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“As your property.”
“Let’s just use the word wife.”
Tally shook her head frantically. She knew he was being deliberately provocative, baiting her, tormenting her. She knew he was angry with her less than enthusiastic welcome but she wasn’t going to bend and she wouldn’t break. “It appalls me that you would force me to marry you. It appalls me that you’d be so barbaric and heartless.”
“You’re not that appalled. You know me well enough now to know that I don’t say one thing and do another. If I say I’ve claimed you, I’ve claimed you and twenty-four hours apart, or seventy-two, wouldn’t change anything. You are mine and tomorrow we make it legal.”
He could fix this. He could make this right, or at least make it better. He knew how to soothe her, comfort. But he wouldn’t. He’d be a brute. He’d be insensitive and unfeeling. “I won’t marry you out of duty. If I married you, it’d only be out of love.”
“And you don’t love me.”
Her eyes burned, her heart on fire. Did he love her? Did he feel that way for her? Was he taking her out of pride? To prove a point? To show that he’d conquered her?
“No, I don’t,” she choked, eyes gritty, throat sore as she tried to swallow around the lump filling it, blocking air.
Expression dark, dangerous, lethal, Tair rose from his chair. “Your right hand says you do love me.”
“My right hand has been hennaed by a gaggle of giggling older women. My right hand knows not what it says—”
“I think it does.”
“Well I know it does not.”
He shrugged, supremely indifferent. “Then perhaps you could tell your right hand—along with your heart—that maybe it should learn to like me, if not love me, as we’re about to have forever together.”
“Forever.”
“Eternity.”
“I get the concept,” she snapped, glaring at him, her pulse racing far too fast for her own good. With her heart thumping this hard she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t get control of her emotions, couldn’t find the right words to argue. But she knew she must. She knew she couldn’t let this happen, knew that if Tair said he intended to marry her tomorrow then he intended to marry her tomorrow. Even his jests were true. Everything he said, he did. Which so did not bode well.
Not for the future. Much less now.
Be logical, she ordered herself now. Say something intelligent, something that makes sense.
“Why me?” she cried, settling on the most obvious argument. “I don’t like you, you don’t like me, we’re completely different culturally. Our values clash, our interests don’t align. Why not marry a woman who wants to be with you instead of one determined to keep running away?”
“You’re here.”
“So are one hundred other women!”
“You need me—”
“I don’t—”
“You do, but since you won’t accept that argument then here’s another.” He walked toward her, one step and another, closing the distance with his silent catlike strides that made him king of the desert. He didn’t stop walking until he stood just in front of her.
Tally had to lift her chin and look up, way up, to meet his dark eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as his gaze met hers and she felt consumed by him, consumed by a heat she couldn’t explain. All she knew was that when he looked at her she felt her insides melt, felt her bones dissolve.
Like now.
Hot, so hot, and the corner of his mouth lifted and he knew the effect he had, and he loved it.
“I want you as my wife because I like the way you look.” He smiled a little as if he knew how she’d take the words, appreciating how offended she’d be.
“I also like the way you kiss,” he drawled. “And I very much like the way you taste.”
Tally’s stomach flipped. She tried to look away, but his gaze was too intense and she felt caught, trapped in his smoldering eyes, his desire there, revealed for her. He was keeping nothing hidden now.
“There are few women,” he added, “that taste like you. And if I am to have a wife, I want one that I can kiss and lick and eat.”
Tally’s stomach flipped again, so high, so fast she shook. “You have a horrible sense of humor.”
His lips pulled and white wolf teeth flashed. “None whatsoever,” he agreed. His dark gaze settled on her mouth, and he cocked his head, drinking her in, making her lips feel full, swollen.
