Taken by the Laird by Margo Maguire Page A

growled.
    “I could not st-stay.” She bristled at his tone, even though she fully recognized how foolish she’d been.They’d barely managed to get out of the water, and it remained to be seen whether they would survive her wild escapade.
    “Only a scatterwit—”
    “I am no scatterwit, sir!”
    “Hmmph,” he muttered. He unbuttoned the placket of his shirt and pulled it over his head, tossing it to the floor near the hearth. “ ’Tis December. In Scotland, in case you hadn’t noticed. The North Sea.”
    “Your mockery is unwelcome, Laird.” There was no need to go on about it.
    He started to unfasten his trews and Bree averted her eyes. “So is good sense, apparently.”
    “I have plenty of good sense,” Brianna retorted, fuming at his despicable attitude. She somehow managed to get her own sodden breeches down her legs, then stepped out of them and threw them angrily in the direction of the fire. “But I needed to get away from Glenloch.”
    “Why? Were you anxious to get away with the plate? Or the brandy?”
    “I am no thief! Nor am I a drinker,” she retorted, so angry she did not even notice she was nearly naked.
    “Well, whatever it was you took, ’tis lying at the bottom of the sea by now.”
    Brianna clutched her chest. “Oh no! My dresses, my money!”
    “Ha,” he said without mirth.
    “ ’Twas all I had!” she shouted, turning all her anger, her frustration, and the vestiges of her terror on him. “All that was to keep me until—”
    She stopped short, unwilling to tell him her true purpose.
    “Until…?”
    “Until I got to Dundee.”
    “Ah, right.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You want me to believe you intended to walk all the way to Dundee.”
    “I have a very good reason,” she snapped.
    “Which is irrelevant now. Get the rest of your clothes off and come over here.”
    She bristled at his words. “There is only one blanket.”
    “Aye. So we’ll share.” He came to her, and before she realized what he was doing he’d ripped her shirt from her shoulders, then grabbed her, pulling her against him.
    “No, we will not share!” she cried indignantly.
    He ignored her and yanked the blanket off the pallet, wrapping them together in the dry wool even as he hauled her down to the straw mattress with him. Brianna sputtered her protests against the frigid skin of his neck, but he paid her no heed, dragging her naked body as close to his as was physically possible. They shivered together, and Brianna struggled to shove away from him.
    “Be still!” Glenloch rasped, grabbing her bottom and pressing her hard against him.
    She froze when her hips met his.
    He made a low sound deep in the back of his throat, and Brianna felt his body change. Time seemed to stop as every nerve ending in her body shifted from her outrage and funneled directly to the stirring she felt below. She pressed her eyes closed and tried to resist it. Yet when he began to stroke her buttocks, his pelvis rubbed hers in a way that heated her from her inside out. Brianna could neither withdraw nor protest.
    His breathing became harsh, and his shuddering diminished. Brianna felt enveloped by him, by his size and his growing heat. She pressed her cold nose into the crook of his neck while his hand slid up her back to cup her nape, and then trailed back down.
    Brianna’s breath caught in her throat and she felt him swallow, hard.
    “I should throttle you,” he whispered against her hair, “but Christ, if you are not the most exciting woman I’ve ever encountered.”
    He shifted and pressed Brianna into the straw mattress, turning so that he rose slightly above her, drawing her into a close embrace. He slid one of his densely muscled legs between hers, and Brianna made a whimper at the sensation of his direct touch on her feminine flesh.
    “Aye, lass, ’twill be good between us.”
    “No,” she whispered. “I left Glenloch because of this. Because you…B-because I don’t want…” But dear