He kept watching.

There was no helping it—he had to see more. Orus leaned in with a transfixed curiosity, mouth agape and eyes unblinking. The immorality of the act did not matter in that moment; all he cared for was witnessing what this woman did in it, and how far her ritual went.

The lightless folds of fabric fell even farther down her body, and the landscape of sensual skin beneath shone brightly in the shadows. Every sensual curve of her hips was there, unabashedly exposed. The dress dropped the rest of the way, now a pool of inky blackness around her perfectly-poised ankles. Orus watched those bare legs as they stepped out and gently slid the shed shadows aside.

The woman stood completely naked, a porcelain statue before her mirror. The knight would have sworn she was as much, until she finally lifted her slender arms to take her obsidian hair between each finger and drag it outward, letting it settle behind her shoulders so gently. It was then that he saw, for the first time, a glimpse of her face.

The quarter-turn of her head showed him a handsomely risen cheek, and a small, lovely ear behind which her hair was tucked. Her nose was turned the slightest bit upward, and her chin tapered delicately to a beautiful point. This woman's feminine features were an exciting sight, illuminated by the soft glow about the room. From her fine facial structure, to the graceful slope of her shoulders, down the subtle curve of her breast and along her back, and finally the ample contours of her hips.

But why, when he had a duty to fulfill, did Orus find himself enraptured so? It was true that he hadn't had time to appreciate many women nowadays, but this was possibly too much all at once. He knew he should stop this nonsense and get back to work, before she caught him.

And yet, as he thought that, he saw her turn the rest of the way around, and stop short with a gasp as her wide, dark eyes fell upon his armored form silhouetted in the window.