The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(51)

The scapular came next. Belted at the waist, all she had to do was untie the rope cord and lift the rectangular piece of white natural wool over her head.

Finally, when every muscle in his body was tensed with restraint, with the effort it took not to reach out and touch her, she turned around with her back facing him.

Glancing up at him from over her shoulder—far more seductively than any innocent maiden should—she said, “If you could just loosen the top laces, I will be able to do the rest on my own.”

He didn’t know if he could do it. He wanted to touch her so desperately, he didn’t know if he could stop at just the ties.

His mouth tightened. He clenched his jaw. Duty. Loyalty. Discipline. It’s up to you. His clan was depending on him.

Ewen tried to picture Walter Stewart’s face, but all he could see was hers. The big greenish-blue eyes, the tiny nose and chin, the gracefully carved features, the warm, sensual mouth …

His hands shook as he lifted them to her back. He was an elite warrior, damn it. He could do this. He’d survived against the worst odds and the most perilous circumstances. Just focus. Concentrate on the laces.

He had done this before. Maybe not hundreds of times as he’d claimed, but enough that his fingers shouldn’t feel so big and clumsy. But they wouldn’t seem to move right. Even in the snowy mountaintops of the Cuillins during training, they’d never felt so frozen.

He stared at the laces, his hands coming to a sudden stop. Her hair was covering the place where they started. He could just move it to the side …

Not a chance.

“Your hair is in the way,” he managed tightly.

“Oh, sorry.” She tipped her head, scooping the wild mass to tumble to the side, revealing the top of the gown and the milky-white nape of her neck. The invitation was unmistakable. It would be so easy to lower his mouth and press his lips to the soft, warm skin …

Focus, damn it!

He pulled one of the ends of the bow at the top and slid his finger behind the laces to loosen them. Methodically, he worked his way down her back, trying not to think about what he was doing. But never had he been more conscious of what he was doing in his life.

It was ridiculous. There was nothing particularly erotic about unlacing a gown. The linen shift she wore underneath the form-fitting natural wool kirtle prevented him from seeing bare skin, but he was more aroused by these loosened laces than he’d ever been by a naked woman. Except for her, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to think about her naked right now.

Wrong.

He stepped back, trying to clear the image from his mind. Did he have to remember every detail of her br**sts? Of her slim back and stomach? Of the heart-shaped curve of her bottom? “That should suffice,” he said, his voice gruff with longing.

“Thank you.” She smiled. “One of the nuns at the priory couldn’t have done a better job.”

For some reason, he didn’t like being compared to one of the nuns. His gaze bit into hers. “All that practice, remember?”

Janet remembered, all right. Which was what made his determined resistance all the more frustrating. She knew he was feeling the same way that she was: hot, restless, and breathless with anticipation, as if every one of her senses had been heightened to its peak. Awareness reverberated between them like the crackle of lightning.

She wasn’t alone in her desire. She could feel it—had felt it hard against her.

Janet had never gone out of her way to entice a man, but something about him provoked her to naughtiness. As had the three years of hiding her femininity. Part of her wondered whether she was still desirable. She thought her little request to help her with the gown would be enough to shatter his resistance and prove he wasn’t indifferent to her. This might be her only chance to experience passion. Fate had thrown him back into her life; was it for a reason? But he seemed determined to walk away, to ignore whatever it was that was between them.

Why? Was it anger at what she’d done? She decided to hone some of his bluntness. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like nothing ever happened between us.”

“Maybe because what happened between us made me think I’d be burning in eternal hellfire?”

Janet bit her lip, feeling as guilty as she should. “I’m sorry for lying to you. Perhaps I should have told you I was not a nun, but I was scared.”

He seemed honestly perplexed. “Scared of what?”

She lifted her chin, boldly meeting his gaze. “That without a veil between us there was nothing to prevent me from … you from …”

She struggled with how to tell him she was scared that she might have given him her innocence.

But he understood. “I would never have let it go that far.”

She tilted her head, looking up at him. She might not have much experience in such matters, but it hadn’t seemed that way to her. “Are you so sure about that?”

He stared at her, his jaw locked.

Her heart clenched. In the semidarkness, the angles of his face seemed even sharper. He looked harder. Rougher. Even more remote. But so handsome he made her knees weak.

He didn’t argue with her, which she supposed was agreement enough.

She stepped toward him. He stiffened, but she didn’t let it stop her from putting a hand on the front of his plaid. Their eyes locked. “Won’t you forgive me?”