Chapter Sixteen

Lillian could have broken free. She could have pushed Kirk away. She could have jerked back and slapped his rugged face for kissing her.

Instead, she went completely still. His lips on hers were soft, almost hesitant, as if he was holding himself back. His dark stubble scraped against her chin. His earthy, male scent invaded her senses.

But the sensation that overrode all rational thought and logic was the liquid heat that raced from where their lips connected through her veins to pool in her belly—and lower.

The skin across her breasts tightened, her nipples hardening as if she’d just been blasted with cold air. Yet fire seemed to consume her from the inside out. The flames licked over her, making her shiver.

Never in all her years of sharing quick pecks with Richard had the brushing of lips ignited such a firestorm within her. Head swirling, she did the unthinkable—she leaned into the kiss. Her palms found the front of Kirk’s tunic and her fingers curled into the fabric. She pressed her lips more firmly into his, searching out the strange heat that stirred in her belly .

Kirk’s restraint suddenly snapped, and it was as if she had loosed a wild animal. He made a noise that was half-moan, half-growl low in his throat. Suddenly his hands clamped around her, yanking her against the hard length of his body. One hand rose to cup the back of her head, tangling in her hair, and the other sank into the small of her back, arching her into him.

He took complete control then. His lips slanted over hers, his tongue flicking out to taste her. Instinctively, she opened to him. When his tongue invaded her mouth, a fresh wave of velvet heat shot through her.

Never before had Lillian been kissed like this. Self-conscious warmth traveled up her neck to her cheeks. Their mouths mated just as men and women’s bodies did. It was outrageous, for this intimate act wasn’t meant for procreation. It wasn’t done out of duty. Nay, it was for pure, raw pleasure.

And pleasure there was. Lillian’s nipples ached with an unknown neediness where they were crushed against Kirk’s rock-hard chest. That private spot between her legs began to thrum with her pulse, insistent and hot.

She shifted restlessly against him, needing something—needing more . His fingers tightened in her hair and he pulled her head back, giving himself even more access to her mouth. Tingles of sensation shot from her scalp straight to her breasts and between her legs.

Lillian moaned desperately. This was madness, yet she could not seem to stop herself. What was happening to her body? She felt as though Kirk’s touch had opened the door to a blacksmith’s forge within her.

The hand on her back jerked up suddenly. His big, rough palm completely covered her breast. Even through her shift and wool dress, she could feel his calluses against her peaked nipple.

Another bolt of white-hot pleasure shot through her. How much higher could her body possibly spiral? Already, her head spun with dizzy ecstasy, her limbs ablaze with need. How could such a tidal wave of pleasure break over her with one kiss, one touch?

As he began to swish his thumb over her taut nipple, she sucked in a hard breath. Her whole body began to tremble, her knees wobbling precariously beneath her.

He did not give her any quarter, though. His tongue plundered her mouth, stroking and caressing and dancing with hers. The fingers in her hair tightened even more, sending shooting sensation across the entire surface of her skin. And where he cupped her breast… Despite the shame in it, despite the wrongness of it all, she writhed against him, moaning wordlessly for more.

Just then, a bird cried shrilly in the distance. The roan shifted restlessly behind Lillian, snorting as it sidestepped.

Their wild, reckless moment shattered.

Kirk jerked back as if her mouth had burned him. She staggered, belatedly realizing that she’d been leaning heavily on him, her limbs melting into his hands.

They stood staring at each other in the gray morning light for a long moment. Fingers trembling, Lillian brought a hand over her mouth. Had that been real? Her swollen, damp limps attested that it had been.

Kirk at last broke the silence. “That was a mistake.”

He might as well have thrown ice water over her head. Aye, everything about that kiss had been wrong. Lillian was Kirk’s captive. He was delivering her to the men who’d killed her husband. Yet why had it felt so right?

The question scared her, for never in all her life had anything felt as right as being in Kirk’s embrace. He lit a fire in her body, aye, but it was more than that.

Though her mind was still lust-clouded, her earlier suspicions drifted back.

Kirk showing her kindness.

Kirk meeting with a man wearing Robert the Bruce’s coat of arms.

Kirk kissing her.

It all added up to something…some underlying truth that Lillian still didn’t understand, but that she had to unravel. Even the battle waging in his pale eyes right now spoke of some secret, some conflicting motive that would explain his inconsistent actions.

A thought, more a realization than a question, rose through the fog in her mind. Without thinking, she let it cross her lips.

“You don’t want to take me to the men who hired you, do you?”

Even before Kirk could answer, Lillian sensed the truth in her own words. Something within Kirk was working at cross-purposes. She sensed it in the long, pained looks he sent her, and in his small acts of mercy toward her, and in the struggle that showed in his eyes as he searched for words.

At last, something seemed to crack in the icy wall of his pale stare. “Nay.”

That single, quietly spoken word tilted Lillian’s world on its side. This whole time, she’d thought of Kirk as her enemy—and he was, for he had kidnapped her and hurt Will and the others. And he was going to deliver her to torturing murderers.

But he didn’t want to. He struggled against what he was doing. He’d taken on the role of a villain, but something else lay beneath that.

“Why?” she breathed. “Why are you doing this, then?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked behind his dark stubble. “There are things ye dinnae understand—larger forces at work—that I cannae explain to ye,” he rasped.

Lillian’s mind flashed over the implications of what he’d said. “You are doing this unwillingly,” she murmured, her gaze unwavering. Her words streamed out unchecked as they raced to keep up with her thoughts. “You…you are a captive in this task—just like me. ”

“Nay,” he rasped. “I am no’ just like ye, for although I dinnae have a choice anymore, I once did. I cannae back out now, but ever since I met ye, I have cursed the day that I turned over my soul for this damned mission.”

His low voice was edged with pain—and anger. Lillian sensed there was even more emotion lurking behind his words, but she could not disentangle their full meaning. He had sold his soul? Aye, he was a bounty hunter. But why couldn’t he back out now? What did they hold over him? His freedom? His life?

“It doesnae matter what I want,” he went on. His pale gaze slid to her mouth, and a look of longing flashed in his eyes. “All that matters is that I must do this. Naught ye say or do can change that.”

He closed the distance between them once more, but instead of kissing her again, he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her onto the waiting horse’s back. Without a word, he swung up into the saddle behind her, settling her across his lap.

She could feel the hard length of his erection pressing into her hip as he urged the horse into motion. His rigid manhood confirmed the raw need she’d seen burning in his eyes.

But his physical desire didn’t tell the whole story. She’d also witnessed sadness in his wintery gaze, and helpless frustration in the way his fists had balled at his sides. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he didn’t want to deliver her to the men who would .

As Kirk urged the horse southward through the forests surrounding Inverness, a new idea began to take root in Lillian’s mind.

Her disastrous attempt to flee that morning had only served to prove that she would not escape Kirk. She’d feared all along that fighting against him would be futile, for he had seemed completely committed to his mission.

But now her mind latched onto a new possibility. He was protective of her, and merciful toward the innocent. And in his kiss she’d felt not only blazing passion, but a deeper longing as well. Was it possible that some part of him was still good?

Fallibility lies not in the stone, but in men’s hearts.

Richard’s words once again sprang into her thoughts. She’d initially suspected that some fallibility had led Kirk to give up his goodness to become a bounty hunter. But now she saw the words differently.

What if they meant that Kirk’s weakness was his very goodness? If some small part of him still rebelled against those who would hurt her, mayhap she could find that crack in his resolve and widen it, remind him that he still had a way out of this evil work.

And his way out would be her way out. She would show him the goodness that lay buried within him—and convince him to let her go.

It was a dangerous strategy. It would mean opening her own heart to him. The truth was, though, she already had. A tendril of caring had taken root in her chest and had begun to grow.

Could she truly use that against him? And even if she succeeded, could she keep her heart safe in the process?