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He found his hands moving over her, wild with need. As if they moved of their own accord, and ached to glance over each and every part of her—
My God, you’re losing control—
That voice inside him shocked him into stillness.
Cayetano set her aside abruptly, his breath hard and raw.
And almost lost control of himself again when he saw that her blue eyes were two shades darker. While her pretty mouth was faintly swollen from his.
Not reaching out for her again felt like a blow.
“Is that reason enough?” he managed to grit out. “Do you think that happens every day?”
Delaney blinked at that, then swallowed hard. She looked vulnerable for a moment, and that clawed at him, but then she straightened her shoulders and lifted that stubborn chin. “Speak for yourself. It happens three times a day for me. Sometimes more.”
He moved away from her, because it was that or continue as he had been and take her right there against the wall, and he couldn’t allow that. He needed to figure out how it was he had lost his composure here. He had to make sure that he was in control of himself the way he always, always was.
Because this flirtation with chaos could never happen again.
“You have two choices,” he told her when he could speak without shouting—another red flag—and he was aware that his voice had gone arctic. There was no helping it. Everything inside him was on fire, but God only knew what would become of him if he showed her that. If he allowed himself such a display. The very idea chilled him to the bone. “You may agree to marry me. If you do this, our wedding will take place in one month. It will give us time to prepare the perfect way to launch you and what you mean upon the House of Montaigne, and the world. Because it must be perfect. Meanwhile, you can study up on your relatives, if you wish. We have a great many books on the topic in our libraries, plus any number of personal experiences. And while you are learning where you come from, we will prepare for where you’re going. We’ll make you the Queen my country deserves.”
“And the second choice?” she asked without missing a beat.
Her eyes were glittering with temper now.
Cayetano inclined his head. “The second choice is simple enough. My men will stand guard outside your door. Come the morning, I will gather my people in the courtyard and claim you as mine as if it is still the Dark Ages. It will be done, and we will spend the same amount of time readying ourselves for our unveiling. But you won’t be trusted, and I fear that you might find Arcieri Castle more of a cell than you might otherwise.”
“So the choice you’re offering me is really no choice at all.”
There were too many competing shadows inside him, and he did not have the grip on himself he should. “If I were you, my little farm girl, I would count myself lucky I had any choice at all.”
“And do I get two different marriages to choose from, too?” she asked, folding her arms in front of her. As if she had all the self-control he was appalled to discover he lacked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Does a barbarous beginning lead to brutality?” she demanded. “Is that what I have to look forward to?”
She could not have said anything that would have cut him more.
“I would never lift my hand to a woman,” Cayetano bit out, though even as he did, something in him pointed out that if she thought otherwise she surely wouldn’t have said such a thing, and so baldly. Maybe that was what spurred on the words that came out of him then, as if the desire in him had taken him over completely. “The only battles you and I will have will be in bed. But both of us will win. And the only question will be how much you can take.”
There was something about the stunned sort of way she stared back at him that got to him. That made him think she was not necessarily as sophisticated as she pretended in the midst of her defiance. And that would mean...
But he dismissed it.
And then Cayetano forced himself to leave her in that sitting room before he could think better of it.
Before he could show her what he meant, there and then.
Before he betrayed himself any further.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DELANEYHADNOchoice but to pick the first option. Because she certainly wasn’t prepared to find herself barbarically married tomorrow morning.
What else could she do in the wake of that kiss? Of that...hurricane that had swept her away before she knew what was happening to her, making a mockery of anyweather systemsshe thought she knew before?
Her body was no longer recognizable to her. She no longer felt like herself, as if he’d taken her from the uncertain ground of learning she wasn’t a Clark head-on into the sea she’d seen out the window, shifting and moving and no ground at all beneath her feet. There were too many wild sensations simmering inside her. Too much longing.
