A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(61)

“I am my people. You cannot separate them from me any more than I could separate yours from you.”

“I have already separated myself from them…for you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? That I would do anything for you?”

It did mean something to her. She wouldn’t admit it to him, but she realized that she was deeply flattered by his passion for her and the way he had disregarded everything to be with her. But she couldn’t act so selfishly herself.

Could she?

Because she had to admit, there was a huge part of her that craved doing exactly that. She thirsted for his touch and the passion he sent washing over her in hot persistent waves. She wanted to drink long draughts of him, letting the potency of his desire sweep her away from herself and all of her cares and concerns. And she knew that he could. He could easily make her forget herself, make her forget all of her responsibilities.

“I could never do what you are asking of me,” she whispered.

His jaw clenched and, grasping her by her upper arms he gave her a single shake. Then he swooped in and kissed her. He kissed her with white-hot passion, until she was breathless and weak. On the verge of giving in to him. She felt need unlike anything she’d known in her life before this. Before him.

Then he put her away from himself and backed away from her.

“Never is a long time,” he said hoarsely. Then he turned on his heel, walked across the room, and banged on the door.

Mordol unlocked the door and let him out.

Had she not been dizzy with her emotions and repressed needs, she might have noticed the leer Mordol sent her way.

As it was, she did not.





Chapter Seventeen


Ariana slept fitfully. Her body burned with unsatisfied needs. Her mind ached with guilt and frustration. She was tormenting him without meaning to. She knew she couldn’t be responsible for his feelings and needs, but she couldn’t help it. She was hurting him and she had never meant to.

The next day she went through like a zombie, her routine familiar enough now to go through it with only a modicum of attentiveness. That is, until his mother called her on it.

“Something weighs on your mind,” she said.

“No. I’m sorry. I merely drifted in my thoughts. Could you repeat what you just said?” Drifted yes. Drifted to the man who was beginning to haunt her every waking and sleeping moment.

“It would be better instead for me to listen to you,” Fatima said. She left her loom and walked over to where Ariana had been sitting staring at her stitching rather than making any progress on it. She took the seat across from Ariana and laid a comforting hand over hers a moment before taking the stitching away and setting it aside. Then she returned to pick up Ariana’s limp hand in hers. “Is it my son who occupies you so?”

“Yes,” Ariana confessed. “But I do not wish to discuss it.”

“Why not?”

“Because…because I am already obsessed with my thoughts of him. I do not need to further indulge myself.”

“So. He dwells in your mind and yet you will not discuss him. Could it be you do not wish to discuss your feelings because you do not wish to admit you have feelings to begin with?”

“The only feelings I feel for your son are those of frustration. He is stubborn and thick-headed and refuses to see what is right in front of him!”

“And that would be?”

“That I cannot disregard my people as easily as he would have me do.”

“I don’t think he wants you to disregard your people, only to make up your mind without letting them influence you.”

That brought her eyes up to the older woman’s. “What has he said to you?” she demanded.

“Nothing of much consequence,” she said. “But I know my son very well. He is just like his father. He takes what he needs with every fiber of his soul if he feels it is crucial and important. My son needs you. That much has been made very clear to any who spend more than two minutes in a room with you. His eyes follow you every moment you are together. You can see the craving in them. He pursues you with a single-mindedness that can only come from a man who is in love.”

Ariana gasped, her eyes going wide. “That is not true! He does not love me! He hardly knows anything about me!”

“Ariana, my son has never been in love before, but I recognize the signs because I saw them first in his father’s regard for me. He may not even realize it himself, but he does love you. A great deal. Enough so that he has risked everything to have you.”

“No.” She shook her head wildly. “He is selfish, not love-struck. He simply wants a toy that he cannot have. If he were to get that toy he would begin to tire of it just as quickly as he came to desire it. He is simply used to getting what he wants and cannot stomach being told no.”

“Is that what worries you? That he will tire of you?”

“Yes! I mean—no! There are other things to consider that are far more important than that.”

“I don’t agree,” Fatima said thoughtfully. “I think you fear being a passing fancy. That his love for you would not be a constant thing. Perhaps because you have developed feelings for him as well.”

“I have not developed feelings for him! That is ludicrous! He is my captor!”

“Is he? You could escape any time you wanted to. You could perhaps beg action from any one of the foreign diplomats that sit at table with you every night. Or perhaps overpower me one day and make your escape that way.”