HIGHLANDER IN HER dreams
Sneak Peek Excerpt from the Second Prologue
~ In this scene, Kira is enjoying her first trip to Scotland . The coach tour bus has stopped for a quick photo break at Castle Wrath, a cliff-top castle ruin on the Isle of Skye . As the sneak peek opens, Kira is trying to persuade the bus driver to let her picnic at the ruins. ~
~ Wee Hughie MacSporran is the intrepid storytelling tour guide ~
***
“Here?” The bus driver's brows shot upward. He eyed the clumpy grass at the roadside, the peaty little burn not far from where they stood. “Do you have any idea how many sheep-pats are scattered hereabouts? Och, nay, here's no place for a lunch stop.”
Looking sure of it, he glanced at the other tour-goers, some already filing back into the bus. “I canna see anyone in this group wanting to picnic here.”
“I didn't mean the others.” Kira seized her chance. “I meant just me. And not here, along the roadway,” she added, casting a wistful look toward Castle Wrath. “I'd like to spend an hour or two out at the ruins. Eat my lunch there and do a bit of exploring.”
She looked back at the bus driver, giving him her most hopeful smile. “It would be the highlight of my trip. Something special that I'd cherish forever.”
The driver stared at her for a few moments, then began rubbing his chin with the back of his hand. He said nothing but the look he was giving her wasn't encouraging.
“You could pick me up on the way back to Portree.” Kira rushed the words before he could say no. “Two hours is all I ask. More if you'd need the time to come for me. I wouldn't mind the wait.”
“That ruin really is haunted,” he warned her. “Wee Hughie wasn't lying. Strange things have been known to happen there. The place is right dangerous, too. It's no' one of those fancy historical sites run by the National Trust.”
He turned piercing blue eyes on her. “Everything at Wrath stands as it was, untouched by man all down the centuries. Och, nay, you canna go there. The cliff is riddled with underground tunnels, stairwells and rooms, much of it already crumbled into the sea.”
“Oh, please,” Kira pleaded, feeling as if the ancient stones were actually calling to her. “I'll be careful, I promise.”
The bus driver set his jaw and Kira's heart plummeted when he glanced at his watch. “Come, lass. Think with your head, no' your heart. We'll tour Dunvegan Castle in the morning, before we leave for Inverness . You'll like Dunvegan much better. It's furnished and has a gift shop-”
“Which is why Castle Wrath is so special.” Kira's throat began to thicken with her need to reach the ruins. “It's not overrun with tourists. It hasn't been spoiled.” She paused to draw a breath. “My parents worked overtime for a year to give me this trip and I can't imagine ever getting back. Visiting Scotland doesn't figure in my budget.”
The driver grunted. Then he nudged at a cluster of heather roots, his hesitation giving her hope.
“I've ne'er had anything happen to anyone on one of my tours.” He looked at her, a troubled frown knitting his brow. “One false step out there and you'd find yourself in some underground chamber, maybe even standing at the very wall of the cliff, the earth opening away at your feet and falling straight down to the sea.”
“Nothing will happen to me.” Kira lifted her chin, tightening her grip on the lunch packet. “Believe me, anyone used to walking around downtown Philly can poke around Scottish castle ruins.”
“Ach, well.” The driver gave a resigned sigh. “I still dinna like it. No' at all.”
Kira smiled. “I won't give you cause to be sorry.”
“I'd have to double back to fetch you,” he said, rubbing his chin again. “It's a straight shot from Kilt Rock south to Portree. The others might not like-”
“I'll make it up to them,” Kira exclaimed, her heart soaring. “I'll never be late getting back to the bus again and I promise not to ask for extra time in the bookshops.”
“Just have a care,” he said, his brow still furrowed. “Wrath is an odd place, true as I'm here. I'd ne'er forgive myself if harm came to you.”
Then he was gone, striding away and herding his charges into the bus as if he needed a speedy departure to keep him from changing his mind.
A distinct possibility, she was sure.
So she didn't release her breath until the big blue and white Highland Coach Tours bus rumbled away, disappearing at last around a bend in the road.
Alone at last, she allowed herself one doubtful glance at the nearest sheep-pats, certain they'd suddenly increased in size and number. But she steeled herself as quickly, putting back her shoulders and lifting her chin. Making ready for the long march across the grassy field to get to the ruins.
Ahead of her was an unhurried world of hills, cloud and mist.
Mist?
She blinked. She'd heard how quickly Highland weather could change, but this was ridiculous.
She blinked again but the mist remained.
The day had definitely darkened, turning just a shade uninviting.
She peered over her shoulder, scanning the road behind her but the sky in that direction stretched as clear and bright blue as before. Cozy-looking threads of smoke still rose from the chimney of a croft house not far from where the bus had parked and if the sea glittered any more brilliantly, she'd need sunglasses.
Only Castle Wrath had fallen into shadow, its eerie silhouette silent against waters now the color of cold, dark slate.
She took a deep breath and kept her chin lifted. Already, sea mist was dampening her cheeks and the chill wetness in the air made the day smell peaty and old.
No, not old.
Ancient.
She started forward, refusing to be unsettled. She liked ancient and this was just the kind of atmosphere she'd come to Scotland to see.
So why were her palms growing clammy? Her nerves threatening to go all jittery and her mouth bone dry?
She frowned. Bedwells weren't known for being faint-hearts.
But bone hadn't been a very wise word choice.
It summoned Wee Hughie's tales about wailing, foot-stomping ghosts, but she pushed his words from her mind, opting instead to dwell on the other images he'd conjured. Namely that of the great and powerful MacDonald chieftains, preferring to think of them as they'd been in their glory days rather than as they might be now, skulking about in the ruined shell of their one-time stronghold, bemoaning the passing centuries, their ancient battle cries lost on the wind.
Thinking she could use a battle cry of her own, she marched on, looking out for sheep-pats and huddling deeper into her jacket.
Scudding mists blew across her vision and the pounding of the waves grew louder with each forward step. She could still see Castle Wrath looming on the far side of the high, three-sided promontory, but the rocky spit of land leading out to it was proving more narrow and steep than she'd judged.
Kira's heart began to pound. She quickened her pace, her excitement cresting when she caught her first glimpse of Wrath Bay and the deep grooves scoring the smooth flat rocks of its surf-beaten shore.
Just as Wee Hughie MacSporran had said.
Then she was there, the heart of the ruins opening up before her. All thought of the medieval landing beach and its ancient keel marks vanished from her mind.
A labyrinth of tall rough-hewn walls, uneven ground and tumbled stone, the impact of the ruins stopped her heart. The remains of the curtain walls clung to the cliff edges, windswept and dangerous, but what really caught her eye was the top half of an imposing medieval gateway.
Still bearing traces of a beautifully incised Celtic design, the gateway raged up out of the rubble, its grass-grown arch framing the sea and the jagged black rocks of the nearby island she knew to be Wrath Isle.
Without doubt, she'd never seen a wilder, more romantic place. A one-time Norse fortalice, Vikings once walked and caroused here.
Real live Vikings.
Big brawny men shouting praise to Thor and Odin as they raised brimming drinking horns and gnawed on huge ribs of fire-roasted beef.
Kira drew a deep breath, trying hard not to pinch herself.
Especially when she thought about the Norsemen's successors. Wee Hughie MacSporran's Celtic warrior chieftains, the kind of larger-than-life heroes she could only dream about.
Bold and virile men who could only belong to a place like this.
A place of myth and legend.
Looking around, she was sure of it.
Shifting curtains of mist swirled everywhere, drifting low across the overgrown grass and fallen masonry, softening the edges and making it seem as if she were seeing the world through a translucent silken veil.
And what a world it was.
The constant roar of the sea and the loud whooshing of the wind were fitting, too, giving the place an otherworldly feel she'd never have experienced on a clear, sun-bright day.
She set down her lunch packet and stepped into the sheltering lee of a wall, not quite ready to spoil the moment.
Nor was she reckless.
Rough bent grass and fallen stones weren't the only things littering the ground that must've once been the castle's inner bailey. Winking at her from a wild tangle of nettles and bramble bushes, deep crevices opened darkly into the earth. Silent abysses of blackness that could only be the underground passages, stairwells and vaults she'd been warned about.
Almost tasting her need to explore those abysses, she took a deep breath, drinking in chill air ripe with the tang of the sea and damp stone, an irresistible shimmer of excitement she couldn't quite put her finger on.
She pressed her hands against the stones, splaying her fingers across their cold and gritty surface, not at all surprised to imagine a faint vibration humming somewhere deep inside them.
She felt a distant thrumming real enough to send a chill through her and even lead her to imagine the sounds of loud masculine laughter and song. The sharp blasts of a trumpeter's fanfare. Barking dogs and a series of thin, high-pitched squeals.
Excited feminine squeals.
Kira frowned and took her hands off the wall.
The sounds stopped at once.
Or, she admitted, she recognized them for what they'd been: the rushing of the wind and nothing else. Even if the tingles spilling through her said otherwise.
An odd prickling sensation she knew wouldn't stop until she'd peered into the one of the earth-and-rubble clogged gaps in Castle Wrath's bailey.
Her lunch forgotten, she considered her options. She wasn't about to march across the nettle-filled courtyard and risk plunging into some bottomless medieval pit, meeting an early grave. Or, at the very least, twist an ankle and ruin the remainder of her trip. But the shell of one of Castle Wrath's great drum-towers stood slightly tilted to her left, a scant fifty feet away.
Best of all, in the shadow of the tower's hulk she could make out the remains of a stairwell. A dark, downward spiraling turnpike stair that filled her with such a sense of wonder she didn't realize she'd moved until she found herself hovering on its weathered threshold. An impenetrable blackness stared back at her, so deep its dank, earthy-smelling chill lifted the fine hairs on her nape.
Something was down there.
Something more than nerves and imagination.
The sudden tightness in her chest and the cold hard knot forming in her belly assured her of it. As did the increasing dryness of her mouth and the racing of her pulse, the faint flickering torchlight filling the stairwell.
Flickering torchlight?
Kira's eyes flew wide, her jaw dropping. She grabbed the edges of the crumbling stairwell's doorway, holding tight, but there could be no mistake. The light was flaring brighter now, shining hotly and illuminating the cold stone walls and the impossibly medieval-looking Highland chieftain staring up at her from the bottom of the stairs, the vaulted hallows of his crowded, well-lit great hall looming behind him.
That it was his hall couldn't be questioned.
She'd bet her plane ticket back to Newark that a more lairdly man had never walked the earth. Nor a sexier one. A towering raven-haired giant, clad in rough-looking tartan-and calfskin and hung about with gleaming mail and bold Celtic jewelry, power and sheer male animal magnetism rolled off him, stealing her breath and watering her knees.
Making her question her sanity.
If someone on the bus tour had slipped something into her tepid breakfast tea.
Something that would make her hallucinate.
Imagine the hunky Highlander who couldn't really be there.
Just as she couldn't really be hearing the sounds of medieval merrymaking.
Feasting noises, she was sure. The same raucous male laughter and bursts of trumpet fanfares and song she'd heard earlier, the collective din of a celebrating throng – not that she cared.
A marching brass band could stomp past and blast her right off the cliff-top, as long as he stood glaring up at her, the world as Kira Bedwell had known and loved it, ceased to exist.
And he was glaring.
Every gorgeous muscle-ripped inch of him.
He'd locked gazes with her, glowering at her as only a fierce, hot-eyed, broad-sword packing Highlander could do. A truth she hadn't known until this very moment, but one she'd take with her to her grave.
If she lived that long.
The too-dishy-to-be-real Highlander might have a patent on sex appeal, but he was also armed to the teeth. A huge two-handed sword hung from a wide leather shoulder-belt slung across his chest and a glittering array of other equally wicked-looking medieval weapons peeked at her from beneath his voluminous tartan plaid. Not that he needed such a display of steel. O-o-oh, no. Such a man probably uprooted trees with one hand for exercise.
Big trees.
And at the moment, she felt incredibly tree-like.
She swallowed hard, pressing her fingers more firmly against the stone edges of the door arch. Any further movement wasn't an option. Her legs had gone all rubbery and even if she could take a step backward, away from the opening, she just knew he'd charge up the stairs if she did.
Stairs that no longer looked worn and crumbling, but new and unlittered, wholly free of bits of fallen rubble and earth, the thick weeds that had clogged the top of the stairwell mere moments before.
She squeezed shut her eyes and opened them again. “This can't be happening,” she gasped, jerking her hands off the now-smooth edges of the door arch.
“Nay, it canna be,” the Highlander agreed, his voice a deep velvety burr as he angled his head at her, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Though I would know why it is!”
The words held a bold challenge, the suspicion in his eyes changing swiftly to something else.
Something darkly seductive and dangerous.
“Och, aye, I would hear the why of it.” He tossed back his hair, the look he was giving her almost a physical touching. “Nor am I one to no' welcome a comely lass into my hall – howe'er strange her raiments.”
“Raiments?” Kira blinked.
“Your hose, sweetness.” His gaze dropped to her legs, lingering there just long enough to make her squirm. “I've ne'er seen the like on a woman. No' that I'm complaining.”
Kira swallowed. “Y-you can't be … anything. You're not even there.”
“Ho! So you say?” He looked down at his plaid, flicking its edge. “If my plaid's real, than I vow I am, too. Nay, lass, ‘tis you who canna be here.”
“You're a ghost.”
He laughed. “Since I haven't died yet, that's no' possible.”
“I was told anything is possible in Scotland and now I believe it!” Kira stared at him. “Whatever you are.”
He flashed a roguish grin and started forward, mounting the tight, winding steps with long, easy strides. “‘Tis laird of this keep, I am.” His deep burr filled the stairwell, rich, sonorous, and real as the chill bumps on her arms. “I'm also a man – as I can prove if you wish!”
Reaching her, he seized her shoulders, his grip strong and firm, warm even through the thickness of her jacket. He stepped close, so near the hilt of his sword pressed into her hip. “Now, lass,” he said, his gaze scorching her, “tell me. Do I feel like a ghost?”
Kira sucked in a breath. “No, but-”
“Exactly.” His mouth curved with a triumphant smile. “‘Tis you who is out of place, no' me. Though I vow you dinna feel like a ghost either.”
Then his smile went wicked, his eyes darkening as he pulled her tighter against him, lowering his head as if to give her a hard, bruising kiss. Instead, his lips only brushed hers lightly, just barely touching her before he disappeared into darkness.
~ Read on for a sneak peek at chapter one... ~
Chapter One
Aldan , Pennsylvania
A Pleasant and Respectable Delaware County Borough
Twelve Years Later…
Kira Bedwell had a dirty little secret.
A towering plaid-hung secret, masterful and passionate, impossibly addictive.
Maddening, too, for he only came to her in her dreams.
Deliciously heated dreams that called to her now, teasing the edges of her sleep and flooding her with tingling, languorous warmth until she began to stretch and roll beneath the bedcovers. She reached for an extra pillow, hugging it close as the walls of her apartment's tiny bedroom shimmered and shimmied, taking on a silvery translucence. As always, her pulse leapt at the transformation, the rippling luminescence giving her a view of the cliffs and the sea, a sheep-grazed hill and tumbled, mist-clad ruins.
Ancient ruins, well-loved and remembered.
Kira sighed, her heart catching. She bit her lip and splayed her fingers across the cool linen of her bed sheets. She could imagine him so well, her darkly seductive Highlander. If she concentrated, she could almost see him in the shadows, waiting. Mist swirled around his tall, strapping form, a strong wind tearing at his plaid and whipping his raven hair. His hot gaze would make her burn, the raw sensuality streaming off him flowing over her like pure, molten lust, rousing her.
He'd step closer then, a slow smile curving his lips, the sheer eroticism of him and his own insatiable need almost letting her forget she'd fallen asleep in her clothes.
Again.
The third night in a week if she wished to keep note, which she didn't. Once was more than enough and three times bordered on seriously bothersome.
If she weren't mistaken, this time she'd even kept on her shoes!
She frowned and flipped onto her side. Yearning still swept her, but she cracked an eye, her dreamspun ardor spinning away as she peered into the darkness.
Her silent bedroom stared back at her, cramped, cluttered, and shabby chic. Pathetically empty of hot-eyed Scotsmen. But the pale glimmer of a new moon fell across the little polished brass carriage clock on her bedside table, the piece's stark black hands showing the hour as three a.m. Give or take ten minutes or so.
She blew out a frustrated breath. Like so many of her carefully accumulated treasures, the antique clock wasn't perfect, keeping time to its own rhythm. Sometimes accurate, sometimes ahead or behind, and every so often not at all.
Like her dreams.
They, too, couldn't be forced.
Aidan MacDonald, medieval clan chieftain extraordinaire, only slipped into her fantasies when it suited him.
Or so Kira thought.
Just as she assumed her bold, dream lover could only be the MacDonalds' legendary leader. After her one trip to Scotland years ago, she'd spent months researching Clan Donald and Castle Wrath, finally determining Aidan as her Highlander.
The Celtic he-god she'd glimpsed so briefly.
And never forgotten.
A man of any less mythic status couldn't possibly invade her sleep and ravish her with such wild, heart-pounding sex. Tantalizingly gorgeous, just the imagined scent of him made her dizzy with longing. Remembering the cool silk of his glossy, shoulder-length hair, or the hardness of his muscles, was enough to make her breath quicken. Thinking about his kisses, the skillful glide of his hands on her body, did things to her she never would have believed possible.
Watching him stride toward her, his sword hung low on his hip and a predatory gleam in his eye, positively melted her.
He was the essence of her deepest, darkest fantasies.
Her secret lover, he'd ruined her for all others.
Kira sighed, her fingers curling into the bed covers. Warmth pulsed through her just thinking about him. More than just a fantasy lover, his influence touched her life in ways she'd never have believed. He'd initiated her into her special gift of far-seeing, the ability to catch a visual or mental image of the distant past. An inherited talent kept secret in her family and one she hadn't been aware of at all until the day she'd hoped to picnic at Castle Wrath and had peered down a ruined stairwell, looking straight into Aidan's torch-lit hall and his dark, smoldering stare.
Kira shivered. She wanted that stare on her now.
Ached to see him.
Instead, nothing stirred except a chill wind whistling around her old brick apartment house. The faint tap-tapping of tree branches against her window. All was still and quiet. Through a chink in the curtains she could see that the sky was low with clouds, the night cold and damp.
She stared out the window and sighed. Any other time she would have smiled. She liked cold and damp. Throw in a handful of mist and a bit of soft thin rain and her imagination could transport her to Scotland .
That other world where she longed to be, not here listening to the night wind sighing around Aldan , Pennsylvania 's seen-better-days Castle Apartments, but hearing Hebridean gales blowing in from the sea. Long Atlantic breakers crashing on jagged black rocks.
Rugged cliffs and slate-colored seas, the tingle of salt mist damping her cheeks.
That was what she wanted.
Needed.
Unfortunately, on her budget, the closest she could hope to get to Scotland was dusting the framed tea-towel of Edinburgh 's Royal Mile that hung above her sagging sofa. Frustration welling, she twisted onto her side and pulled a pillow over her head. Truth was, she cherished that tea-towel. Like the small tartan-covered armchair beside her bed, she'd found the tea-towel at a garage sale. Along with the worthless wooden frame she'd used to mount it.
A thin purse sparked creativity.
And penning supposedly true tales of the strange and inexplicable for Destiny Magazine, a popular monthly focused on all things supernatural, didn't generate enough income for luxuries.
Even if some of her stories were fact.
Like her most recent. The reason she'd barricaded herself inside her postage-stamp-sized apartment and wasn't answering her phone or e-mail.
Kira groaned and knocked the pillow aside. Impossible, how a mere week could turn someone's life upside down. One excited phone call to Destiny from a group of wannabe archeologists, and there she was, using her far-seeing ability to help them locate the remains of a Viking longboat resting proudly at the bottom of a river-bisected Cape Cod lake, her discovery proving beyond a doubt that Norsemen were the first to land on the New World 's shores. Overnight, she'd become everyone's most celebrated darling.
Or their worst nightmare.
Depending on whether one favored horn-helmeted sea marauders or the tried and true. Either way, even if Destiny inflated her salary to match her sudden and unwanted notoriety, the proponents of a certain Mediterranean mariner weren't too keen to see their hero's glory dinted.
A shudder rippled down Kira's spine and she clutched the covers tighter. She'd lost track of how many historical societies wanted her head, each one raking her over the coals for her blasphemy.
Christopher Columbus may have died centuries ago, but his spirit was alive and well in America .
His fans active.
Out there, and sharpening their claws.
She frowned. No, a raise wasn't going to help her. The means to purchase an air ticket meant tiddly-squat if she ended up tarred and feathered before she could ever reach the airport.
Not to mention a Glasgow-bound plane.
Judging by the hate mail she'd been receiving, such a mob might even seize and burn her passport. Already, she'd found two nails thrust into her car tires and some exceptionally witty soul who clearly lived in her apartment building had smeared some kind of unidentifiable goo on her doorknob. Icky, foul-smelling goo. Kira swiped an annoying strand of hair off her forehead. At least fretting about such nonsense took her mind off him.
The gorgeous, incredible-in-bed medieval Highlander she shouldn't be fantasizing about when she was a pickle.
She sighed and shut her eyes, doing her best to forget him. The alpha Gael who not only could melt her with one heated, sensuous glance, but who knew better than any real man how to ignite her passion.
A fool's passion, imagined and unreal regardless of how exquisite.
She pressed a hand to her forehead and massaged her temples. The broadcast reporters and television cameras camped in the Castle Apartments' parking lot were real and she'd had enough of them. As the daughter of a ceramic tile salesman and a high school art teacher, she wasn't used to the limelight.
Nor did she like it.
Especially when they all seemed determined to make sport of her.
“Sleep,” she breathed the word like a mantra, repeating it in her mind as she rubbed two fingers between her brows. A good eight hours of oblivion was what she needed.
Maybe then she'd waken refreshed, the snarl of television crews and other suchlike long-noses gone from outside her apartment's ground floor windows, the world a new and bright place, free of problems and cares.
Yes, she decided, settling an arm over her head, sleep was just what she needed.
Lass … your raiments.
Deep and rich, the mellifluous words seduced the darkness, pure Highland and buttery-smooth. Familiar in ways that slid right through her sleep to curl low in her belly, warming and melting her. Making her tingle and sizzle in all the right places.
Aidan MacDonald's sinfully sexy burr could do that.
That, and many other things.
All delicious.
Her eyes snapped open. He stood in the dim moonlight near her window, his hands on his hips and his head angled as he looked at her. All male dominance and breathtakingly handsome, he caught and held her gaze, the heat of his own already stroking her, making her burn.
“The raiments,” he said again, stepping closer. “Have done with them.”
Kira's breath caught. Her heart leapt. Somewhere in the distance a siren whirred. Not that she cared. Her body refused to move. She could only stare, desire and need streaking through her, embarrassment flaming the back of her neck, scalding her cheeks.
He wanted her naked, as was his wont.
But unless she was mistaken, getting that way might dampen his ardor.
She was wearing her comfy, granny-style panties. High-waisted, white-cotton, and boring. Equally bad, she had on her favorite oversized training suit. The baggy one with the little tear in the knee.
She swallowed. “I wasn't expecting you tonight … it's been a while.”
He shrugged. “I've had matters to see to,” he said, flicking a speck of lint off his plaid. “That doesn't mean I haven't hungered for you. I have, and my need is great.”
“I missed you, too,” she stalled, trying to calculate how quickly she could rid herself of her less-than-flattering clothes and assume a seductive pose.
In dreams, anything should be possible but her limbs remained stubbornly frozen, her fumbling fingers impossibly clumsy.
He started towards her, his own hands already unbuckling his sword belt. His eyes narrowing, he paused just long enough to set aside his great brand and whip off his plaid. Then, as was the way with sexual fantasies, he flashed a smile and was naked, without even having to stoop to yank off his rough-leathered brogues.
“Ahhh ….” Kira's palms began to dampen. “Maybe tonight isn't a good time.”
Towering over the bed now, he cocked a brow. “Sweetness, I've told you,” he began, his gaze flicking the length of her, “any time we have is good.” For an instant, his face clouded. “It isn't always easy to find you.” He folded his arms, looking serious. “I dinna ken what powers let us come together. Only that we must seize the moments we have.”
Kira swallowed, her heart pounding. “But?”
“But you know I have ne'er cared for your way of dress.” His eyes narrowed on her sweatshirt. “‘Tis passing strange.”
Kira burrowed deeper into the covers. Wait'll he saw her granny-panties!
“Clothes shouldn't matter in dreams.” She met his gaze, her heart still hammering. “Besides, they're all I have-”
“You have an … abundance.” He reached for the covers and whipped them off the bed, some Highland slight-of-hand or dream-inspired magic leaving her unclothed.
Just as naked as he was.
She blinked. So much for cotton underwear and baggy sweat pants.
He looked at her, the covers dangling from his hand, her clothes nowhere in sight, and an expression of intense satisfaction on his handsome face.
“That's better,” he said, letting the blanket fall.
