Falling in Time by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Page B

called Lore MacLaren.
My name is Rogan .”
    He put
back his shoulders, standing straighter. “Rogan MacGraith.”
    “Your name doesn’t matter." Lindy
jumped to her feet, finding her voice at last. “For all I know, you could be an
ax murderer.”
    She highly doubted it.
    But drop dead gorgeous Highlanders
didn’t materialize out of thin air regardless of the popularity of paranormal
romance. She also doubted they ran around teeny one-blink-and-you’re-through-it
Sutherland villages wearing great plaids and packing razor-sharp swords.
    And she hadn’t noticed any medieval
re-enactors staying at the Talmine Arms.
    Word was the only other tourists
were an elderly English couple and two German bikers.
    The proprietor had told her so.
    Which could only mean….
    Lindy grabbed a pillow and held it
before her. “I don’t have any money,” she stammered, wishing his searing gaze
wasn’t so unsettling. “I’m at the end of my trip and-”
    “Och, lassie." Mr. Medieval
was suddenly right in front of her. “If I wanted your coin” – he plucked the
pillow from her hands and tossed it aside – “any sillers you might have would
already be weighing down my purse.”
    He grinned and patted a small
leather pouch hanging from his sword belt. Then the look on his face turned
wicked as he grabbed her and pulled her to him, holding her so tightly that she
could hardly breathe.
    “I’m that fast, see you?”
    “I see you’re a mad man.”
    “Aye, that I am, true enough!"
He released her, his gaze absolutely smoldering now. “So mad for you that if
you dinnae cease calling me Lore each time I kiss you, I may have to kill an
innocent man.”
    “Kiss me?" The
absurdity of his words gave Lindy the energy to dart away from him.
    He caught her, his big hand
gripping her arm, before she’d gone two steps. “You’ll no’ be denying our
passion?" His gaze went meaningfully to the bed and Lindy was horrified to
see that it was no longer the narrow, plaid-covered twin bed she’d been
sleeping on.
    It was a huge richly-carved
four-poster, its sumptuously embroidered curtains pulled back to reveal a
welter of furred throws, tangled sheets, and a sea of tasseled cushions piled
near the massive headboard.
    Lindy blinked.
    Rogan MacGraith’s grip tightened on
her elbow. “You are mine, sweetness. I’ll no’ be sharing you with any man. Especially
no’ a fool named Lore.”
    “Lore doesn’t exist." Lindy
couldn’t take her gaze off the bed. It looked so real. “I made him up. He’s
fiction. Just like that bed and-”
    “And what?" Rogan arched a
brow, pulling her to him again. “This perhaps?”
    Without warning, he lowered his
head and kissed her, taking her lips with all the intimacy of someone who’d
kissed, no plundered her mouth, many, many times. It was a hard,
ravenous kiss, full of breath and tongue. Rogan held her tighter and deepened
the kiss. Lindy’s pulse raced and her knees almost buckled.
    The kiss was much better than any
she’d ever written.
    In fact, no real man had ever
kissed her so masterfully either.
    Whoever – or whatever – Rogan
MacGraith was, he knew how to curl a woman’s toes.
    She wound
her arms around his neck and leaned into him, not caring about anything but the
delicious tingles whipping through her. His shoulder-length hair felt thick and
smooth beneath her fingers, almost cool and sleek like the pages of her map. But
she ignored that incongruity and concentrated on how wonderfully his tongue
swirled and slid so hotly over and around hers. Or so she tried until running
footsteps sounded on the landing outside her room.
    Lindy woke at once and peered into
darkness. Her heart was pounding and – dear God – a certain very private part
of her still felt tingly and roused.
    Rogan MacGraith was nowhere to be
seen.
    And the narrow bed she was lying in
wasn’t anything as magnificent as the curtained, black oak monstrosity she’d
glimpsed over his shoulder.
    It’d all been a