But he didn’t want to let her go. How could something that felt so damned right be so damned wrong?
Cate had wantedhimto be struck by the lightning bolt, but instead she was the one who felt as if her entire world had shifted.
Her knowledge of love and romance was the bards’ tales of a young girl. Sweet and tender, the gentle flutter of heartstrings at the thought of his lips touching hers for the first time in a chaste, reverent kiss. The kind of kiss a knight might give his lady after championing her on the tournament lists. That was what she’d pictured it would be like between them. That was all she knew.
But when Gregor caught her in his arms and held her against him, the picture changed forever. What she felt wasn’t sweet or romantic or chaste at all. The cravings of her body weren’t gentle flutters but a torrential thunderstorm of need, hot and powerful and a little—maybe a lot—wicked.
The images flashing through her head weren’t of gallant knights bowing over their fair maidens’ hands proclaiming their undying love, but of dark, sultry chambers and naked limbs entwined in bedsheets.
Sweet heaven, he was naked! Or rather, half of him was naked. And with her wearing only a thin linen shift, the feel of his powerful chest against hers was unlike anything she’d ever imagined. It made her hot and flushed and weak all over.
Instinctively her hands had slid around his shoulders when he caught her to him, and that was where they stayed, molded to the smooth, bare skin and hard, bulging muscle. He was so warm. She wanted to sink into him and never let go.
She’d known he was strong and powerfully built, but seeing him in the flesh was an entirely different kind of knowledge. The kind of knowledge that once awakened would never be put to rest again.
He’d been forged like a weapon of war, all lean, rigid muscle and tight sinew, without an ounce of spare flesh of which to speak. His shoulders were square and broad, his arms thick with rounded slabs of muscle, his waist narrow, and his stomach lined with layer after layer of tight rope-like bands. He was as hard as granite, yet impossibly warm—almost hot—to the touch. Especially where their bodies met.
She was hot, too, her skin flushed and strangely sensitive. She’d never felt like this before. The sensations—her thoughts and desires—shocked her. Confused her. Making her feel like she was seeing him for the first time.
She’d never imagined what the sight and feel of a man’s naked chest could do to her. She’d never imagined the hot flush that would claim her body. The heaviness in her breasts and loins. The unmistakable flicker of awareness between her legs, and then the strange dampness. She’d never imagined wanting to run her hands all over someone’s body, wanting to feel the hard ridges and muscular bulges tightening under her fingertips.
But his naked chest did all of that.
It was just as perfect as the rest of him, glowing warm and golden in the light from the single torch that lit the hall. How was it possible for one man to be so blessed? It was as if God had set out to create a man who would make women fall to their knees.
She’d wanted Gregor MacGregor from the moment she’d seen him staring down at her in that well. But this was a different kind of want. It was much more powerful. It was the want of a woman for a man that came not just from the heart but from somewhere bone-deep and elemental. It was the want that could make a woman lose her virtue.
Until this moment, Cate had never really understood what could have made her mother—such a perfect lady in every other respect—do what she did. Now she had an inkling of just how easy it would be to lose herself in a man’s arms.
Did Gregor feel it, too?
When their eyes met, Cate saw a myriad of emotions crossing his face, none of which she could decipher.
The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had started. Yet for a long heartbeat, neither of them moved. “Gregor, I…”
She didn’t know what to say. Her emotions were too big to put into words.
He dropped her so suddenly, her legs almost didn’t have enough time to find their bones.
“What was that noise?”
Cate blinked. The question was so matter-of-fact, his expression so neutral, had she not been there, she would have never guessed that a moment ago he had been holding her as if he would never let her go.
She felt like she’d been knocked over by a battering ram. Her body was still flushed with arousal—her skin prickling, her nipples throbbing, her belly fluttering—and he was as cool and unruffled as always. Even without clothes on to ruffle!
Had he felt nothing? Was the fierce attraction not between them at all, but one-sided?Hersided? Did nothing touch him?
She stared at him, peering closer in the darkness. This time she detected the faint tightness around his mouth, the clenching of his fists, and the stiff set of his shoulders. His muscles, too, every God-blessed one of them, seemed to be slightly flexed and rigid. Like those of a man fighting for control. Holding himself back.
Her eyes narrowed. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as unaffected as he wanted her to think.
As if he could read her mind, his expression hardened. “Go back to your room, Caitrina. I will track down the source of the screaming.”
She bit her lip and gave an apologetic smile. “There is no need. It was Maddy. She has an earache and wakes up sometimes.”
He cocked a brow. “Sometimes?”
Her apologetic smile turning wincing. “Sometimes every night.”
