The Highlander's Bride(31)

She shoved him aside and sat up. “I thought you needed comforting. You looked upset.”

“So you tell me I’m a strong man?”

“I only wished to remind you of your strength and how it would help you, nothing more.”

“You need to get close to me to do that?”

“I offered you comfort, or is it that…” She grinned teasingly. “Is it that you simply can’t resist me?”

His annoyance erupted in anger. “Resist you? You’re a bold, demanding, irritating woman who I was forced to wed and now I’m forced to bed. I have no problem resisting you.”

Cullen regretted his cruel words as soon as they left his mouth, and more so when he watched all color drain from Sara’s face. Her remark had been made in jest, while his had meant to sting.

Sara scrambled to her feet. “You need not bed me. Your wedding me was enough. I will take the chance of my father not finding out that our vows were never consummated.” She walked over to the window and pushed open the partially closed shutter to stare out at the rain.

Cullen felt like kicking himself. He hadn’t meant to be cruel. He’d been upset and taken his misgivings out on Sara. He had been infuriated with her from the start, when she forced him to wed her, and gotten even angrier when she had told him he would have to bed her. But he had fast come to realize that Sara had done what was necessary for her freedom. Just as he’d done what was necessary to find his son.

In judging her, he’d judge himself, for he would have done whatever it took to free himself from that prison and find his way back to Alaina.

He needn’t be cruel to her when they’d both been faced with difficult decisions and made the necessary choices, like them or not.

He walked over to her, his steps mindful, an apology on his lips.

“Save your breath,” she said before he reached her. “I’ve heard enough apologies in my life to know they mean little and are meant to soothe the fool who spoke cruelly.”

“I was—”

“Angry with yourself,” she finished. “I’ve heard that time and again from my father while reminding me that if I were a dutiful daughter I would obey him and not upset him. And while I had little choice but to listen to my father’s lame excuses, I do have the choice of listening to yours. You’re my husband in name only, and that is the way it will remain. Take me to my home, spend a few weeks, and my father will have no problem accepting that you abandoned a demanding woman like me.”

“That wasn’t our bargain.”

Sara turned cold eyes on him. “It is now.”

“I will fulfill the bargain we agreed upon,” he insisted.

“No. You won’t!” She shoved open the shutter all the way. “The rain has stopped. We can leave and waste no more time.”

Cullen reached out to her as she walked past him, but she shoved his hand away from her.

“The fire needs dousing. I think I saw a bucket outside.” She went to the door.

“I’ll get it—”

She ignored him and walked out the door.

“Damn!” he mumbled, raking his fingers through his hair. How the hell was he going to repair the damage he’d done? Should he even try? Was it better to keep her at a distance and be done with it? Or did he fulfill the original bargain that guaranteed his son’s return? He’d made an agreement, given his word, and in return he would have his son. How could he not give her what she needed when he would get what he so desperately wanted?

Sara entered struggling with the overflowing bucket. He hurried to take it from her, and when she protested, he covered her hand with his.

“Let me help you,” he said sincerely.

“I don’t need your help.”

Cullen pressed his nose to hers. “You’ll get it anyway.”

“I don’t think so,” she argued.

He smiled and gave her lips a quick kiss. “I know so.”

She grinned slowly, much too slowly, so much so that it had Cullen easing his face away from hers, but too late. Her tongue darted out, stroking his lips before she claimed his mouth in a bone-crushing kiss.

Damned if he didn’t respond.

The bucket hit the ground and the two were in each other’s arms in an instant. Cullen cupped the back of her head, wanting, needing, to keep her close, keep the kiss lingering, keep their feverish tongues mating.

When she pressed her body against his, he answered by rubbing up against her, and her soft moan echoed in his mouth, hardening his loins.

Then suddenly she tore away from him and stood, her chest heaving, staring at him with such a painful look in her eyes that it felt like a knife to his heart.