CHAPTER 17
Just like that,the moment was over, leaving her weak and shaking.
Skye sat on the table, her elbow, still shivering and dizzy from her climax. She blinked around her, wondering if the world really had changed since the last time she saw it, or whether she’d imagined it.
Evander leaned forward as if he were going to kiss her. His eyes were wide and dark with hunger, his lips slick. For a moment, she wondered if she would taste herself on his tongue.
The thought sent a fresh wave of heat through her.
He seemed to think better of it and pulled back. The air cooled between them, although Skye’s hazy mind could barely grasp it.
“Yer dress will need laundering, lass,” Evander remarked with a sigh, gesturing to the damp elbow. “I’m sorry.”
“S-Sorry?” she stammered. “There’s no need for ye to be sorry.”
He cleared his throat. “Let’s hope that ye still think the same way when ye read over the contract. I shouldnae have done that, Skye. It broke our rules.”
“But I am telling ye I didnae mind. Truly, I am nae angry. I… I liked it. And what about ye? Do ye nae need…” she trailed off, reddening.
Men needed touches like that too, didn’t they?
Of course, Skye had never thought about how to please a man. She’d never particularly wanted to. But now, with her blood still pumping frantically through her veins and the afterglow of her climax shivering through her, shewantedto do something.
She could make him feel good, surely? As if they had done something together, instead of only him pleasuring her. People met each other halfway, didn’t they? She could do it. If he would only talk her through it, tell her just what he wanted, or?—
“Nay,” Evander said decisively, half turning away. “I daenae need anything.”
She shrank a little. “Oh.”
He sounded very sure. He she not… had she not pleased him? Was there some secret rule she’d broken? It was entirely possible. The world of men and women together was somethingthat maids whispered about in corridors, giggling and swapping tips.
A laird’s sister was supposed to stay a little more ignorant. There was a fine balance. Averyfine balance.
So now, was she missing the point? Was she embarrassing herselfandhim?
Questions queued up on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask them. Not yet, at least.
Evander’s jaw tightened, and he glanced away. “Skye, ye arenae yerself. Ye havenae recovered all of yer memories. It was wrong of me to put ye in this situation, and I am sorry for it. When ye remember it all, ye will remember the reasons why ye wanted distance between us.”
She blinked, frowning. No answers lurked in her memory.
“Perhaps I wanted to keep our relationship distant for political reasons.”
“Perhaps ye did. But I agreed to honor yer wishes, did I nae? I willnae go back on me word now. Ye had yer reasons for what ye requested.”
“Why can ye nae just tell me what those reasons were?”
He glanced at her, his eyes unreadable once more. Emotions flashed briefly in their depths, too quickly for her to properly identify them.
It was infuriating. Shouldn’t she know him better than this? Why did it feel as though she were meeting him for the first time?
Nay, that’s nae quite true. But why? Why?
Thewhymade no sense, but thewhatcertainly did. She knew what drew her to him. His size and his strength were impressive, sure, but she was used to tall, strong men. Her brother and cousin were both large.
Was it his eyes, flashes of sharp color that caught her attention and held it? Was it his easy grin, the tilt of his canine teeth, that made his smile dangerous?
It couldn’t just be his attractiveness. Hewasattractive, but there was more. She’d met attractive men before.
