Page 57 of The Laird who Craved her

"Ye looked entertained enough without me help."

"I was beingpoliteto a guest, Finn. That is precisely what a lady of this keep is meant to do."

"A lady of the keep doesnae let a strange man kiss her hand in front of the whole clan."

"He was telling a story!" Her hands curled into fists at her sides. "He was being kind, which is apparently a language ye refuse to learn!"

"Kind." Finn's laugh was short and humorless, scraping against the stone walls. "He was imaginin' what ye'd look like in his bed, Claire, and dinnae tell me otherwise, because I ken exactly what a man thinks when he looks at ye like that."

"He did nay such thing!"

"I have eyes." He leaned in, close enough that she caught the rain and woodsmoke smell of him, close enough that her pulse climbed without her permission. "And I ken exactly what mine were doin', which is why I left before I put a fist through his teeth."

Her breath caught, half at the words, half at how close his mouth had come to hers without either of them moving. "You have nay right to be jealous of him."

"I have every right."

"Every time I get close to ye," she pressed on, though her voice had lost some of its heat, "ye push me away. Ye remind me it's a contract. Ye tell me it's temporary. And the one time I speak to another man, ye nearly overturn the high table."

Finn said nothing. His jaw worked, the muscle jumping visibly along the line of it, and for one long moment the only sound in the corridor was the wind battering the shutters somewhere above them.

"Explain it," she said, softer now. "How can you send me to Leo with one breath and glare murder at Ewan Sinclair with the next?"

"Because ye're me betrothed, Claire," he said, low, before he could stop the words leaving him. "Ye're mine. I willnae let another man touch ye."

The corridor went very still.

He had not meant to say it so harshly. The words had snapped loose from somewhere he usually kept locked behind iron discipline, and now they hung between them in the cold, damp air. He watched them land on her face, watched her lips part in shock around a breath she did not take.

He should take it back, but he did not.

"I am nae yer property to command, Finn MacRae," she hissed, the fire returning to her eyes in a brilliant flash. "I was merely speaking to him."

"Ye let him closer than ye should have," he ground out, stepping nearer. "Smilin' up at Ewan Sinclair while half me men watched and wondered."

"He was being polite! Something ye clearly ken nothing about." Her voice cracked like a whip, and something in his chest tightened with it, some old, defensive wall he'd built brick by brick. "Why should ye care who I smile at if ye mean to cast me out anyway?"

Because Sinclair looks at ye like he wants to drag ye into the heather.The thought tasted like copper even as it formed. Young. Whole. Unburdened by a clan on the brink of slaughter.He opened his mouth to say she was under his protection, that it was a matter of pride, but what came out was rawer, uglier.

"Because while ye are under me roof, ye bear me name," he snarled. "And the thought of another man thinkin' he has a right to yer attentions puts somethin' savage in me I dinnae ken how to control."

She stared at him, and he watched the shock of his temper move through her, watched her chest rise and fall too fast beneath her bodice.

"It's madness," he said, stepping forward again, and she stepped back until her shoulders met the cold stone and there was nowhere left for her to go. "The contract is a sham, I ken that better than any man alive. But I willnae have him lookin' at ye as if ye are his for the takin'."

"He only kissed me hand!"

"I dinnae care." He planted a hand against the wall beside her head, not quite touching her, close enough that he could feel the heat coming off her skin. "I dinnae care if he only looked at the hem of yer skirt. I willnae have it."

"You're completely out of yer mind," she breathed, her chin tilting up defiantly, her eyes never leaving his.

"Aye." He let his forehead drop until it rested against hers, the movement sharp and involuntary. The contact alone nearlyundid every careful year of control he'd built since his father died in the mud. "I am losin' it. And ye are the one takin' it from me, with yer stubbornness and yer reckless smiles."

"Then let me go," she challenged, her hands coming up to push against the leather over his chest. But they didn't push. They rested there, light, uncertain, and it was worse than if she'd struck him. "If I am such a burden to your pride, why are we standing in this hallway?"

He felt the war in himself the way he felt a blade edge testing armor, looking for the seam.I am tryin' to keep order. I am tryin' to be the Laird they need. I am tryin' to send her away so she survives.

"Because ye infuriate me," he breathed, his eyes shutting against the shudder moving through him.