Page 34 of The Scot’s Secret

When Alex didn’t answer, Clara turned to face him. “I’m sorry. . . .”

“It was a. . . difficult time,” he finally said.

Clara wished she had not turned. Although darkness had fallen in truth, just enough moonlight made its way into the tent for her to see his face clearly. Though she tried to keep her tone even, she was afraid her voice would betray her.

“But she’s quite safe now, is she not?”

When he looked at her like that, Clara felt anything but safe. Safe meant distant. Not getting too close. And the heat and hunger in his eyes promised to blast away all of the walls that had kept her safe these last years.

She looked away.

“Why do you turn from me?” he said, his voice husky and so intimately close.

“Because of the way you are looking at me.”

“And how am I looking at you?”

She gave her attention fully to the peak of the tent, not daring to turn her head back.

“As if you want to kiss me.”

She’d become much too blunt since her time with Gilbert.

So be it.

“I look at you that way because I do wish to kiss you,” Alex said.

She forced herself not to move.

“’Twould not be a good idea.”

“Aye lass, I agree.”

She did look at him then.

He was smiling.

“I am a virgin,” she blurted out.

“I know.”

“How could you possibly know such a thing? It’s not—”

“Because of the way you move away from me, as if you’re afraid I will devour you at any moment.”

“And will you?”

Her heart thudded as she waited for his answer. And which answer, precisely, did she want him to give?

“Likely, aye. Which is why you should go to sleep.”

He closed his eyes, his face so much softer when he did so. In repose, the warrior almost looked like a regular man.

He was anything but.

Clara turned away again, attempting to breathe normally. It was simply impossible. She would never be able to sleep like this.

* * *