But as his vision started to work again and the hot tumult of his blood ebbed, he looked at her and knew he couldn’t give in to his base impulses.
She remained where he’d left her, huddled against the ground. In the stronger light, he saw her clearly at last. And wished to Hades he’d left the room in darkness.
Fiona looked afraid and defeated. Her face was pale, and her huge blue eyes were bruised and desolate as she stared at him in complete bewilderment. Worse, the flickering light picked up what he’d felt when he touched her cheeks. Tracks of tears. Tears she still shed. It was eerie, how silently she cried.
The lips she’d pressed so hard against his were red and swollen. He refused to call that desperate contact a kiss.
When he made a sweeping gesture in her direction, she flinched.
The anger and frustration churning in his gut turned to sick horror. Surely she couldn’t imagine he meant violence. Of course she did. What else did she know of men but brutality? His loathing for the Grants rose another notch.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said, his voice bitter. “You’re safe.”
Because they both knew she’d come close to not being safe at all. There had been an instant in that excruciating embrace where he’d nearly hauled her under him and thrust inside her.
He watched her straighten and slide back. She pressed against the wall, as if she tried to burrow her way out of the cottage. He finally realized what she was wearing, and dangerous male hunger stirred to life once again, making a travesty of his belief that he’d regained his self-control.
Her flimsy shift did little to hide her body. The long, graceful legs. The alluring line of hip and waist. The luscious roundness of her breasts with their beaded tips. He wasn’t fool enough to imagine that those hard nipples meant she was sexually excited.
The first night after he found her, he’d seen her close to undressed. The memory had tortured his every moment since. Now, God damn it, fate delivered another image of Fiona Grant’s half-naked body to drive him insane.
Diarmid stood still, breathing deeply and battling for restraint. It was a long time before he felt sufficiently in charge of his impulses to approach her. When she flinched away again, guilt knotted his belly.
Stopping a couple of feet away, he fished his handkerchief out of his pocket. As he held it out to her, he struggled not to stare at the delicate architecture of her collarbones under the sagging shift. “Wipe your eyes.”
She swallowed. He felt her hesitation like a blow to his solar plexus, before an unsteady hand reached to take the handkerchief.
Fiona didn’t immediately wipe her cheeks. Instead she kept staring at him with that wounded, questioning gaze, while she twisted the square of white lawn between shaking hands.
On unsteady legs, Diarmid backed away, hoping a greater distance between them might reassure her. The wild race of his heart slowed. She looked so frail and defenseless, he felt like the worst kind of degenerate for what he wanted to do to her.
Wanted to do even now, as the fraught silence built between them.
She bit her lip and raised her chin. These signs of returning self-possession eased his tension, until she spoke.
“Why?” she asked, her usually sweet voice a croak.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Ye dinna want this.”
“You do.” The self-hatred that flooded her face made his guilt rear up like a striking cobra. “Or did I get that wrong?”
God give him strength. He wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about his unwelcome desire for her. But her aching vulnerability meant he had to.
“No, ye didnae get that wrong,” he muttered.
She made a helpless gesture. “Then…”
His mouth tightened. “I’ve never taken an unwilling woman in my life. I’m no’ going to start now.”
“I came to you.”
“Ye dinna owe me anything.”
To his surprise, grim amusement tugged at that lush mouth. “Of course I do, Diarmid. And this is all I have to give in return.”
She was so proud, it threatened to tear his heart to shreds. What chance did he have against her? He’d wanted her like the devil, even when he believed her a thief and a liar. Now he knew the full extent of her courage and her sacrifice, she was utterly irresistible.
But resist her he must.