A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(60)

“I…I do want you,” she confessed for the very first time between them. “I admit that. You make me crave things I haven’t wanted in so long, but there is a reason why it has been so long,” she added hastily before he could speak. “Every lover I choose has to be what is best for the people I lead as well as what is best for me. I have a responsibility to them. You said yourself my people would never accept you.”

“I don’t give a damn about your people! And in this case neither should you! You should be allowed to give yourself to whomever you choose to. To whomever is right for you.”

“But you are not right for me.”

“That’s a lie. I know it is. You have grown closer to me these past days. You have come to crave me just as much as I crave you. You want to give yourself to me, you simply won’t let yourself. You’re being stubborn.”

“I’m being realistic! This can never work between us!”

“Yes it can. You are already coming to care about this country. You could make it your home.”

“And what of what’s happening in my home? Do I simply ignore it? Do I pretend my absence it not pushing them to the brink of civil war?”

“Hittite and Felone are intelligent tacticians. They won’t let it come to that and you know it.” He ran his hand down from the small of her back and onto her backside. He fondled her lovingly…erotically. His assault was gentle now, but it was an assault all the same.

He was right, however. She did know it. She had faith that Mason and Jutsin would be able to maneuver her sister into her place. Her sister may want power, but she didn’t have the first clue how to gain it or keep it. She would look for the easy way. Not that she wasn't cunning, merely that her impulsivity would be her one major weakness. She would try to rush out and grab everything, when instead a gentler approach might serve her better. But a lot of people could be hurt in the process.

It was hard for her to think about that when she was being held in such powerful arms, with such wicked hands on her body. She could feel him against herself…feel how hot and how hard he was. She had yet to see him naked, but he had seen her. He had taken dozens of intimacies from her body, and taken none for himself.

Suddenly she realized just how selfless he was being. He could have taken her any time and she would have let him. She would have cast her will to the winds for a few moments in his arms. But they both knew it would be only a temporary pleasure. That she would come to realize her errors and would live to regret them.

Surely there was some way she could give him a part of herself without giving it all away? Perhaps she could ease his needs a little…give him a little of the release she had experienced at his hands.

To that end, she caressed her hand over one tense pectoral muscle and on up to his shoulder. Her fingers then trailed down his arm to where he held her body so desperately tight against his. She urged him to loosen his grasp just a little as her opposite hand ran down his chest, over the rigid bumps of his abdomen and on to the waist of his breeches.

“Perhaps,” she said silkily, “there is something I can do to ease you.” She ran her fingers down the bulge at the front of his pants. It was the first time she had touched him and he felt it like a hot brand sizzling against his skin. He grew harder for her, if such a thing was even possible. Where had this come from? One moment they were talking about the fate of her country, the next she was burning at his self-control in all new ways.

It had been one thing to want her and crave her knowing that release was out of his hands and all in hers, but it was something entirely different to feel what she was offering him. He felt it on a visceral level, felt his need for her expanding tenfold. He sucked in his breath as she cupped him and fondled him with great intensity. It eased an ache inside of him, then created all new ones.

“My God…you’re killing me,” he whispered hot and fierce against her ear. “I cannot take what you’re offering…not unless all of you comes with it.”

She huffed in frustration. “Why must it be all or nothing with you? Why can’t you take things in degrees? You are being stubborn and unreasonable!” Her hand fell away from him and he almost sagged with a combination of relief and regret. He couldn’t decide which was the greater feeling.

“I could say the same to you,” he said intensely. “Why can’t you give way? Let yourself go? Seek your own pleasure and to hell with everything else!”

“You would never act that way! You would never put your own needs ahead of those of your people!”

He looked dead into her eyes and cocked a single brow up high.

“And you think kidnapping you was the best thing for my people? Risking war and strife is what was best for them? That there was nothing selfish in my motivations?”

He had her there and she cast about for a rebuttal in frustration.

“But you believe in your heart that I would be good for your people,” she said triumphantly.

“I do believe that. But that is a happy consequence of my actions, not a motivation for my taking them. I saw you. I wanted you. I took you. I weighed it all heavily in my mind, it is true, but in the end I did what I wanted. Followed my heart and the hungers within it. All I ask is that you do the same. Follow the hunger in your heart. Let it sweep you away. Do what you want to do, not what you think is best for your people. Your people aren’t here. They aren’t in this room. Don’t put them between us.”