Fear?
Stupidity?
You’ve been alone all your life. You know you can survive solitude. You know you can survive conditions that would make hell seem paradise.
So why was he so afraid now?
And so what if he ended up like Ewan? He already lived that way. Lost in his solitary company with no friends save a tankard of ale.
“Callie.”
He hadn’t realized he’d spoken her name aloud until she turned to face him. “Aye?”
He stared at her in the hallway, her red hair curling around her shoulders. She wore the dark blue, green and yellow plaid of her father, her black kirtle hugging her lush figure.
He’d never beheld anyone or anything more beguiling or precious.
“Can you teach me what love is?”
Callie couldn’t breathe as the quiet words reached out to her. There was so much pain and heartfelt yearning behind them that it brought tears to her eyes. He was so vulnerable standing there. He stood proud and tall before her and yet she sensed just how easily she could hurt him if she rejected him. Not that she ever would.
Laughing and crying, she ran to him and threw her arms around his shoulders. “Aye, my love. I would be delighted to.”
Sin hadn’t realized until that moment just how afraid he’d been of her rejection. Just how much of his heart he’d left exposed to her.
His wounded heart soaring, he scooped her up in his arms and kissed her. The taste of her lips drove him to madness. The feel of her body so pliant and warm against his...
He had to have her. Now. This instant. He couldn’t stand another moment of being without her.
With determined strides, he carried her to their room and laid her gently on the bed.
Her cheeks turned bright pink. “‘Tis the middle of the day.”
“I know.”
“What if someone comes looking for us?”
He bolted the door.
Callie laughed, until he turned around and she saw the raw hunger in his eyes. The look burned her.
He moved slowly, languidly toward the bed, peeling off his clothes as he came until he was naked before her. She trembled at the fierce sight of him. The sleek rippling of his muscles as he joined her on the bed.
“I want you, Caledonia,” he breathed, unlacing the neck of her kirtle. “I want to taste every inch of your body. Slowly, until I’ve devoured you.”
She shivered at his demanding tone and the feel of his hot hand cupping her breast.
“I want your heart, Sin.” She ran her hand through his hair.
He pushed her dress down her body and removed her clothes until she was fully exposed to him. “It’s battered and useless, but what remains of it is all yours, milady.”
No one had ever spoken more beautiful words to her. His eyes hooded and dark, he stared at her bare body as if he relished every piece of it.
He ran his hand over her skin, gently testing the texture of her. Callie arched her back, her body on fire for more of him. He pulled her leg up to rest against his chest and kissed her knee while his hands ran up and down her thigh, sending chills all over her. He locked gazes with her as he tilted her leg toward him, exposing her to his questing fingers.
She moaned as he touched her core.
“I love the way you look when I do that,” he whispered, nipping her bent knee.
