“Then I’ll tell ye,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, rough vibration.
Her breath caught, a small, sharp hitch in her chest. She leaned a fraction closer, her innocence a fuel to the fire he was trying to contain.
“And how... how should it be done?” she asked.
The question was so direct, so dangerously willing, that Harald felt a jolt of pure, unadulterated want slam into his gut. He held himself rigid, every muscle coiled like a spring, his knuckles white behind his back.
“Slowly,” he rasped, the word a rough murmur. “Wi’ attention. A man should learn the way her skin shivers when he barely touches it.”
He felt her shaking—small, jagged shudders that made his own pulse roar—and he forced himself to stay still, to be the anchorshe needed rather than the storm he was. “He should make certain she is meltin’ fer him,” he whispered against her skin, “before he ever asks her tae give him her body.”
Her lips parted, a soft, helpless exhale that fanned the heat already roaring through him. Harald was suddenly, agonizingly aware of the scant inches between them—the air was no longer just air; it was a conductor for the electricity rolling off her skin.
Her pulse was a frantic, visible hammer at the hollow of her throat. Enya swallowed hard, her eyes searching his. “Last night?—”
“I ken,” he rasped, the word vibrating deep in his chest.
Her gaze dropped, trailing down the line of his tunic, lingering where the fabric pulled taut across his thighs, then lower—to the unmistakable, heavy ridge straining against the wool of his breeches. She looked away quickly, a fierce, burning crimson flooding her face, but the damage was done.
The sight of her looking—the raw, wide-eyed curiosity in her mismatched eyes—sent a violent jolt of blood straight to his groin. It wasn't just desire; it was a rhythmic, insistent throb that demanded release, a pulse so powerful he felt it in every nerve of his body.
He closed the distance in two strides. He claimed her hands, his fingers large and calloused, wrapping around her wrists with a grip that was gentle but vibrating with the force of his restraint.
“Harald—”
Enya froze as her hips brushed the hard, pulsing heat of him. Understanding dawned in her eyes—dark, startled, and dangerously aware. Her breath came in shallow, jagged gaspsthat hitched in her chest, making her breasts brush against his tunic with every inhale.
It nearly broke him. The world dissolved until there was only the scent of her and the brutal, throbbing ache between his legs. His breath turned into a low, animal growl as he pictured—vividly, mercilessly—sliding her onto the table, rucking up those skirts, and burying the agonizing pulse of his body inside her until they both forgot their names.
The thought struck with such carnal sharpness that he felt his vision blur. If he kept looking at her, he would take her right there, with the maids just a corridor away.
He stepped back abruptly, the movement jerky and violent. He released her hands as if they were white-hot iron and turned aside, his chest heaving, his jaw clamped shut hard. He had to look at the stone wall, the tapestries—anything but the woman who had just turned his blood into a riot.
Enya stiffened, the warmth he’d just offered replaced by a sudden, biting chill.
When she spoke, her voice was a thin, brittle shard of glass. “I see.”
He closed his eyes, cursing his own clumsiness, cursing the roar of his blood that wouldn't quiet.
“Ye see what?” he asked, his voice thick and ruined.
Her chin lifted in a gesture he recognized now, the old armor rising on instinct. “That even ye find me difficult tae look at fer long.”
The words cut through the haze of his lust like a cold blade. The pulsing ache in his body didn't vanish, but it was suddenly joined by a hollow, sickening twist in his gut.
“Enya.” His voice sharpened before he could soften it.
She froze, her entire body jolting at the raw power in his tone.
Harald turned back to her in a single, decisive motion. The air in the room seemed to ignite, sucked into the vacuum of his presence.
“Dinnae ever mistake restraint fer lack o’ desire,” he rasped, the words vibrating with a dark, heavy hunger.
She stood where he had left her, shaken and flushed. “Ye stop yerself,” she whispered, her voice thick with wonder and a new, soaring heat.
“Aye.” He closed his eyes, his head bowing as the throbbing in his body slowly, painfully began to subside into a dull, agonizing ache.
Enya drew a slow, shuddering breath. The armor was gone. In her place was a woman who looked at him with a gaze that was equal parts terror and a dark, budding worship.
