He reached out and tapped the necklace. “Is this thing working? What you are saying does not translate properly. You are my heart’s fire. And you proposed to me.”
“I didn’t mean to propose to you!” she protested.
“If you were not planning on going away with me, why did you purchase all of these travel clothes?”
She spluttered in outrage. “Do you think that every woman who shops a lot wants to marry you?”
“No, only those who propose to me,” he said.
His lips quirked in an amused grin. It softened the starkly beautiful lines of his face and made little crinkles form at the corners of his eyes. A sudden wash of lust weakened Rosamund’s knees, and the fact that he held such power over her, could make her body respond with nothing more than a smile, made her even angrier.
“I did not, repeat not, propose to you!” she shouted.
His smile faded, and he looked bewildered. That tugged at her heartstrings. Damn the man for being so delicious.He kidnapped you, she reminded herself.Went full Cro-Magnon and dragged you back to his cave. But that didn’t stop the pang of yearning that swelled inside her as he held her gaze.
“You are saying that you are not my heart’s fire?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know what that means.” She sort of did, really. She just didn’t want to acknowledge what was happening here.
Now he was looking at her skeptically. “You did not feel as if you were drawn towards me the first time you saw me?”
She could have denied it, but for some reason she found that she didn’t want to lie to him.
“Before I first saw you,” she admitted reluctantly. “I kind of sensed your presence in the room.”
“Of course you did.”
She snorted. “Arrogant, stuck-up jerk.”
The smile returned. He nodded in agreement. “I am all of those things, but it does not change the facts. You are meant for me, and I am meant for you. Are you saying that you did not feel a strong sexual attraction the moment our eyes locked?”
She felt her cheeks heating with embarrassment. Why couldn’t she just lie to him? She tried, but her lips wouldn’t obey her. “Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” she said, dodging the question. “You’re drop-dead gorgeous. Of course I felt desire.”
“Drop-dead gorgeous.” His brows drew together quizzically. “Deceased beautiful….like… a zombie?”
“No! It’s an Earth expression. It just means that you’re extremely physically attractive.”
“Ah!” He smiled in triumph. “That I understand.”
“Of course you do,” she snorted.
“Those things that you feel, they mean that you are my heart’s fire. You work for the Vulfans, correct? The Vulfans call it True Mates.”
Rosamund spluttered. He wasn’t backing down. He really intended to marry her – a total stranger. “But…I just met you. I can’t marry you!”
He just stood there, looking at her with that gleam in his eyes. As if he wanted to devour her. Slowly and sensually.
She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Look— It’s— Earth women don’t do the proposing!”
He shrugged. “But Draell women always propose. When I first saw you, I was expecting you to propose to me, but I am not familiar with your Earth traditions, so I decided to just wait. I was sure it would happen, of course, because it is meant to be. And it did. I just did not expect it to take so long.”
“Three days?” she said incredulously.
“It felt like a lifetime.”
From anyone else, that would have sounded like a cheesy, ridiculous line. From him, it sounded utterly sincere. His intense green eyes burned into hers, and she knew he meant it with every fiber of his being.
“It doesn’t matter. You have to take me back to Agora. Right now.”
