Chapter 7

Rionna couldn’t help her reaction to Caelen’s husky drawl. It prickled over her skin, eliciting a feminine longing deep within. And then he stood, nearly carrying her upward as he set her away from him.

Before she could process the emptiness that suddenly besieged her at the loss of his touch, he began inching her gown up her legs, baring her ankles and then her knees.

She felt sinful and brazen and it perplexed her that she decided she quite liked it. Who would have ever accused her of being sensual? A woman to turn a man’s head?

An indecent thrill sent chill bumps racing across her belly as the gown inched higher. She quite liked that, too. Panic scuttled through her chest about the time Caelen finally pulled the gown free of her head.

Clad now in her most intimate underthings, hardly barriers to his seeking gaze, heat scorched over her flesh and her cheeks tightened as she blushed furiously. He looked at her as though he wanted to devour her whole, like he was a beast closing in on his prey. She should be afraid, but what she really felt was … anticipation.

“I should do this slower so that I can savor the sight of you, but I’m an impatient man, and I can’t bear the excitement a moment longer. I simply have to see you, lass. I want to touch you so much, I’m shaking with it.”

She’d never been a woman to swoon. She’d never fainted in her life, but her knees were precariously weak and she was so light-headed that she feared falling right over.

She had no sense of herself. She felt as though she were floating in some delicious dream she never wanted to awaken from. Only, her dreams had never been this erotic, and they certainly didn’t include a magnificent warrior standing before her, trembling because he wanted her so. Staring at her like she was the only woman in the world.

With urgency he hadn’t displayed so far, he quickly divested her of the last remaining material and suddenly she was clad in only the binding around her breasts. A shiver overtook her though she was far from chilled.

He stared at the binding for a long moment before lifting his gaze. “ ’Tis a travesty to hide such a wealth of feminine beauty. Are you ashamed?”

Her cheeks tightened in mortification. “Nay, I mean aye. Maybe. They’re inconvenient,” she finally managed. “They get in the way.”

Caelen chuckled, his voice husky with amusement. “I’m torn between forbidding you to ever hide them and only allowing you to reveal them to me.”

“You … You like them?”

“Oh aye, lass. We men are fond of such things. However, I’ll like them more when I get this binding from around you.”