A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(64)

She withdrew from that and he sighed.

“I’m not saying that,” she said.

“Then what are you saying?” he asked with frustration.

“I simply want to know that, if the rules were different, you would have me. To wife. Regardless of whether or not I produce any—“

“Damn you Ariana!” he ejected, reaching out and grabbing her by both of her arms and giving her a shake. “I love you! I’ll take you any way I can get you!”

The words were out before he had any hope of recalling them. They fell between them like little explosions and he felt his entire world spinning away. He hadn’t meant to say it. If he had thought she was afraid before, she would be doubly so now.

“I-I mean,” –oh how to fix such a blunder!—“That isn’t…I just…”

He couldn’t figure out how to fix the problem. He was afraid to meet her eyes, afraid of the mocking he would find there.

“You don’t mean that,” she said softly.

His gaze snapped to hers.

“I am not a liar.”

“No. I mean…you won’t take me any way you can have me. You won’t be satisfied unless you can have it all. At first you’ll tell yourself that the physical is enough. But then you’ll want the emotional. Then the emotional won’t be enough. You’ll want to mean more to me than anything else. It won’t be enough until you have every part of me. And frankly, that scares me.” She took a breath. “I’m not sure I can be what you want. What you need. I think you may have picked the wrong woman.”

“Isn’t that for me to decide? Isn’t it my duty to be responsible for my own feelings? I don’t want any other woman. I have waited a long time to feel what I feel for you. To find what drove my father to my mother’s side against all odds and opposition. I believe we can find a way if we both want it bad enough. I know what I want…do you?”

She frowned, a light puckering of her brow. “I thought I did,” she said. “But now I’m not so sure.”

“What does that mean?” he asked her on a sigh. He felt drug out. Defeated. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t have her so close and yet so far out of his reach. “Do you even know?”

“It means…” she turned up her gaze to his, seeming to be only half present as she said, “It means I am tired of denying myself what I want because my people will not like it. It means I want to be able to take what I truly want.”

Sin’s heart seized in his chest.

“And what is it you want?” he asked, almost afraid to ask. Afraid to be disappointed yet again.

“You,” she said simply. “I want you.”

She tipped her chin back and caught him as he crushed his mouth down on hers. He kissed her with barely leashed, savage desire. He tightened his arms around her until she was barely able to draw breath.

Sin couldn’t believe his ears. The words he had waited for were escaping her lips. She was finally realizing she deserved to have more than what her people wanted for her. That she deserved to have love and life independent of their expectations for her. Oh, he knew she did not love him. But that could come in time. The point was, now he would have the opportunity to share time with her. In all possible ways.

Her hands were clutching at his back, her nails digging in to the fabric of his shirt. He kissed her again and again, not letting her catch breath for fear she would use that breath to recall him. To stop him. But he didn’t think he could be stopped now. Not any longer.

Sin reached for the sash at her waist and untied the knot with one hand. He stripped it away, letting her blouse fall loose at the bottom. The instant he could, he slipped a hand beneath it and caressed the warm skin of her midriff. Without undergarments to impede his path, he slid his hand up to embrace one full breast with eager fingers. She was so soft. So warm. He had never felt anything like it. His thumb flicked over her nipple and that softness tightened into hardness, the point thrusting out, begging for more from him.

He made a frustrated sound against her lips and broke his mouth away for just long enough to whip her blouse off over her head. Now she was bare-breasted in his hands and he couldn’t return to kissing her until he had looked his fill. She was so pale and perfect, her nipples so rosy pink. Like the buds of a flower in the stark landscape of winter snow. Only this winter landscape was warm and sweet.

He was breathing hard as he looked down on her. He had no idea how savage the hunger was that was in his eyes.

“Now is the moment to change your mind, Ariana,” he said hoarsely.

She took his face in her hands and made him meet her eyes.

“I’m not going to change my mind.”

“But you may come to regret this?”

“No. I won’t regret this. I promise I won’t.”

That was good enough for him. He didn’t have the strength to refuse her in any event. He had reached the end of his tether. He hauled her up into his arms again, taking her mouth like a starving man. She let him abuse her, making no complaint. His hands raked up and down her back, her warm flesh filling his eager palms over and over again. When he broke from her mouth to catch his breath, he buried his face beneath the fragrant fall of her curls and kissed and bit at the length of her neck. Then he pulled her up off her feet and up into his body, brought her breast to his lips. He caught at her nipple with his teeth then sucked her into his mouth with one strong pull. She released a long, throaty moan. He switched to her opposite breast and plucked at the nipple he abandoned with his fingers, feeling the wetness of it from the saliva he’d left behind.