AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And he had made a great many vows in his life. To himself. To his people.
This was not a vow, but it felt like one. Like bright, hot steel pressed into flesh.
He could feel it in his skin. Directly over his heart, a terrible, marvelous brand of truth.
Cayetano hardly knew what to do with the storm in him then. Instead, he watched as she blew out a breath, punched those fists of hers into place on her hips, and began to pace around the room.
“I don’t understand this...sitting around in pretty rooms andtalking,” Delaney seethed at him, her blue eyes shooting sparks when they met his. “I like to be outside. I like dirt under my feet. I like a day that ends with me having to scrub soil out from beneath my fingernails.”
She glared at the walls as if they had betrayed her.
Then at him, as if he was doing so even now.
For a moment he almost felt as if he had—but that was ridiculous.
“When you are recognized as the true Crown Princess of Ile d’Montagne, the whole island will be your garden,” he told her. Trying to soothe her. He wanted to lift a hand to his own chest and massage the brand that wasn’t there, butsoothingwas for others, not him. He ignored the too-hot sensation. “You can work in the dirt of your ancestors to your heart’s content.”
Delaney shot a look at him, pure blue fire. “Even if I did agree to do such a crazy thing, you still wouldn’t get what you want. It doesn’t matter what blood is in my veins. I am a farm girl, born and bred. I will never look the part of the Princess you imagine. Never.”
She sounded almost as final as he had, but Cayetano allowed himself a smile, because that wasn’t a flat refusal. It sounded more like amaybeto him.
He could work withmaybe.
In point of fact, he couldn’t wait.
He rose then. And he made his way toward her, watching the way her eyes widened. The way her lips parted. There was an unmistakable flush on her cheeks as he drew near, and he could see her pulse beat at her neck.
Cayetano was the warlord of these mountains and would soon enough be the King of this island. And he had been prepared to ignore the fire in him, the fever. The ways he wanted her that had intruded into his work, his sleep. But here and now, he granted himself permission to want this woman.Hiswoman. Because he could see that she wanted him.
With that and hermaybe, he knew he’d already won.
“Let me worry about how you look,” he said as he came to a stop before her, enjoying the way she had to look up to hold his gaze. It made her seem softer. He could see the hectic need all over her, matching his own. “There is something far more interesting for you to concentrate on.”
Delaney made a noise of frustration. “The barbaric nature of ancient laws and customs?”
“Or this.”
And then Cayetano followed the urge that had been with him since he’d seen her standing in a dirt-filled yard with a battered kerchief on her head and kissed her.
He expected her to be sweet. He expected to enjoy himself.
He expected to want her all the more, to tempt his own feverish need with a little taste of her.
But he was totally unprepared for the punch of it. Of a simple kiss—a kiss to show her there was more here than righting old wrongs and reclaiming lost thrones. A kiss to share a little bit of the fire that had been burning in him since he’d first laid eyes on her.
It was a blaze and it took him over.
It was a dark, drugging heat.
It was a mad blaze of passion.
It was a delirium—and he wanted more.
He drew her closer to him, then hauled her up into his arms, letting the fever take hold of him, a delicious madness. He kissed her again, then again. Delaney made a low, broken sort of sound and he made as if to retreat, but she threw her arms around his neck and held on.
And then there was nothing at all but the pounding of his heart, and the hard pulse of need in his sex. The slick fire with every angle, every dance of his tongue and hers.
The glory of it. The desire.
