Her eyes flicked up to his, and her lips parted, at a loss for words. A strange sound escaped her, something pathetic and full of need. She tightened her grip on his shirt and tugged once so that he would lean closer.
He obliged.
Oh Lord, he was such a large man.
She tried to pull him even closer, but he was like a mountain, and she was unable to move him.
“If ye want something, Emily, ye need to ask for it.”
“A good fiancé shouldnae be so cruel!”
Kaden’s smirk widened. “Ah, is that what I am?”
“Yes! Please, Kaden! Please, kiss me!”
She barely got the last word out before he cupped her face in both of his hands, the groan that tore from his throat nearly muffled between their lips as he kissed her deeply.
He kissed her like air no longer mattered to him. The sort of kiss that a man freshly home from battle might give his lover. She was swept up in it, her body soft and pliant as she matched the pace of his lips, her tongue shy as it sought to deepen the kiss.
Kaden was only too happy to oblige.
He was everywhere and not enough at the same time. His hand slid into her hair, loosening the strands from some of the pins. She arched into his touch, wanting more as his lips trailed down the side of her neck.
She hadn’t even known that it was possible for her heart to race this fast in a good way. Emboldened, her hands tugged his shirtfree from his kilt and flattened against his warm skin, before sliding over his waist and pulling him closer.
She paused when her fingers dipped into the grooves of a very old scar. She slotted her fingers there like it was meant for her, and chose to ignore the deep ache in her gut, knowing now that Kaden had been very young when this had happened to him.
Only she couldn’t shake it. It was the wrong thing to be thinking in the moment, and she knew it. He likely wouldn’t want her thinking about them at all, the reminder that he was different in this way from other men.
It was only a moment’s pause, just a heartbeat, but Kaden felt it all the same.
His lips stilled on her neck, and for a moment, she thought that perhaps they could ignore her lapse in sanity and push through it. But she could feel the tension growing.
She parted her thighs fractionally wider in invitation. “I-I want ye, Kaden.”
There. She had said it.
And yet he was pulling away from her.
Where was he going?
Kaden pulled her skirts back down and took a step away from her. She couldn’t tell what the emotion on his face was. But she knew he wasn’t looking at her.
She had ruined everything.
He shook his head once, pushing away the inner battle that he was so clearly fighting. “That would be all, thank ye, Emily. Ye can leave.”
His voice was cold, distant in a way she had never heard it before. Perhaps closer to the voice of the man who had tried to harm her.
She never wanted that voice used with her again.
“Kaden—” She stopped.
What was she even going to say?
She felt like she might cry. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she swallowed hard past the lump in her throat as she lifted her chin with pride that she didn’t feel at all.
“If that’s all ye wanted.”