AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER THREE
TIMONEYHADTHOUGHTthis would never happen again.
She’d been sure. He’d made certain she was sure.
But now he was kissing her again, as if there had been no separation. She was kissing him back as if her heart had never been crushed. And all her dreams, all her memories, faded away as the searingly beautiful reality of it took hold, sweeping through her and lighting her up as if she had never dimmed.
As if there had never been the faintest hint of darkness.
The taste of him. The heat. The way a kiss from this man was nothing so simple as the word implied. There was no fairy tale here. There was no swelling soundtrack in the distance with magic all around. It was too intense for any of that. Too wild.
Too much.
And even though Timoney knew better now, even though he had taught her too well that the abandon she felt when she was close to him was a lie—
How could any of that matter when his mouth was on hers again?
When finally—finally—she felt alive again?
As she always had, Timoney melted into him, and that, too, was an opportunity for more intensity. Because the wall of his chest was hard and hot, and far better than she remembered it. When she had remembered it in excruciating detail. And it was this particular stone, this wall of toned muscle, that she had tried so hard to shatter herself against, hadn’t she?
And had. Over and over again.
Like every kiss, it was like the first.
Unlike so many others, Timoney knew, now, that it could also be the last.
But the mad storm of sensation washed over her and through her, and it didn’t matter that now, she knew this would end.
It didn’t matter because it was too much in all the ways she’d grown to adore. It was too wicked, too impossible, too good.
Crete’s tongue found hers and once again, he led her on that ancient dance that he had taught her.
And she knew each and every one of the steps by now. The angle of his jaw, the low, distant growling sound he made that had always made her shudder. It did again.
Deeper. Wilder.
It seemed preordained that he should have found her tonight, in this barren garden while seasons of flowers slumbered beneath their feet. It seemed right, somehow, that he would appear like one of her dreams and kiss her like this, making the choice before her—the choice she had already made, though her memories had plagued her—so stark. So desperate.
So unfair.
It was that last thought that had her pulling her mouth from his, so that their breath sawed out at once and made their own clouds.
But for once, she felt as if her own mind was remarkably clear where he was concerned. Though to make sure, she stepped back and put some space between their bodies. Better not to put her yearning for him to the test.
“This is wrong.” Timoney was surprised that she could use her mouth to speak when what she wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry. Or pound actual stones to sand. Maybe both at once. “I’m engaged to marry Julian.”
Crete’s hard mouth curved. She would not call it a smile. “I hardly think that counts.”
“How liberal you are,” she replied, doing absolutely nothing to hide the bite in her voice. It felt like a weapon. Maybe the only one she could muster. “I hope you take this same position when, should you ever condescend to marry, you find your betrothed in another’s arms only hours before the ceremony. Somehow I do not think you will.”
“It does not count, little one, because you did not choose to marry him.” That impossible dark blue gaze of his seemed to pin her back down to the stone bench behind her. “Did you?”
“Of course I had a choice.” She should have left it at that. But instead, her mouth kept moving, and not in the right direction. “It might not have been a choice I liked, but I chose it. I chose Julian.”
Maybe if she said it enough it would feel more like a gift and less like a noose.
“Did you indeed? Out of all the men in the world, you looked around and selected him?” Again, that curve in his mouth. That too-sharp amusement in his gaze. She wanted to claw at his face—but her hands couldn’t be trusted to stick with violence. Crete continued as if she’d answered him. “Or was he rather chosen for you? Presented to you as the only option, to better serve your uncle’s interests?”
