Chapter Sixteen
The kiss should not have happened.
Claire knew it with perfect clarity the moment Lachlan’s mouth left hers.
The Highland night rushed back around them—wind skimming the loch, the distant bark of a deer hound, the low, breathing presence of the keep behind its stone walls. Somewhere beyond the glen, a wolf howled—long and hollow, a reminder the world had teeth.
Yet nothing felt the same.
She remained where she stood, one hand still resting lightly against Lachlan’s chest, as though her body refused to accept what her mind insisted must be true. His heartbeat was steady beneath her palm. Too steady. As if he were holding the storm inside him by sheer force of will.
“You see?” she said softly.
Lachlan did not step away. If anything, he leaned closer, as though distance were a thing he no longer trusted himself to keep. “See what?”
“This is precisely the sort of complication which occurs when kidnappers begin to behave charmingly.”
Despite everything, despite the danger pressing in from every side, his mouth curved.
“Aye,” he murmured. “I warned ye.”
Her breathing had yet to return to anything resembling reason. Claire lowered her hand slowly, though every instinct urged her to leave it where it was, to feel the grounding warmth a moment longer.
“You did not warn me about your troublesome ways.”
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes, darker now, edged with something far less controlled.
“Neither did I warn meself.”
The admission settled between them, heavy and unguarded.
Another howl echoed, closer this time.
Claire felt it like a thread pulled tight through her spine. The world was still there—danger, duty, consequences waiting just beyond the fragile circle of this moment.
And yet . . .
For one reckless heartbeat, she wanted none of it. Not England. Not her father’s expectations. Not the uncertain fate which had brought her here.
Not even the truth of how precarious her position truly was.
Only this.
Only him.
The wind rose, tugging at her skirts, carrying with it the distant crash of the sea against the cliffs—restless, relentless, as though the land itself refused peace.
Claire drew in an unsteady breath. She kissed him, who was she becoming?
“Then perhaps,” she said, her voice quieter now, thinner with the effort of restraint, “we should both pretend it did not happen.”
Lachlan’s expression did not change, but something in him tightened—something perilous and unwilling.
“Can ye?” he asked.
The question struck too deep, too true. Because she could still feel him.
Still taste him.
Still sense how easily the world had fallen away when his mouth claimed hers—how the fear, the uncertainty, even the looming threat circling his lands had faded into nothing more than distant noise.
Claire turned toward the loch rather than answer, her gaze fixing on the dark water, where moonlight fractured across the surface like something broken and beautiful.
Behind her, he did not move.
And neither of them spoke of how close they had come, not only to each other, but to forgetting everything waiting just beyond the door.
# # #
He had made a mistake.
Not the kiss itself.
God help him, he would never regret the kiss.
He could still feel her—lingering on his mouth, in the ache of his chest, in the way his body had turned toward hers as if drawn by something older than sense.
Soft, yes—but not fragile. There had been strength in her, a quiet fire beneath the grace, as though she carried storms inside silk.
Bollocks. She had no notion, none at all, how completely she could undo a man.
For one moment—reckless and blinding—he had wanted to let it happen.
To let everything else fall away.
The riders.
The growing threat in the south.
The endless burden of decisions carved into him since boyhood—land, clan, blood, duty.
All of it had faded beneath the simple, devastating reality of her.
Even the wolves.
Especially the wolves.
Because they were real. Because they were close. Because they did not wait for a man to indulge in foolish desires before closing their jaws.
And still—for a single breath—he had wanted to forget them.
The true mistake lay there.
In allowing himself to believe, even briefly, he could claim something for himself without consequence. That he could take what he wanted and still keep her untouched by the storm gathering at his borders.
She trusted him and he hadn’t told her why he took her.
Did he owe her the truth since they had shared an intimacy?
He shook his head and sighed. Lady Claire Ashford was not made for what was coming.
She belonged to another world, one of order and rules and safety he had never known. A world where harm could be kept at bay if one simply followed the proper path.
There was no such path here.
And yet, against all reason, she had stepped directly into the heart of it.
Into him.
Lachlan’s jaw tightened as he looked out over the dark stretch of land beyond the loch, where shadows pooled and shifted with the wind.
The riders seen near the southern passes were no random scouts.
They had purpose and hunger.
Bollocks, they were searching.
And Lachlan knew—deep in his bones, with a certainty born of instinct and hard-won experience—they were no longer searching blindly.