She was so busy pondering that, that it took her a second to realize that he was moving again, heading around the bed toward her. Giving a squeal, she whirled and started across the bed. A glance over her shoulder showed her husband reaching the side of the bed and lunging for her. She felt a tug on the linens, tried to hold on to the cloth and keep moving, but felt it slip from her fingers as she lurched off the bed and stumbled into the wall beside the door. With nothing left to do, Iliana covered her breasts with her hands and turned warily to face her husband.

Chapter Four

Duncan gaped at the contraption she wore, but had barely taken in the leather straps with the gleaming lock in front before she turned to flee toward her chests. Nothing on earth could have stopped him from leaping the bed to reach her side.

Catching her about the waist, he tugged her backward, twisting so that they landed side by side on the bed. He then threw a leg over both of hers and leaned up slightly so that he could peer once more at the contraption she wore.

“Damn.” The word came out in a hiss of air as he examined the apparatus. Catching her hands easily in one of his own when she started to struggle, he held them above her head, his eyes never leaving the belt. “What be it?” he asked with awe.

“’Tis a belt of chastity,” Iliana admitted grimly, then caught at her lower lip and began to worry it between her teeth.

“I have never seen the like.”

“’Twas invented by Francesco Carrarro. A…a friend of my father’s.”

“How did ye come by it?”

“Father brought it back from his last visit,” Iliana answered reluctantly. “He gave my mother and myself both one.”

“And yer mother had ye wear it to ensure yer chastity ’til ye reached me,” he guessed, giving the front strap an experimental tug. “’Tis leather.”

“Aye,” Iliana gasped, her head turned to the side to avoid the stink of his armpits as she tried to tug her hands loose. Damn, he smelled foul.

Shifting, he turned her abruptly onto her stomach so that he could look at the back of it, taking in the way the center strap was sturdily fastened to the belt there.

“Let me up,” Iliana snapped over her shoulder, embarrassment flushing her face.