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“I’m sure you are.”
Something discomfiting shivered through her. Something that felt like chagrin. “You’ve changed your mind?”
“No. My mind has always been set on you.”
He sounded like he meant it. She wished she could believe him. “At least that’s what you’d like me to think,” she said resentfully.
“My hunger is real enough.”
She stepped closer. “Don’t you want to kiss me?” she asked with an edge of desperation. “I’m here. We’re alone. There’s nobody to stop us.”
“You think I’m out of my head.”
“Yes.”
He laughed softly. “Perhaps I am at that. Why are you here?”
The impulse was to offer some nonsense to content him so he stopped talking and kissed her. Instead she replied with complete sincerity. “It’s Cassie.”
“Cassie?” She heard curiosity.
She paused, wondering how to make him understand. Wondering why it mattered that he should understand. “She almost died.”
“I know.” She waited for more, but he remained silent, luring her to spill her secrets. This intimacy was dangerous, but she couldn’t summon the will to shatter it.
“Cassie’s illness reminded me life is short and I should snatch what I want while I can.”
“Does that mean you want me?”
Ah, she saw his strategy. He meant to strip her pride. Or any illusion that she ceded under anyone’s auspices but her own.
Defiantly she raised her chin. She sprang from one of the greatest lines in the land. Stretching back to the Dark Ages, the blood of warriors flowed in her veins. Still, for all her bravado, her stomach cramped with nerves. “Yes, I want you.”
“At last,” he breathed, so softly she scarcely heard.
She stood in tense silence, while he leaped down the last step to stand before her. With a slowness she felt in every beat of her yearning heart, he slid his hand behind her head and tilted her face toward his.
“You’re trembling,” he said softly.
“Of course I’m trembling. I’m scared to death. But desire is stronger than fear.”
The deceptive starlight lent his smile a tenderness she knew not to trust. Even as she consented to become his lover, she wasn’t gulled about his essential nature. He was a predator. If she forgot that, she was lost.
“I’m glad.”
Any instant now, he’d press that beautiful, passionate mouth to hers and reason would vanish. She gathered the last shreds of sanity. “Before . . . before we start . . .”
She stopped and licked her lips with nervousness. Had she been this awkward with Johnny? She didn’t think so. She’d been too intoxicated with the vision of sacrificing everything for love.
She wasn’t so foolish now.
“Rules, beautiful Antonia?” he murmured, nuzzling her neck and threatening what little common sense she retained. She shivered. It was hard enough keeping two thoughts in her head when he wasn’t touching her.
“Y-yes,” she said on a husky sigh.
She tried without great conviction to establish some space between them. He’d only held her three times before. Why was his touch more familiar than her own skin?
“Let me guess.” He brushed his face against the side of hers. “This must remain a secret.”
