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He looked at her the way he’d looked at the twins that first night in the tent, as though she might turn to dust if he wasn’t careful.

She tried to steady herself and failed. A laugh escaped her instead, breathless and helpless, and halfway through it turned into something closer to a sob. She pressed her face into his shoulder so he could not see her tears.

He went still. Then his arm came around her and drew her in until she was tucked against his chest, his hand moving slowly up and down her back, the way she’d seen him soothe a skittish horse.

She knew the question he wanted to ask: whether he’d hurt her. But he hadn’t. Not once.

It was only that she hadn’t known.

She hadn’t known it could feel like that, like flying apart and being gathered back up again in the same moment. She hadn’t known a man’s hands could be so patient.

She’d lain beneath him with her heart in her throat, waiting for the fear to come, waiting for the cold, blank wall to rise inside her the way it always did when a man came too close. But it never came.

He had watched her face the whole time. She remembered that now, the way he’d paused every time she tensed and waited until she relaxed again before continuing. He hadn’t hurried. He hadn’t asked for anything. He’d given and given, and taken nothing for himself.

She could feel what that restraint was costing him in the careful way he held her. His heart thundered beneath her ear.

His name rose to her lips, and she almost whispered it, for no reason except that she wanted to. She kept it to herself, turning it over in her mind like something precious.

He pressed his mouth to the top of her head and left it there. Beyond the adjoining door, two babies slept on, oblivious to everything.

Freya closed her eyes. She had spent eleven years building her walls. Evander had walked through them in a single night, and he’d done it without raising his sword once.

She lay there in the circle of his arms, her body still humming, his heart beating steady and strong beneath her cheek, and she understood with perfect clarity that she was in trouble.

Three weeks would never be enough.

27

She had put her nightgown back on at some point, but it had ended up somewhere around her ribs. It was something silly to notice, but for some reason, Evander couldn’t look away from it.

He noticed it the way a man noticed anything, all at once and with his whole body, and he made himself look at the canopy instead.

He thought of cold lochs, of winter marches, of Callum’s face. None of it helped. Every part of him was still pulled tight as a bowstring. The woman curled against his chest smelled of honey and lavender and of him, and he was fairly certain that if he did not move soon, he would lose what little honor he had left.

It was hard ot forget her cries and the way she had arched against him.

Freya had been exactly as he imagined—so responsive to his touch and eager to seek out the pleasure he was giving. He was erect, his cock throbbing against his breeches, which were far too tight, but he ignored it for her sake. For the simple sake of wanting to keep her at ease.

So he moved.

He eased back just far enough to find the hem of her nightgown and slowly drew it down over her hips, her thighs, her knees. He smoothed it flat, the way his mother had once smoothed his blankets when he was too small to remember anything but her hands. Then he tied the loosened ribbon at her throat in a clumsy bow.

It was almost a shame to cover her. She was a beautiful woman, and he was covering up something he would not be able to forget for a long time. A battle could be waged right outside the castle at that moment, and it would be impossible to forget how she had clutched at him, crying out his name as his fingers worked in and out of her.

He bit back a growl.

He had to stop thinking about it. If he didn’t, he was going to drive himself mad.

Freya had watched him pleasure her with dark eyes, flushed from her brow to her collarbone, her hair a dark tangle across the pillow. She looked, he thought, thoroughly undone, and it was almost the death of him. Her lips were still swollen from his kisses, and he ached to taste them again.

He needed to leave.

He needed to head to a different room, where he was unlikely to get any sleep. He’d retreat to his room, pull his cock out of his breeches, and pleasure himself to the image of her arching her back.

But even as the thought formed, it gave him no relief. Nothing was going to help the fact that they were supposed ot be living separate lives. It was a rule Evander had set to make her comfortable agreeing to continue the marriage in the first place.

His one sensible decision in a marriage built on politics and necessity was falling apart. He had told himself, at the time, that it would protect them both. That if he kept his distance, neither of them would end up hurt when the time came for her to go.