Page 88 of The Heir's Bargain

I exhaled. "Is something wrong?" I asked, my muscles growing taut.

"Why would something be wrong?"

My brow arched as I peered at her from the corner of my eye. The braid she had twisted her hair into was draped over her shoulder, curving over her breast.

"You seem. . ."

She shifted again, and one of the thin straps of the slip slipped down the soft curve of her shoulder.

I swallowed, blinking and forcing my gaze back to her eyes. "Restless."

She fixed the strap and swept a hand across her collarbone. A sweet golden hue hummed across her skin in the lantern’s flickering light. "It's just warm in here, that's all."

Peeling my gaze away from her—a task more difficult than it should have been—I surveyed the windows lining the exterior wall. "Do you want me to open up another window?"

"No, I got it."

She moved, and because I was a glutton for punishment, I watched her from the corner of my eye. My book slipped an inch in my hand as she threw off the covers. Her slip had ridden up slightly, revealing more of her toned thighs. She threw her legs over the side of the bed and strolled to the window. Her hips swayed, and with each step, the slip rose.

When she reached the window—a distance that I selfishly wished to be longer—she pushed it open. The breeze that rolled in swept over the loose strands of hair surrounding her face, picking them up and twisting them into the air.

Dani leaned against the window, and my gaze dropped to her backside. As she leaned against the window with her arms on the windowsill, her back arched, and the fabric rose higher.

And for a moment, I let myself admire the woman before me.

As she stood in nothing more than a slip that barely kissed her thighs, her physique was proof of the work she had put in over the years.

She was bewitching.

Months ago, those words would not have entered my mind so easily. I had never looked at Dani that way before, not really, anyway. Not so. . .absentmindedly.

When we were kids, the thought did cross my mind once or twice—especially when I was a hormonal teenager who was easily distracted by any woman who looked at me. I once made the painful mistake of mentioning that Dani was attractive—perhaps not in such respectable terms, but the point was all the same. Instead of taking my comment about her growing curves as a compliment, she had kneed me in the balls.

Rightfully so, of course.

Back then, however, I didn't even realize what I had said was wrong. As a child and teenager, I struggled to keep my mouth shut. When you have so many thoughts running through your mind, you were bound to blurt out a thing or two by accident and at inappropriate times.

After Dani made me keel over, I tried never to repeat that mistake.

But on the shortest night of the year and in the privacy of my mind, I admired her.

She was lethal with a weapon.

She was powerful in a dress.

She was as beautiful as a freshly forged sword.

She was feminine and strong. Two words that so many men kept separate, as if they were opposites on a spectrum. And yet, Dani was the embodiment of both. Her strength was not diminished because of her femininity, nor vice versa. Instead, like a recipe requiring salt and sugar, they only enhanced one another.

I set my book on the bedside table, not caring to save the page at this point. I was more interested in the story unfolding before me.

Because, as if she was the moon and I was the sea, some magnetic force I could not explain pulled me toward her.

I kept my footsteps soft across the pine floors as if she was a doe in a forest. When I approached, Dani didn't move. She didn't even look at me as I leaned against the windowsill beside her.

We stood there in silence. As if were we to speak, whatever magic twisted in the air would disappear. So, instead, we watched the waves tumble over one another out at sea. As a cool gust swept in, the smell of sea salt wrapped around us. Beneath it, though, I could make out the faint notes of cinnamon kissing my cheeks as the breeze brushed past Dani's hair. A loose curl fell from her braid, and it took everything I had not to brush it behind her ear.

Her brows were drawn tight together, and a deep crease formed in the center of her forehead. I had the urge to wipe the worry away, too, but I kept my hands to myself despite the buzzing spiraling through my veins.

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