Read Online A Dark Champion by Kinley MacGregor - Free Book Online

Why, she almost dropped the lute she held in her hands!
    Never in her life had she beheld a naked man, but she had a thought that none could be more fair than the one in front of her now.
    He was all sinewy, tanned flesh. A visual delight.
    And against her will, her gaze fastened on the most private place of his body where he stood ramrod stiff.
    Remembering herself, she spun about to give him her back. “Milord, would you please cover yourself?”
    “Why should I?” he asked sullenly. “You’ve already seen all there is to me.”
    Heat burst across her face at that. “Are you always this crass?”
    “When a woman awakens me from a sound sleep in the privacy of my own quarters, aye. I think I have a right to be rather upset. Don’t you?”
    “I thought you would be awake by now.”
    “And why would you think that?”
    “No reason other than the fact that it is daylight, milord.”
    He huffed at that and, still completely bare, he got out of his bed and walked past her to look out the tent flap.
    “’Tis barely dawn. No one is up at this hour.”
    Clutching her lute to her, Rowena bit her lip at the sight of his bare posterior and the incredibly handsome sight he posed. She started to spin about as he looked at her over his shoulder, but forced herself not to.
    He gave her a challenging stare.
    “If you wish to flaunt yourself before me, milord, so be it. I am not a mouse to scurry at the approach of a cat.”
    He turned to face her.
    Rowena couldn’t breathe as her gaze took in his whole body from toe to head.
    He was beautiful.
    His broad shoulders tapered to narrow hips. Tawny skin glistened with vitality in the grayish light and his presence was mammoth. Commanding.
    His manly body was lightly dusted with dark hairs that accentuated every muscle. His manhood was still stiff, rising high even in the chill of the moist, morning air.
    She shivered at the fierce sight and wondered what it would be like to have a man such as this as a lover. Would he be tender? Or would he be true to his warrior’s nature and take her roughly? Savagely…
    “Careful, lady,” he said with a note of warning in his voice. “There are those who would think you unchaste by such actions.”
    She shrugged. “If that is the least of what they call me, then I am truly fortunate. As it is, I know well what others think of me and I care not.”
    Stryder was amazed by her courage. What would it take to make such a woman tremble?
    If not for the heated look in her innocent gaze, he would think she was one of those women who held no use for a man whatsoever.
    But Rowena was not a follower of Sappho. She was all too aware of his nudity. And the blush on her face told him he was embarrassing her. Not to mention the fact that she gripped her instrument as if it were some kind of shield that could protect her from him.
    He should cover himself, and yet he had to admit he liked the way she stared at him. The high color in her cheeks.
    And he wondered what she would look like spreadacross his bed, her face wild in abandonment as he showed her exactly why troubadours wrote tributes to love. Or at least to the physical pleasures of it.
    “Have you ever been kissed, milady?”
    She frowned at his question. “I beg your pardon?”
    He approached her slowly. Methodically. The last thing he wanted was to send her scurrying out of his tent. “Have you ever had a man press his lips to—”
    “I know what a kiss is, milord.”
    “And?”
    She stepped back from him. “My lips are no concern of yours. Nor is any other personal matter.”
    “Then why are you here?”
    “I came to begin our lessons.”
    He was aghast at that. “At this hour?”
    “We are least likely to be disturbed now.”
    “And I am least likely to agree to learn anything at this hour of day, milady. My sleep is hard won and too precious to be disturbed by something I find as distasteful as song.”
    Rowena hesitated at the catch in his voice as he spoke those words to her.