The Highlander's Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

guidance. They'd need her to be strong for them. “I don't know how to do this.”
    Her fingers curled in the soft wool of his plaid. “Help me.”
    “Easy, Jenny,” Iaen said in his thickly accented French. “All will work out.”
    She peeked up as he pushed the door to his room open. A cold breeze brushed across her when it swept shut. “Iaen...I mean...milord.” For Pete's sake, she didn't know what she meant or what to call him.
    “In this chamber, call me Iaen.”
    A foreign emotion kicked hard in her chest. If she had to put a name on the emotions tugging at her heart, she'd call them lust and indebtedness. “Iaen?”
    “Aye, lass.” His voice was a balm to her flagging spirits and a reminder she wasn't alone in this new, scary world. “Do you really think everything will work out?”
    The confused expression shadowing his face rejuvenated the aches tying her muscles in knots. “It's okay if you don't understand me. Damn, half the time, I don't understand me.” She ended with a shaky giggle.
    He settled her in the middle of his bed. Her gaze trailed after him when he went to the hearth and stirred the fire to life. Iaen was the epitome of strength and carried an indelible aura of personal fortitude. She wished she could be so self-assured.
    He rose to his impressive height. Haloed by the blaze burning on the iron grate, she sensed the raw power flowing off his shoulders. Audibly gulping against the lump of emotions growing in her throat, Jenny traced her fingers over the quilting that worked its way through the coverlet. They felt their way to a swath of plaid draping a long line down the left side of the bed. “I must seem awfully pathetic to you.”
    The tension grew inside in the room as he stood with his back to her. A palpable pall she didn't have the strength to think her way through or out of. He said something to her quickly, quietly. It might have been French, but she couldn't be sure. “I'm sorry, I didn't understand you.”
    “Say, aye, I agree.” He propped his hands on the mantle for a long moment before he turned around. She wondered if he was pondering the problem they were. Finally, he focused his attention on her face.
    “Why?”
    “Say the words, Jenny.”
    It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it. The tone conveyed urgency, but the steady blue stare he’d leveled on her whispered, ‘it’ll be okay’. “Aye, I agree?” I think . The warmth from the fire soothed her raw nerves. His steadying presence lulled her after he relaxed his stance. She hid a yawn behind her hand. “Is something going on?”
    He didn't answer until he'd strode across the room and sat on the side of the bed. “Jenny....” He seemed to search for the words. “I need you to trust me.”
    It was a tall order. Trying to phrase her response so he got the gist of it, she ended up shrugging. “I can try.” That was about as far as she was willing to go.
    He moved closer to her. His enormous hand cupped her skull in his firm grasp. “I cannae ask you for more, lass.”
    The overwhelming urge to curl against him took over. She leaned in at the same moment he dipped his head. She lingered in his kiss, loving the slow, sensual touch of his mouth on hers. He tasted like a wonderful combination of mint, wine and masculinity.
    Her fingers stroked up his arms to clasp his shoulders then ventured on to toy with his hair. Relaxing back, he followed her down. In the firelight, his brilliant blue eyes appeared to be smoldering cobalt. “This is nice.”
    He flashed a thoroughly masculine smile to show his even white teeth. Lowering his head for a second kiss, he halted his head’s decent an inch above her lips. “I'm glad you approve, my lady.”
    She met his passion from that moment on. His lips moved over hers with slow determination until she basked in a glorious glow of their making. She strained to get closer to him. A wonderment he wove around her with cutting ability and stunning ease pulled her