Tall, Dark and Kilted Read Online Free PDF Page B

Grant A. Hughes III was a fool for walking away from the lightsome lass, he was an even greater lackwit for putting himself in her path.
    “A double-dyed doomed lackwit,” he fumed, glaring at the mist sliding past the battlements. Thick and gray, great sheets of it swirled everywhere. He narrowed his eyes, scanning each billowy drift. It would be just like the Dark One to lurk behind the impenetrable brew, gloating.
    Twice now he’d caught what could have been a crone’s cackling laugh.
    Or—saints forbid—the heinous sniggers of a whole gaggle of them.
    He shuddered, looking deeper into the fog.
    But his best peering efforts turned up naught. If the fiend or his hell hags were at Dunroamin, they were keeping themselves well hidden. So he put them from his mind—for now—and bowed to long habit, conjuring his shield.
    A flick of his fingers and it appeared in his hand.
    The shield’s familiarity comforted.
    He just hoped he’d never again need it for its erstwhile purpose.
    Certain such a calamity was rushing his way, he balled his fists and began to pace the wall-walk. A cold drizzle slicked the stone flagging and darkened the castle walls, but the rain-misted afternoon suited him.
    So much so that he didn’t bother to draw his plaid against the rising wind.
    There was, after all, no need.
    She more than warmed him.
    With every angry footfall, her face rose before him. She tempted and vexed him with her startled eyes of deepest blue, the fine line of her jaw, and her creamy, unblemished skin. The sleek fall of her thick, silky hair taunted him, too. Honey-gold in color and just brushing her shoulders, the gleaming strands begged a man’s touch. Just as her mouth, so full, sweetly curved, and soft-looking, hinted at a hidden lustiness he’d love to waken in her.
    A groan rose deep in his throat and he pulled a hand down over his chin.
    He hadn’t often loved a fair-haired woman. Well-prized in his day, most proved either already taken or were sequestered away in an unassailable tower, guarded by their fathers until the highest bidder claimed them.
    How he’d love to claim this one!
    He swallowed another groan, imagining the bliss of thrusting his hands into such shining skeins. He’d twine the strands around his fingers and pull her close, kissing her deeply. And if she kissed him back, he’d crush her to him, making sure she felt the thick, hard length of him brushing against her.
    Just thinking about such deliciousness let him almost feel her softness pressing into him, the golden strands of her hair spilling through his fingers, delighting and bewitching him. He drew a deep breath and released it slowly.
    Fair women were a prize beyond telling.
    In his numberless years of carousing, most of his bedmates had sported tresses of flame or coloring as dark as his own. And of the few yellow-maned wenches he’d sampled, he’d quickly known they’d gleaned the bright shade from the local henwife.
    Their other hair gave away the secret every time.
    But he knew what the tongue waggers said about true flaxen-haired, blue-eyed maidens.
    Once a man melted them, their fire burned hotter than the sun.
    Need clawed at his gut. He drew a tight breath, wishing he’d ne’er heard such blether. He wasn’t the man to test Cilla Swanner’s passion.
    Would that he could . . . in another time and place it would have been possible.
    As things were, he simply stepped faster, letting his quickened pace and his fury heat his blood. His frustration also staved off the bite of the day’s cold, wet wind.
    Until the gusts turned, sending up spray from the foot of the cliffs to flip an edge of his plaid across his eyes.
    “Damnation!” He snatched at the offending wool, yanking it down, only to discover that the maid’s face still hovered before him.
    Worse, he could now see even more of her!
    In memory, her naked breasts bobbed right beneath his nose. Just as full, round, and plump as he remembered, and with her rosy-sweet