Taken By The Highland Wolf (The Clan MacGregor Book 2) by Stephanie Marks

voice reached deep inside me and crushed my heart. I should have known that he would see straight through me. What had made me think that I could deceive him?
    "I was going to write you a letter..." I said sadly.
    "A letter," he repeated coolly. "I suppose that's better than nothing. At least ye were not going to disappear without a trace and leave me wondering. I should be grateful for that, aye?"
    It sounded so insulting. A letter. After all that we had shared.
    "I could never do that to you," I told him. I kept my back to him, still unable to turn around and face him.
    "Oh, aye, of course," he scoffed. "But ye could sneak off and leave me like a thief in the night."
    I closed my eyes and lowered my head. Every word was like another blow to my heart.
    "I was trying to do what I thought was best," I said weakly.
    "What ye thought was best?" he snarled.
    I cried out as he grabbed me roughly by my arm and spun me around to face him. I flinched away from the look of pain in his beautiful green eyes. It killed me to know that I was the one who had put it there.
    "How, Glenna?" he demanded. He took me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth rattled. "How could ye think that that was what's best?"
    "Stop, Alastair, stop!" I wrenched myself from his grip and stumbled away. I pressed a hand up against a tree to steady my balance as the tears began to flow. I wanted so badly to do the right thing, but seeing the pain that my leaving was causing him I was no longer certain what the right thing was.
    "It's not fair," I yelled. Turning to him, I brushed roughly at my tears, determined to stay the course. "It's not fair what my being here is doing to everyone. If I go, it's over, it's done. I'm the problem, Alastair. Me. And if I go, things between you and your people will go back to the way they should be. My leaving will hurt for a while, I know, but you'll move on in time. Our hearts will heal."
    "Ye think it will hurt for a while? Hurt for a while!" he roared. "You're tearing my heart out, Glenna, can't ye see that? And it'll not heal in time because there'll be nothing left of it! Did ye think ye could just go off and leave me with naught but a letter to soothe my wounds and think that I wouldn't hunt ye down and drag ye back to my side where ye belong? Do ye truly think that there is a world in which I would be willing to give ye up?"
    He stormed toward me and pressed me back against the tree. His unleashed anger engulfed me and it felt as if the heat of it burned all the air out of the woods, I could barely breathe.
    "I just want to do what's right, Alastair. We've been so selfish."
    "I dinna care! Everything I have ever done, I have done for them. But not this time. This time I will keep what's mine."
    He pulled me to him and kissed me, pouring all of his anger and frustration into our embrace. I struggled to find my footing. I felt as if I were drowning in his need.
    His hands were everywhere, grabbing, squeezing and tugging at me, trying to take hold of as much of me as he could. He lifted the skirts of my gown to my waist, then, cupping me, he lifted me up and pressed me hard to the tree. My hair got caught on the rough bark and snagged painfully, but I did not care. I wrapped my legs around him for support and kissed him back just as madly. Any thoughts of leaving had been wiped completely from my mind.
    He was right, of course. How could I have ever thought that I would be able to walk away from him?
    "You'll not be leaving again, ye hear me?" he growled into my ear.
    I nodded, panting, as I tried to catch my breath.
    "Say it," he demanded.
    "I'll not leave again," I promised.
    "Say it again."
    "I swear I'll not leave you again."
    He captured my mouth again but this time more gently, his early fury slowly abating as he set me back on the ground. I clung to him, not yet ready for us to be parted. I needed to keep touching him. I had been so close to losing him. So close to walking away. And it would have been the worst