A Highlander’s Passion
Highlander’s Beloved # 2
Vonnie Davis
April 7th, 2015
Loveswept
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As a bear-shifter in a pack roaming the Scottish countryside, Bryce Matheson embodies brute force and untamed abandon. As a widower, he’s running scared. When Bryce attempted to open his scarred heart to another, she grew tired of waiting for him to state his intentions, and the unearthly beauty spurned him for someone who wasn’t worthy. But now that fate has conspired to set Kenzie Denune free once again, Bryce vows to finally win her love.
Kenzie is a witch who summons her powers to protect those too weak to care for themselves. After surviving an abusive husband, she swears off men—even men like Bryce, whose iron muscles make her knees weak, and who’s piercing eyes fill her with longing. Her life’s purpose is to help others. However, dark forces have different plans for her gifts. To save herself, Kenzie must team up with the shifter who has always stirred her soul—and trust in a passion powerful enough to set her blood aflame.
A Highlander's Passion
© 2015 Vonnie Davis
Kenzie Denune pedaled the bicycle harder, her thighs burning from the exertion. Thanks to a car that refused to start, she was going to be late fer her job interview at Iverson Loch Manor. Grunting and pounding from the shrubs ahead, near the road’s edge, snagged her attention.
Naked shoulders glistened in the afternoon sun. Back muscles bulged and undulated with every thrust. “Bloody hell. Come fer me. Come.”
In all of Mathe Bay in the Scottish Highlands, only one deep masculine voice had the power to raise the hair on her arms like this. A man with braided russet-colored hair that brushed broad shoulders inked with a bear’s claw marks, woven into an intricate tribal design—Bryce Matheson. Damn him to hell. Who’s he shagging in broad daylight? Out in the open, no less. Has he no shame?
Not that she cared one Scottish whit, for she didna. Not after he’d cast her aside over a year ago to wallow in the memories of the wife he’d lost years earlier from complications in childbirth. Och, the man could romance a woman fer some physical release, he just couldna move forward and commit.
Kenzie snapped her eyes from the randy spectacle and forced them straight ahead. She struggled to keep control of her bike’s handlebars on the pitted rocky lane. The old bike bounced along and her arse was airborne more often than on the narrow seat. Her jaws jarred together and she bit her tongue.
“I canna keep pounding at ye like this all bloody day. Me back is about to give out.”
Bryce moaned and groaned again, obviously in the throes of ecstasy. The bear-shifting bastard. She eased up on the brakes to whiz past his love nest of bushes and brambles.
“I’ll not give up until I get ye wild cherry. Let me push both me thumbs and most of me fingers in here and . . .” My God, what’s he doing to her?
Kenzie couldna resist one fleeting glance over her shoulder. Her front wheel plunged into a pothole and the bike pitched to the side before the back wheel skidded across loose gravel. Despite her frantic efforts to maintain control, she lost her leverage. Her hip smacked the dirt, and air whooshed from her lungs on a groan. Stones scraped her legs and arms as she toppled across the grit. The force of the impact, combined with the slant of the narrow road, caused her to roll toward Bryce and his current conquest. No! No, God, no!
The last thing she wanted was to interrupt Bryce’s deflowering of some virginal maiden. With his excess dose of arrogance, he’d claim she’d done it on purpose.
The last thing she wanted was to interrupt Bryce’s deflowering of some virginal maiden. With his excess dose of arrogance, he’d claim she’d done it on purpose.
The broken branch of a tree tore the short sleeve of her white blouse. Something sharp caught her favorite purple skirt, the sound of gauze ripping just as she collided with a solid warm body. Oomph!
They rolled downhill fer a couple of revolutions, a flurry of arms and legs. Bryce landed on top and yanked out his earbuds, his chocolate eyes wide in shock. “Kenzie? What the bloody hell?” He pushed up on his forearms, his hands beside her shoulders and his bulging biceps nearly blocking out the sunlight.
She swiped strands of hair out of her eyes and presented him with a scowl. “I fell off me bike.” As if she needed to give him any kind of explanation. To keep from saying anything else equally as stupid, she bit her lower lip.
He glanced over his shoulder and then aimed dark eyes on her. “Yer bike? Where’s yer car?”
“It wouldna start. I have a job interview with the American this afternoon.” She closed her eyes in resignation. “I’ll be late. She willna hire me now.” Damn, she wanted to cry. She refused to give in to the momentary weakness and blinked to force back the tears. The job as Effie Munro’s personal assistant came with a suite of rooms as part of the package. Kenzie wanted, needed to move out of the apartment she’d shared with her late husband, Duncan. Was a fresh start too much to expect?
Bryce leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek, as if he had the right. “Effie has it in her head to hire ye. She willna care ye are late. Why do ye think I’m out here working to clear the road?”
“Working?” Since when was shagging some poor girl by the roadside considered working? She glanced around. Just where was his momentary love interest?
“Aye. The old wild cherry tree was zapped by lightning in that big storm yesterday and fell across the road.”
Vonnie Davis, who studied English at Penn State, likens herself to a croissant: crusty, wrinkled, flaky—and best served with strong coffee. After a career as a technical writer, she’s spending her retirement playing fairy godmother to her characters, giving them their happily-ever-afters. Six fantastic, talented kids call her “Grandma” and brighten her world in so many ways. She lives in Southern Virginia with her husband, author Calvin Davis.
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