The Highlander's Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

the hard, warm body of her captor.
    Shameful , really.
    The temperature was cooler beneath the trees where the sun had trouble reaching through the abundant leaves. Thank goodness for that, or she would have surely melted by now. They’d ridden for the better part of a half hour, her thighs pressed to his, her back held tight to his chest, her bottom touching…something long and hard. She preferred to think it was his weapon—and it was of a sorts, but this one made of all-male flesh.
    Th e priest. A lie if ever she’d heard one.
    Heather cleared her throat, wiggled forward, hoping to get away from his hardness, though it made her tingle in places she hadn’t known could tingle. Made her yearn for… something.
    Mostly , she wanted to get away from him. To shove his thick arm from her belly. To remove the tight grip he had on her hip. To hop off his massive horse and run away. Far away. To find the Scottish war camp. William Wallace. To be useful to her country and make her family proud. Her brother Ronan was there with his wife, Julianna—a warrior woman. If anyone, Julianna would see the merit in Heather’s plans to fight for her country.
    She’d not shun her or forbid it as her brothers Magnus, Blane and Ronan had done. They didn’t think it was a woman’s place. When Heather had brought up the fact that Julianna was the right hand of their future king, the men had all grumbled about her having been trained from birth and having the king’s blood in her.
    Well, with three older brothers, Heather had practically been trained from birth. Even her older sister , Lorna, and she had played warriors as children, fighting with pretend swords and shields in their shared bedchamber when their mother had put them to bed, and even later when their hired nurse had done the same.
    Fighting was in her blood.
    And she wasn’t about to let the forbidden get in her way. Heather saw great things in her future. Great things for Scotland, and she knew she just had to be involved.
    If she wasn’t going to let the naysayings of her siblings get in her way, there was no way in hell she was going to allow a Highlander dressed as a priest obstruct her, either.
    “Can we stop soon?” she asked, trying for meek , though it soured her belly. According to most men, a woman should know her place, and heavens knew, her family chaplain had preached it enough. ’Haps if she curbed her tongue, this devil priest would be more lenient, allowing her a chance to escape.
    “Nay.” Too serious. Had he guessed her intent?
    “But I’ve need to…” God, her skin heated more at the mention of relieving herself than it had when he’d teased her about him giving women rides.
    “Hold it,” he instructed cruelly.
    “But—”
    “Lass, I’ll nay be stopping. We’re being followed.”
    “Followed?” That sent a chill cascading along her spine. She didn’t want to be saved. Not yet, anyway. And if anyone was doing the saving, she wanted it to be William Wallace or Robert the Bruce.
    Her adventure had only just begun.
    “Aye. Now hush and hold on.”
    He spurred his horse onward, the poor animal covered in a lather of sweat as he’d been pushed faster and harder. Priest leaned forward, crushing her back with his muscled chest and forcing her to lean closer to the horse’s neck. The hair from his mane flicked painfully onto her cheeks, and she squeezed her eyes shut to keep from watching the ground sweep by beneath their feet.
    Heather wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck and prayed they’d make it without either of them falling.
    Priest veered sharply to the right. Seconds, and many slapping branches, later, they broke through the trees and raced across a rising and falling moor. The sun beamed down on them, feeling like it was burning the top of her head. Why, she asked herself for the hundredth time that day, had she chosen to wear so many darn layers?
    They followed a winding, dirt-packed road. One Heather had ridden on the many