Only For A Knight Read Online Free PDF

him in ways that had his every muscle tensing. Setting his jaw, he tried not to glance at the wet, garnet-red curls springing betwixt her thighs—and failed.
     
There, too, water droplets glistened in a nigh irresistible beckoning. More tempting still, the faint spice of her female scent wafted up to him, and catching it, he looked away at once. The musky scent’s tang beguiled him, especially laced as it was with the freshness of heather and the dark sweetness of peat. His heart thumping, Robbie pulled in a slow, steady breath—the best he could manage with his throat and chest constricting so acutely.
     
And if any other part of him tightened more than he would wish, he strove to ignore it.
     
More difficult was ignoring his fierce urge to look at her secret charms again. And look right well. So he gathered her in his arms and pulled her tight against him, shielding her delights from immediate view, but promptly delivering himself a whole new batch of woes unleashed by the startling intimacy of the over-close embrace.
     
Frowning at the necessity of such a measure, he snatched up the dry plaid he’d retrieved and swooped its generous folds around their shoulders, letting its wooly length warm them both.
     
Not that he needed much warming.
     
His trembling had little to do with chilblains.
     
Saints, but the maid was fashioned to grace a man’s most heated dreams.
     
And he ought be made of a finer metal!
     
A better tempered steel, hard and resistant.
     
Run steely-hard indeed, Robbie gritted his teeth and began massaging the lass’s naked back beneath the cover of the plaid, rocking her gently to and fro as he did so. He also wished himself a better master at the fine and much neglected art of ignoring and wished even more that on his long journey home he’d availed himself more often of the buxom tavern wenches and warmhearted young widows who’d offered him all manner of salacious comfort along the way.
     
But only one of the fulsome lassies had truly captured his interest—an ale-keeper’s plump and gap-toothed daughter. And because of her and what she’d offered him, the progress of his journey had dwindled to a snail’s pace.
     
Aye, he ought to have been home days ago—and would have been—had not the persistent serving maid pressed other wares on him when he’d repeatedly rebuffed her amorous looks and bawdily proffered favors. Clearly bent on winning some coin from him, however achieved, she’d listened to his excuses about hurrying home to wed his betrothed, then seized his hand and led him to a smoky corner of the low-ceilinged alehouse.
     
With a triumphant flourish, she’d pointed behind a trestle bench piled high with kegs and flagons to where a clutch of tiny fat-bellied puppies frolicked and tumbled amid the strewn bones, onion peels, and other refuse littering the soured floor rushes.
     
A wee puppy, she’d declared, all fluff and floppy ears, would delight his new bride and surely soften her heart . . . if indeed the lass needed a bit of taming.
     
And Robbie had agreed.
     
But not because he felt he required any assistance in wooing Euphemia MacLeod. Like most MacKenzie men, Robbie suffered more trouble fending off willing wenches than attracting them.
     
Nay, he’d simply been charmed by the wee pups—losing his heart to a chubby little round of brown and white fur he’d dubbed Mungo because the alehouse stood not far from the mighty cathedral church of St. Mungo in Glasgow.
     
Remembering, he slid a glance at the small wicker hamper affixed to the back of his saddle. Even now, the wriggling little fellow peered at him over the side of the tiny basket, the pup’s bright brown eyes quizzical.
     
Praise be the saints, the mite’s gaze appeared only curious and not . . . urgent.
     
Wee Mungo had piddled and soiled his way all through the Great Glen into Kintail, the necessary pauses not only delaying the journey, but without doubt causing Robbie to have passed by this lochan at such a