"I don't understand."

"The confrontation with my brother left emotion I need to burn away, but if I burn it the way I want to, I will break the promise I made to you."

"I don't care if you do," she admitted, her voice almost pleading.

He shuddered. "I would care," he said harshly.

She sat up, as far away from him as she could get while still sitting on his hard thighs. There was another hardness there, too, one that moved under his plaid, and she knew he was not stretching the truth when he said his control was precarious. But that did not make her feel better about his rejection.

"Because you would feel committed to me and you don't want to?" she asked painfully.

"Yes. You are a virgin."

"And if I offer you my virginity?"

"You offer it because I have enticed you to feel things you are not used to, because it is a full moon, because I am close to my… too close to you. I should not have started this tonight, but you make me lose my head."

"So you think we are both out of control?"

"Yes."

"But I do not have excess emotion I need to rid my body of." Unless they were talking about love and they weren't. "If I offer myself, I know what I am doing."

"You don't. There are things about tonight you do not understand. Things you don't know."

"And these things mean I do not know my own mind?"

"Yes."

"Why does it matter so much?"

"I will not break my word to you. I will not take advantage of my beast."

Now that she knew what she did, she understood he wasn't using beast as a euphemism for lust. He meant the wolf inside of him, she was sure of it, but she did not comprehend how his being a werewolf had anything to do with her offering herself. It did not matter though. Not really.

She wouldn't beg. She didn't need to understand his reasoning to realize that if he wanted her anything like she desired him, he would have accepted her offer. With alacrity. It might hurt to admit the truth, but it was obvious that while the feeling might be mutual, it wasn't mutually intense. But then how much of her desire was bound up in the love she felt for him? He liked touching her, but he did not love her.

There would be no comparison between the need generated by the two.

Blinking back tears and swallowing her hurt, she traced the blue pattern that circled his bicep. This was his Chrechte marking, or at least one of them. The other was on his back. She realized now the simplistic beast on his back was probably supposed to represent a wolf, but the tattoo band on his arm was different. None of the other warriors had it.

"Is this to mark you as clan chief?" she asked, wanting to distract herself from thoughts of love.

He gave a strange kind of shiver and gently pushed her hand away. "Yes."

"It's beautiful," she said as the blue markings blurred before her dampening eyes. He would not even allow her to touch him in this innocent way.

"God willing, my son will have the same marking one day."

She blinked furiously. "Your son?"

"I must have sons."

"And daughters?"

"I would welcome daughters, too."

Just not by her… because even if it were possible, however unlikely, there was still the risk their children would be born human rather than shape-changers. "Why haven't you married?"

"I was barely past my voice change when I took over leading the clan. Many pressed me to marry then, but I did not want to. I was too wild and there was too much to do to learn how to be a good clan chief. Now, it is a matter of taking the time to select a wife. My position consumes every waking hour."

"Not right now. Not this morning when you were teaching me to swim."

"You make me forget my duties."

Having gained control of her tears, she could meet his dark gaze without flinching. "Is that a good or a bad thing?"

He looked down at her for a long time, the golden circles around his dark irises almost swallowing the brown. They had never looked more like wolf's eyes to her.

He brushed a kiss across her still lips before pulling back again. "It is a precious thing."

Was she wrong? Did she mean something to him, even if they couldn't have a future? "What I feel with you is precious to me, too."

He stood up, dumping her off his lap. "It is only lust."

She swayed as if struck. "For you, maybe."

"Do not love me, English."

That was beyond anything. Bad enough that he thought he could dictate everything else. He could not dictate her feelings. "I will love you if I want to. If my heart ends up broken because of it, that is my own affair."

She wanted to rush off in anger, but at the last second she remembered her promise to Cait. Though she had almost no hope of her seduction plan being a success, she asked, "You will come for me tomorrow, to my room, before the swimming lesson?"

"Mayhap you should have Cait teach you to swim. You are right. I have neglected my duties too much already in favor of spending time with you."

She had not said that, but it was obviously what he believed. Precious? Not likely. She almost gave a snort worthy of Ulf, but stopped herself. The important thing was to keep him from the lake, she had to remember. Not for her to overcome her fear of the water.

"As you wish." She turned and started walking away.

"Damn it, Emily."

She ignored him and kept walking.

His hand heavy on her shoulder, he stopped her in the shadows between an archway and the wall. Neither said anything for several heartbeats.

Finally she asked, "Was there something you wanted?"

He turned her to face him, his expression an inscrutable mask in the darkness beyond the candlelight. "You did not request permission to leave me."

"I do not believe this." She fisted her hands and settled them on her hips in a way that Sybil deplored. "I am not one of your clan members. I am only a captive. I do not owe you that courtesy, or any other for that matter."

"First you speak of loving me and then declare I am not worthy of your respect. Which is it, English?" he asked in a mocking voice that infuriated her.

"I did not say I loved you, merely that I would if I wanted to. You cannot dictate everything, laird. It would take a very stupid woman to fall in love with a man who sees every moment spent in her company as a waste of his time."

"I did not say that."

"You did."

He sighed, conceding defeat in the only way he knew how maybe… silence. After a protracted pause, he said, "I did not mean to hurt you."

"I did not say you hurt me and it is horribly conceited of you to assume you did."

"It is not conceit to note the way your lip quivers when you are trying not to cry or the fact that you cannot wait to be quit of my company because I have told you some unpalatable truths."

"Your truth, as you call it, is not anything I did not know before. You need not concern yourself and if my lip quivered, it is probably because I wanted to kiss you again. More the fool me. Apparently lust has no limits, even for an intelligent woman."

"Or an intelligent man," he muttered. "Since it is what we both crave, mayhap I should kiss you again."

"Do you think you can spare the time?"

His answer was a kiss so carnal that her body locked in shock. He forced his tongue past her only partially parted lips and took control of the interior of her mouth like the marauder he was. Where before it had all been about lazy pleasure, now he held nothing back. His hands were everywhere, touching her body in impossible intimacy through her clothes and she did not protest, but begged for more with little mewling noises, arching toward his roaming fingers.

This was what she wanted. This was what she craved.

She felt herself lifted and pressed against the cold stone wall, but she was not cold. She was so hot her skin burned with it. He pressed his big, hard body to hers, the bulge she had felt earlier rubbing against the apex of her thighs through her dress. She shuddered in pleasure and pushed back, seeking a relief from the agony of pleasure spearing through her.

He yanked her skirts up, baring her legs, and she wrapped them around his hips with an instinctual sensuality that she did not question. This time when she rubbed against his hardened flesh under his plaid, arrows of sweet pleasure pierced her with each tiny movement. He surged against her, increasing her enjoyment beyond what she thought her body could bear.

Then as suddenly as he had started, he stopped and yanked his mouth from hers.

"Lachlan?" she asked, her tone pleading and she did not care.

"We are no longer alone," he whispered right next to her ear before slowly unwinding her legs from his body and lowering her to the floor.

She stood, swaying before him. And it was several seconds before his words made sense to her. Eventually, the other noises in the hall besides her own labored breathing and fast heartbeat penetrated her consciousness. Though she could not see them, she could hear a group of soldiers that had gathered by the fireplace. From their comments it was obvious they were waiting for Lachlan to join them.

Tears of frustration welled and spilled over.

Lachlan said something she did not understand, grabbed her and kissed her again. His hand went down her body and rucked up her skirt and then he touched her sweet spot, once… twice and everything inside her exploded. Her body bowed against his and he kept his hand where it was, increasing the pleasure until she collapsed against him, her legs too weak to hold her.