“Nay, dove. Merely a statement of fact.”
Maybe in his mind, but in her heart it was a challenge and Callie loved a good challenge. Somehow, some way, she was going to break through his defenses and find the heart inside him. She would make him want to stay. She would be what he needed and how he needed it.
No matter what.
Sin rolled over and gave her his back. He expected her to get up.
She didn’t.
Worse, she settled down behind him and traced the scars along his back. It was such a strange sensation to have her hand giving him pleasure over the things that had brought him such tremendous pain.
When she leaned forward and placed her lips over the arrow wound, he trembled. His body burned with desire for her. It would be so easy at this moment to roll over, take her into his arms and plant himself deep inside her. To ease the ache between his legs with her body.
He swore he could already feel her breasts in his hands again. Taste the sweetness of her skin.
But it was a fool’s dream.
There was no safety in this world. No peace for someone like him. Love was for other men. Men who were lucky and blessed. Men who knew how to love someone.
Tonight though, he felt his loneliness on a level he’d never experienced before. He was cold. Empty and aching.
And all he wanted was peace. Just a moment of respite from the pain inside him.
Before he realized what he was doing, he rolled over to look at her. Her eyes were so gentle that they warmed the cold place inside him. When she reached up to place her fingers against his lips, he felt his resistance to her shatter.
How could she be so open and giving?
He would never understand this woman.
She opened her lips in invitation to him. And without thought, he took it.
Callie moaned at the taste of him as he pulled her forcefully into his arms. His kiss was one of pure passion and of longing, and it stole her breath. She felt him fist his hand in the back of her kirtle as he pressed her closer to his body. He plundered her mouth as if it held all the treasure of the earth and he was desperate for it.
His arms clutched at her as his tongue danced with hers in a heated, intense rhythm that made her breathless and weak.
Heaven help her, but she wanted this man. It didn’t matter to her what crimes he had committed. What he had done to survive the horrors of his past. All that mattered was the way he touched her heart.
He made her laugh, made her feel needed and desirable. Most of all, he made her feel like a woman. He awoke something deep inside her. A part of her she’d never known existed.
When she looked into his eyes, she could see the future. See the children she wanted to birth and the home she wanted to make for all of them.
Sin couldn’t fathom why he didn’t shove her away from him. He should. It would be the noble thing to do. But then he and nobility were strangers. He was a beast who knew nothing save basic survival skills.
He only knew how to protect himself from harm.
And yet when he looked at her, he could only think of being the man she needed. Of holding her close for the rest of eternity.
How he wished there was some way he could erase his past and be the kind of man a woman like this deserved.
“I want you, Sin,” she breathed against his lips.
God help him, he couldn’t resist that plea.
But he wouldn’t take her here on the floor with no regard for her comfort. Animal he might be, but she was a gentle-born lady.
Against her protests, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to her bed.
“You’re hurting your arm,” she said, holding him tight so as to put as little weight on his arms as she could.
