he must master these wicked thoughts and temper these sinful urges before they burned out of control and consumed him.
She made him hard, so fucking hard that he couldn’t think.
But she made him soft, too. In those spaces he’d built walls and fortresses, around those places where memories, sins, and pain lay scattered about like shards of glass in a dark room, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to venture forth. And therein lay the danger.
Every time her hand found his skin, or his lips found her mouth, something forged into cold steel by the heat of his temper … melted.
The problem was, he hadn’t erected those walls to keep those he loved out, but to keep something from escaping.
The devil is in all of us, I think, she’d said.
Nay, mo ailleachd. No, my beauty, he thought as he leaped from the Craeg and let the icy Atlantic steal the breath from his lungs and the fire from his arousal. Not all of us …
Only me.
* * *
Though she hadn’t slept in two days, a pervasive agitation drove Mena to haunt the halls of Ravencroft Keep like a restless ghost. She knew the cause, of course.
The inescapable Laird Mackenzie. An undefeated warrior with profound wounds and hidden depths.
It was as though he’d branded her. Seared his delectable, masculine taste to her lips and marked her skin with only the gentle hold of his large hands.
Mena had been marked and bruised by her husband, Gordon, many times over, and those wounds could last a week or more. The pain, of course, lingered even longer.
But the undeniable impact of Liam Mackenzie’s kiss was infinite. She’d live a thousand years and still feel the possession of his lips.
What distressed her the most was how he hadn’t allowed her a moment’s escape. When he wasn’t busy at the distillery, he seemed to be everywhere she was. Just yesterday, he interrupted her waltzing lessons with the children, sweeping his daughter up for a few dances. He proved to be a more than adequate dancer, but would occasionally trip Rhianna and catch her, cursing his clumsy feet whilst the girl berated him for obviously doing it on purpose.
Laughter had filled the keep with the most beautiful cacophony, and it made Mena’s heart ache for some reason she couldn’t define.
Ravencroft had also taken to having tea with them while they lounged in their favorite solarium, and read from The Count of Monte Cristo in French. He would listen with rapt attention, never asking questions or clarifying words as the children did. He merely sat and stared at her with those unnerving dark eyes, jaw perched on his templed fingers.
He prowled about her like a great, rapacious cat, his huge body filling every room so completely, she felt crowded and overwrought. In his presence, her own body was in a constant state of awareness. His gaze, as tangible as a caress, lifted the fine hairs on her flesh until they tingled and pricked with warning when he entered the room.
Here is a dangerous creature, her primitive instincts told her. A beast. A predator. She’d do well to run.
To hide.
Mena would often look up to find him fixated on her lips, or her breasts. The words would seize in her throat and she’d have to pause to catch her breath. A dark, sexual promise lurked in his eyes, and robbed her of her every thought. Yet he said nothing and hid nothing. When she caught his stare, he did not avert his eyes, nor did he try to hide his frank appreciation of her. He merely looked at her with enough heat to melt the stones of the keep, while remaining still and silent as a statue chiseled by the loving hands of an artisan. Hard. Smooth.
Flawless.
Damn him for kissing her!
Damn her for wanting him to do it again.
Despite all that, his constant presence likewise caused more difficulties when attempting to collude with Andrew about his care of the pup. They’d had to devise all sorts of inventive ways to excuse themselves from his company.
And then there was the incident this very morning, from which Mena hadn’t seemed able to recover.
“You have to tell him, Andrew,” Mena had reminded the boy as they’d taken Rune out for her morning romp and piddle. “Tomorrow is the third day.”
“I will,” he’d vowed. “I’ll go to his study with her in the morning.” Calling Rune back as she’d begun to follow her nose too far away, Andrew had said, “It’s going well with him, doona ye think? My father. These last two days have been … well, they’ve been good, havena they?”
“Yes, Andrew, they have.” She’d smiled fondly, drifting back toward him. “And you’ve done likewise, very admirable. How do you like The Count of Monte Cristo? Is it as promised?”
“Aye.” Andrew nodded. “It’s much more interesting and naughty than anything our other governesses would have allowed us to read.”
A worry had struck her then. “Oh, dear. Do you think your father minds that we’re reading it?” she wondered aloud as she watched the sunrise lick the amber autumn grasses with gold. “I would imagine that he’d say something if he had an issue with the content.”
“Miss Lockhart.” Andrew had the oddest look on his face, a curious mix between mischief and epiphany. “My father doesna know what the book is about.”
Her eyes had widened. “What do you mean?”
“He doesna ken a lick of French.”
He was there to see the children every day. That was the only possible explanation for why he joined them as they read from a book he didn’t understand. He’d taken the words she’d spoken in the chapel to heart. That was all.
Wasn’t it?
Had the alternative not already stolen her breath, Mena would have been rendered witless by Andrew’s next words. “Miss Lockhart, my father is coming this way.”
“What?” she squeaked.
Panicked, she’d scooped up little Rune and shoved her into Andrew’s arms, all but tossing them through the door before turning to ascertain if they’d been caught out.
He was only a specter against the tree line, but his form was unmistakable. Ravencroft ran with surprising speed and an astonishing amount of skin bared to the autumn elements. From her far vantage, Mena couldn’t tell where his burnished torso ended and his fawn trousers began.