The MacKinnon's Bride by Tanya Anne Crosby Page A

couldn’t help but grin, for she sounded
so ill at ease with the prospect. “Somethin’ that should please the
both o’ us,” he revealed mischievously. God only knew, he was
certainly looking forward to it himself.
     
     
    Page stiffened at his assurance.
    Something that would please them both?
    She certainly didn’t think so.
    She tried not to panic as she considered
every conceivable solution—tried not to consider them at all. Sweet
Jesu, but it was all she could do not to think of the man poised so
intimately above her!
    Nay, he wasn’t lying, precisely, on top of
her, but he might as well have been. Though he shielded her from
his weight, she could feel every inch of his body as though it were
melded to her own. And Jesu, never in her life had she been more
acutely aware of her own body—the places it brushed against his,
the wicked, wonderful sensations that made her feel so very much a
woman.
    A lump rose in her throat.
    He’d said she was bonny.
    Could he truly have meant it?
    The possibility made her tremble with...
something she shouldn’t be feeling for her enemy. Her brows drew
together.
    How could she possibly
allow herself to be distracted so easily? Aye, ’ twas his intent to distract her, of a certainty, but did she
have to be so blessed accommodating? Nay, he couldn’t possibly have
meant it, she convinced herself.
    She knew what she looked like—had seen her
reflection oft enough to know that she was no enchanting faerie
creature, able to steal a man’s heart and soul with a single
glance. She was rather unremarkable. Her hair was not the spun gold
of the troubadour’s favor, it was dirt colored; her face not fair
and unblemished, but darkened by the sun and freckled across her
nose. Her eyes were not the lucid blue of a summer sky, or the
green of a new leaf in spring, just common brown.
    Page felt her heart squeeze at the cruelty
of his glib words, and then berated herself for her foolishness.
What more could she have expected from a devious, faithless,
oath-breaking Scot?
    She bucked beneath him.
    He groaned. “I’d not do that if I were you,”
he advised.
    “ What is taking you so
bloody long?” she demanded. “Have you not even the God-given sense
to untie a simple knot?”
    “ Och, wench, but I’m
trying! I didna tie this accursed thing—and bluidy hell, ‘tis no
simple knot!” He muttered an unintelligible oath beneath his
breath.
    Feeling a little desperate, Page lifted her
knee, jabbing him in the thigh. “You’ll need do more than try!” she
hissed.
    He made some strangled sound and fell atop
her just as the binds were undone at last. Page twisted beneath
him, eager to be free. With hardly an effort and before she could
stop him, he had her pinned, her arms spread at her sides and
clasped to the ground.
    “ That wasna verra nice!”
he told her, his jaw set firm, and his eyes burning with
fury.
    “ I did not mean to be
nice!” Page told him angrily, her eyes stinging with tears she
refused to shed. Her nerves were near to shattering—God help her,
but she could not bear another moment of his presence! His eyes
continued to bore into her,
    demanding—what?
    “ How could you expect me
to be?” she asked him. “You’ve abducted me from my home, kept me
bound to a tree like an animal—and you think I should tender
thanks? Please!” she appealed. “Can you not just set me free?” She
couldn’t help herself; tears welled. They spilled from her eyes,
down the side of her face, onto the ground. She felt the wetness
upon her neck, and blinked. Could he not see how very much it meant
to her to return to her father? “You have your son,” she beseeched
him. Another tear slipped past her guard, and she shook her head,
losing composure entirely. “I could find my way still,” she
pleaded. “Let me go... please?”
    He shook his head, lowering his eyes. “I
canna, lass,” he said softly, regretfully. He met her gaze once
more, and she spied the determination in