At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle Book 3) by Laurel Adams Page B

to her in the quiet of the night, just before these devils had attacked them. It had been an emotional moment, exquisite and perfectly vulnerable. Destroyed now. He was almost as bitter about that as the fact they’d been sent to kill him.
    With Malcolm and Heather gone, Ian kicked one of the corpses and spit a curse. “So the story is to be that I was outside your door…I should’ve been, laird.”
    John decided to ignore the possible double-meaning in his kinsman’s words. He’d shared Heather with Ian to bring them closer together; it would ruin everything if Ian would now regret the experience. “There was no cause for you to be outside my door. You’re not a bodyguard. You’re my second-in-command.”
    Ian gave a frustrated shake of his head. “ Someone should have been outside your door. You must have guards now at all times.”
    “We can’t spare them from the walls.”
    “You need someone if only for the show of the thing!”
    The laird shrugged. “Post Rodric there, then, if you must.”
    “The young fool who fell asleep at his post?”
    “That was weeks ago,” the laird replied. “It won’t happen again. The lad will be wanting to redeem himself.”
    “You won’t risk the castle, just yourself?” Ian asked.
    “What’s the point of being a laird if not to do just that?”
    Still holding a bleeding forearm, Ian paced. “If I hadn’t been here tonight…”
    John’s pride nearly compelled him to argue that he could’ve taken on both assassins by himself in the dark. But that was unlikely and Heather would’ve come to harm. So he conceded the point. “If you hadn’t been here tonight, then I’d be dead now and you’d be the laird of this clan.”
    Ian slanted him a glance. “Why was I here tonight?”  
    The laird noticed Ian’s his hooded, carefully guarded eyes, and thought it was not merely the fact they were having this talk over two dead bodies that accounted for the tension in Ian’s shoulders. “Because I invited you.”
    Ian’s eyes slid away. “And yet, it felt as if you were testing my loyalty and that I failed in every particular.”
    Now that was curious. “I should say you succeeded in the ultimate test of loyalty, Ian. Do you need thanks for fighting for me—”
    “I don’t need thanks for doing what I’ve sworn to do,” Ian snapped. “But you won’t thank me for touching your woman, will you? You dangled her before me. And I failed to refuse the offer.”
    Ah. So that’s what this was about. John tried to set his kinsman’s mind at ease on that score. “What did you think, Ian? That I would bid a woman to kneel and take you between her lips, then expect you to pull away? I wouldn’t have offered to share her if I didn’t wish it.”  
    Ian’s eyes narrowed. “No man could want to share a woman like her.”  
    Ian’s voice actually cracked on the last word, betraying that what he felt for Heather was not merely lust. And a mixture of emotions flooded the laird’s heart. First, came the jealousy . Oh, he’d known Ian lusted for his violet-eyed beauty. But to harbor emotions for her…that was exactly the kind of attachment he’d hoped to inspire in his kinsman. And yet, it was like a knife to the heart.  
    Still, John would have to endure it for Heather’s sake. She took pain for him every night. Took it gladly. Took it with courage and devotion. He could do no less for her. What he should feel was relief that Ian cared for Heather—had perhaps cared for her all along, and been too loyal to show it.  
    Meanwhile, Ian was saying, “I wasn’t about to let you toy with me. I decided to take you at your word because I am not a man for games. I wanted what we shared in that bed tonight, and no matter the sin—”
    “Jesus, Joseph and Mary!” The laird shouted, feeling a vein in his forehead begin to pulse. “Sometimes you’re as priggish as a churchman. Until we were nearly murdered, we had a most enjoyable evening. Most. Enjoyable. And if