Stolen by the Highlander. Terri Brisbin
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Arabella’s body throbbed.
Her lips were swollen. Her skin tingled. A place deep within her ached for something she could not identify. Well, if she was honest with herself, she could.
More. More of him.
The kisses she’d had with Caelan had never caused this wanting within her. They had been tepid, unmoving kisses. Just between two friends, with no air of intimacy or longing.
Brodie’s kiss had been possessive and enticing. He had tasted her and shown her how to taste him. He wanted her. She could hear it in his breathing and feel it in the way he held her and in the way his body … changed beneath her.
Scotland’s history is filled with stories about feuds between the clans. When I was researching a previous book I discovered a feud between the powerful Mackintosh clan and the smaller Cameron clan that went on to last more than three hundred and fifty years!
It began in the early 1300s, over claims to a piece of land, and expanded over generations and across the lands of both the Mackintoshes and the Camerons. It eventually even involved the King of Scotland. Since the Mackintosh clan led the larger ‘Chattan Confederation’—a group of several clans and septs—it drew in large and small families over time.
After thousands of deaths, dozens of battles and attempts at truces and treaties, it ended in 1665, when the Camerons paid a fee to the Mackintoshes for the lands they claimed!
I have taken some liberties with the timing of some of the battles and the names or locations of some of the keeps, changing them to accommodate my story a bit, but the animosity between the clans is real. For when lands and titles and power and wealth are involved the truth can sometimes be stranger than any fictional story created to explain it all!
I hope you enjoy Stolen by the Highlander, the first book in my A Highland Feuding mini-series, and especially the sexy, brave Highlanders who seek to control their destinies and the strong women who tame them in the end!
Stolen by the Highlander
Terri Brisbin
TERRI BRISBIN is wife to one, mother of three, and dental hygienist to hundreds when not living the life of a glamorous romance author. She was born, raised, and is still living in the southern New Jersey suburbs. Terri’s love of history led her to write time-travel romances and historical romances set in Scotland and England.
I dedicate this book,
the first in my new series, to my editorial ‘team’ at Mills & Boon® Historical Romances in the Richmond UK office—especially Megan Haslam, Kathryn Cheshire and Senior Editor Linda Fildew. They constantly push me to make my work better and stronger for my readers, and though we sometimes disagree on how to accomplish that (LOL!), they always do it in a kind and supportive way. It’s been great working with you over these last several books—thanks for all you do for me!
Contents
Arabella Cameron understood how the layer of ice on a frozen lake felt. The smile she held on her face as another Mackintosh offered a poem about her beauty would crack soon, just as that brittle ice did when hit by a stone. She did not hold out much hope that she could keep smiling as the words reached a new level of ridiculous praise. The tip of her nose tingled and the worry over her face cracking disappeared when presented with the larger concern of laughing.
Drawing in a slow breath, she blinked