Trapped with the Devil of the Highlands (Falling for Highland Villains #3)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

How am I supposed to sleep a wink like this?

The drapes were closed to block out the daylight, though the hustle and bustle of the village drifted in on the cold drafts that whistled in through the windows.

Paisley, clothed in dry undergarments, a new dress draped over the chair by the now-empty tub, lay in the unfamiliar bed. She had the coverlets tugged up to her neck, her gaze fixed on the rafters, sleep a very distant thought despite her bone-deep exhaustion.

“Do ye always breathe so loud?” she mumbled, squirming.

Her elbow nudged the bulk of Camden, who lay on top of the coverlets with a blanket thrown haphazardly over him. For reasons that could not be anything but dangerous to her honor, he had removed his léine again, and the blanket did not cover his bare skin at all.

“Do ye always talk so much when ye’re supposed to be asleep? I thought ye nuns were experts in silence,” he muttered in reply. “Ye’ll regret it if ye dinnae rest.”

She wriggled again, twisting around in an attempt to get comfortable. Impossible, of course, while he was in the bed with her. The bath had been perilous enough to the sanctity of her purity. Perhaps a blindfold would solve her sleeping predicament too—if she could not see anything, she could not be tempted, and her honor would not be at risk.

Would he have kissed me? If I hadnae moved, would his lips have touched mine?

Her mind wandered to places it should not. Spending so much time with a hellion like Cecilia must have rubbed off on her, for she had never had such thoughts before. Kissing a man— thinking of kissing a man—was utterly forbidden, but so was lying, and she would be lying if she said she had not been tempted.

She twisted in the opposite direction, hoping that the little veins of mold on the walls would be enough to chase away improper thoughts.

“Would ye lie still,” Camden growled.

“I’m tryin’,” she replied tersely.

It was not her fault that his presence had her entire body in a state of agitation, her limbs shaking in the way they did before Mass on Whitsunday or All Saint’s Eve. She was… nervous, which was ridiculous—he had said he would not touch her. What was there to be nervous about?

After a few more minutes of her squirming and huffing and puffing with the frustration of not being able to drift off, a gust of air signaled Camden’s surrender.

He threw the blankets off him and sat up, swinging his legs around. He perched on the edge of the bed briefly, running his hands through his silky locks, his shoulders rising and falling with a sigh.

“Have the bed to yerself,” he muttered, standing up. “There’s only one way I ken of to get a lass to sleep soundly, and I made ye a promise already. If I stay and ye keep tossin’ and turnin’ like that, I cannae assure ye that I’ll be a gentleman.”

He grabbed his léine and pulled it on, stuffing the long edges below the waist of his kilt. Out of the corner of her eye, Paisley watched, that nervous sensation rising to her face as she admired the defined muscles of his back, his broad shoulders narrowing down to his hips in a titillating ‘V.’

There were two dents just above the belt of his kilt, in the small of his back—she admired those most of all, clenching her fists to suppress the urge to touch them as the fabric hid them from view.

“Dinnae dream of me too vividly,” he said blithely, heading out. “I’d hate for ye to wake up less rested than when ye fell asleep.”

She sat up, outraged. “I wouldnae dream of?—”

He had already gone, closing the door behind him. But she thought she heard the warm rumble of his laughter as he took himself further away from her.

Paisley did dream of him, her mind no longer under her strict control once sleep finally claimed her.

She dreamed of the clearing where she had inadvertently set herself on a different path from the one she had planned for. There was no man on his knees, no strike of a fatal blade, but an old god who looked and spoke like Camden, emerging from the mist and the trees to approach the pious virgin who had come to seek him out.

“I have come to ask for yer help,” she said, dropping to her knees in front of him.

Though it was not real, she could feel his hand as he touched her cheek, his fingertips brushing the hair from her face. “Ye shouldnae come to the likes of me for aid, lass. Ye willnae like the price ye’ll have to pay.”

“I have nay choice. I need yer help, and I will do whatever ye ask for in return,” she told him, keeping her gaze down.

“Anythin’ I ask for?”

She shivered in the dream, closing her eyes as his hand cupped her chin, tilting her head up. She did not dare to look at him, worried about what she might say or do if she met those night-dark eyes. A woman could lose herself in them—she was certain of that.

“I put me faith in ye. Whatever ye ask, I will do, as long as ye help me,” she replied.

She was aware of him kneeling down in front of her, the whisper of warm breath caressing her cheek, her brow, her lips. His strong, calloused hands cradled her neck, his thumbs brushing against the edge of her jaw before one grazed the seam of her lower lip. A tingle rippled from her navel to her throat, and a shaky breath escaped her lips.

“If I kiss ye, would ye stay still?” he purred.

She nodded slowly, and she felt him move even closer. His sweet mouth could not have been more than a whisper away from giving her what her dreaming mind desired.

“Then open yer eyes,” he commanded.

Her slumbering mind must have gotten confused, for when she opened her eyes, she was not in the clearing anymore, about to be kissed by an old god masquerading as Laird Cairn. She was in bed, at the inn, breathless and staring up at the wispy cobwebs that floated from the rafters.

A solid form breathed softly beside her.

Paisley clamped her lips together to stop a startled sound from escaping. When had Camden snuck back in and slipped into the bed with her? He must have been stealthy; he had not disturbed her at all.

I should wake him up and tell him to leave again. This cannae be allowed.

But his body had warmed the bed, fending off the chill that settled like frost throughout the room. She was not shivering anymore. If anything, she was too hot.

Carefully, she turned onto her side to get a better look at the man who had turned her sheltered world upside down in such a short time.

What are ye dreamin’ of?

While most people looked serene in their sleep, rest taking away their worries until they woke up, Camden looked… troubled, almost. None of the humor or ease or sultry smiles graced his face, but a deep frown and a pensive mouth, his eyes moving beneath his closed eyelids.

Are ye less cavalier than ye appear to be? I suppose ye can be serious when ye have to be, or else ye wouldnae be much of a laird.

Her own father had always been too serious, showing softness only to her and her mother. The one time he had not shown tenderness toward her was the one time she had needed it the most—the day they escorted her to the convent and left her there. Her father had not even hugged her.

She dared to shuffle closer to the radiating warmth of Camden, propping herself up on her elbow to get an even closer look at him.

“Ye’re nae as scary like this,” she murmured to herself.

Aside from the abbot and, occasionally, his acolytes, who did not count, Paisley had not seen a man in eleven years. And in all of her four-and-twenty years, she had never seen one as handsome as Camden. A perfect creation of flesh and blood… until he opened his mouth.

But his mouth was closed at that moment, saying nothing to make her blood simmer or her skin tingle with feverish heat.

Before she could stop herself, she lifted curious fingertips to his impossibly attractive face, following the dip of his cheekbones, the slope of his nose, the soft hairs of his eyebrows, the rougher skin of his jaw, dusted with stubble. Hesitantly, she touched his full lips, the way he had done in her dream.

He would have kissed me…

He did not stir as she let her fingers explore his features, trailing down the column of his throat and resting in the hollow at the base.

Swallowing thickly, emboldened by his lack of movement, she allowed her fingertips to trail down his chest, which was smooth and muscular and oddly inviting, making her want to rest her head there.

A stifled gasp bubbled up the back of her throat when a firm hand closed around her wrist.

With his eyes still closed, Camden murmured, “Ye’re goin’ to Hell for torturin’ me like that. I told ye—if ye want help driftin’ off to sleep, all ye need to do is ask.” He smiled. “But if I cannae touch ye without askin’, it’s only fair that ye show me the same courtesy.”

His other hand snuck out from beneath the coverlets to hover just above her waist. Not touching her, but so close to touching her that she almost let him.

“I was makin’ sure ye were still breathin’,” she said as his eyes fluttered open.

He tutted under his breath. “Did they nae teach ye in that convent that it’s a sin to lie? Or are ye freer with yer nunly vows than ye made yerself out to be?”

Desire glittered like stars in his black eyes, pulling her into the unknown oblivion of them. As she had warned herself, a woman could easily get lost in that intense gaze, losing herself and her honor and everything else if she dared to meet his eyes.

Camden raised his head slightly, that potent gaze flicking between her eyes and her lips. As before, she found her willpower tearing in two, split between wanting to know how it felt to be kissed by him and wanting to keep her vows.

“Either I’m goin’ to kiss ye or ye’re goin’ to turn over and go back to sleep,” he said. “I dinnae mind either, but I ken ye do.”

It was all the encouragement Paisley needed.

With a jolt, she pulled back and turned over, wriggling as far to her side of the bed as she could without falling over the edge.

I willnae falter. I willnae be drawn in.

Squeezing her eyes shut and willing sleep to come quickly, she wondered if, perhaps, she had not encountered an old god or an ordinary laird in the woods at all, but the Devil himself, sent to test just how certain she was about the future she had chosen.

But she had not spent eleven years in a convent just to let the Devil win now.