As she watched, he fastened similar leather bands that stretched from wrist to elbow around his powerful forearms. She stared in silence when he began tucking dozens of knives away—knives that looked alarmingly real. Two went into each wristband, handle down toward his palm, ten on each crossband. When he bent to the dwindling pile and hefted a massive double-bladed ax, she flinched. Cherry tree chopper-downer, indeed. Definitely not a man a woman could take any chances with. He raised an arm and lowered it behind his right shoulder, sliding the handle into the bands across his back. Last, he sheathed a sword at his waist.
By the time he was done she was aghast. “Are those real?”
He turned a cool silver gaze on her. “Aye. You can scarce kill a man otherwise.”
“Kill a man?” she repeated faintly.
He shrugged and eyed the hole above them and said nothing for a long while. Just when she was beginning to think he’d forgotten her entirely, he said, “I could toss you that high.”
Oh, yes, he probably could. With one arm. “No, thank you,” she said frostily. Small she might be, a basketball she was not.
He grinned at her tone. “But I fear that doing so might cause more rocks to collapse upon us. Come, we will find the way out.”
She swallowed. “You really don’t remember where you came in?”
“Nay, lass, I’m afraid I doona.” He measured her for a moment. “Nor do I recall why,” he added reluctantly.
His response troubled her. How could he not know how or why he’d entered the cave, when he had obviously come in, removed his weapons, and piled them neatly before lying down? Did he have amnesia?
“Come. We must make haste. I care naught for this place. You must put your clothes back on.”
Her hackles rose and she barely resisted the urge to hiss like a cat. “My clothes are on.”
He raised a brow, then shrugged. “As you will. If you are comfortable strolling about in such a fashion, far be it from me to complain.” Crossing the chamber, he took her wrist and began dragging her along.
Gwen allowed him to tug her behind him for a short distance, but once they’d left the cavern, all light disappeared. He was guiding them by feeling his way along the wall of the tunnel, his other hand latched about her wrist, and she began to fear they might plunge into another crevice, hidden by the darkness. “Do you know these caves?” she asked. The blackness was so absolute that it was crowding her in, suffocating her. She needed light and she needed it now.
“Nay, and if you are telling me the truth and you fell through the hole, then you doona either,” he reminded. “Have you a better idea?”
“Yes.” She tugged on his hand. “If you’ll just stop a moment, I can help.”
“Have you fire to light our way, wee English? For ’tis what we sorely need.”
His voice was amused, and it irritated her. He’d taken her measure, deemed her helpless, and that pissed her off. And why did he keep calling her English? Was it the Scottish version of American, and perhaps they called people from England British? She knew she had a trace of an English accent because her mother had been raised and schooled in England, but it wasn’t that pronounced. “Yes, I do,” she snapped.
He stopped so suddenly that she ran into the back of him, striking her cheekbone on the handle of his ax. Although she couldn’t see him, she felt him turn, smelled the spicy male scent of his skin, then his hands were on her shoulders.
“Where have you fire? Here?” He sifted his fingers through her long hair. “Nay, perhaps here.” His hand brushed her lips in the dark, and if she hadn’t clamped them shut he would have slipped the tip of his finger between them. The man was positively outrageous, hell-bent on seduction with a single-mindedness that made her fear for her resolve. “Ah, here,” he purred, sliding his hand over her derriere, then yanking her against him. He was still erect. Unbelievable, she thought dazedly. He laughed, a husky, confident sound. “I doona doubt you have fire, but ’tis naught that might help us escape this cave, though it would undoubtedly make it vastly more amenable.”
Oh, definitely mocking now. She twisted away from his liberty-taking hands. “You are so arrogant. Have all those steroids eaten away your brain cells?”
He was silent a moment, and his lack of response unnerved her. She couldn’t see him and wondered what he was thinking. Was he preparing to pounce on her again? Finally he said slowly, “I doona understand your question, lass.”
“Forget it. Just let go of me so I can get something out of my pack,” she said stiffly. She slipped it off her shoulder and thrust it at him. “Hold this a minute.” While she’d been willing to discard her cigarettes, throwing away a perfectly good lighter had seemed wasteful. Besides, she’d quit before, and then when she started again, she had to buy a new lighter every time. Rummaging in one of the external pockets, she sighed with relief when her fingers closed on the silver Bic. When she pressed the little button, he roared and leaped back. His heavy-lidded eyes, glittering with banked sensuality, widened in amazement.