No, he didn’t view the scar as shameful, though he did in its getting. For he’d not received it in battle. He’d received it the last time he’d ever acted foolishly over a woman.Oddly poetic that the very woman who brought out that foolish side again was turned off by the scar. As if the scar and tattoo were a shield. A shield protecting him forevermore from heartache.

His eyes flipped up to hers, the lids hooded. Then back to her mouth. The crackling tension now sparked across her skin.

She dragged the soft cloth up and up, the fabric tickling along his sensitized skin. He trembled. Never had he been so responsive to a woman’s slightest touch.

And while she didn’t yet know how she fit into the world, she did know Duncan was a vital part.

She did not want to have to choose between the legend which had finally made her feel as if her life had meaning and this beautiful, caring man whose soul seemed to echo with the same beats as her own heart.

He settled beside her on the small bench, and awareness of him pushed against her skin as if he extended past the confines of his body and made her want.

He lay stretched full length along his glorified cot, and while his bandage masked his shoulder, plenty of bare skin remained for her gaze to lap up. Bare, musclely skin. Skin that was somehow otherworldly in the soft glow of the flickering candlelight. Skin that made her want to touch, feel, and…and…lick. Until her gaze snagged on the scar-tattoo combo, and ice again crystallized in her gut.

Her mouth… her mouth tasted like the purest water from a newly made spring after the last snow melt. And feeling her slowly surround him with her heat? Like sliding into acceptance, into a warm, welcoming sort of understanding. Like sliding into home.

And then… Oh my. She realized why his silhouette had been off. The man was buck naked. Pressed against her. He’d swam naked from the galley. Picturing that, with maybe his ankle-knife clutched between his teeth, had her unable to emit another sound for quite a while.