Forever His(46)

“They are part of your plans, and I will not have it. They will be done away with.”

“Done away with?” she gasped. “Why?”

“Because it is what I command!”

“But you can’t do that! You can’t undo everything I’ve accomplished—”

“Do you think you can defy me?” He smiled and asked it in a low tone that she should have been smart enough to recognize as dangerous.

“Yes, when you give stupid orders! The changes I’ve made are good for your people.”

He stood so suddenly that she backed up a step.

“It is not your place to decide what is good for my people!” He towered over her. “They are my concern, not yours. They are simple folk and too innocent to the serpent in our midst, too quick to believe—”

“I am not a serpent and I wish you would start to trust me at least a little bit. Give me a chance! Everyone else—”

“Everyone else has let their bellies run away with their reason. Now that I have returned, it will cease. Until you are ready to tell the truth, you will be treated like the enemy that you are. My people will have naught more to do with you. I will have naught more to do with you.”

She made a wordless sound of frustration between her teeth. “You are the most infuriating, arrogant, unreasonable, stubborn pig of a man I have ever met!” She took one heedless step toward him, her chin raised, her fists clenched. “You can lock me away from now until next year and I won’t change! I can’t! You’re the only one around here who needs to change. I think a little defiance from someone might do you a world of good. I think—”

He encircled the nape of her neck with one hand, drew her to him, and kissed her.

Kissed her. Before he knew what he was doing. Silenced her. Stunned them both with the explosive force of the heat that suddenly arced between them.

She stiffened, struggled, but he held her against him—one hand in her silken red hair, his other arm around her back—and after a moment, she began to melt, moaning, her hands coming up to grasp his tunic as if she were falling.

The joining of their mouths sent him spiraling downward into an abyss so wide and so deep he knew it would be bottomless. He struggled for purchase, desperate to pull away, but the blaze of desire was so huge and dark and consuming that it pulled him in until retreat was impossible, unimaginable.

Her lips opened at his urging and then he was part of her, intimately, his tongue finding hers, thrusting softly, then aggressively, while he held her head still with his hand. Their tongues and tastes and hungers mingled until he felt himself shaking with the force of it, his body aflame like newly forged steel, hers a tender branch that went up like tinder. They burned one another, consumed all air, all breath, all life ... all.

He broke free and thrust her away.

“Get out,” he snapped, his voice ragged, his gaze narrowed with accusation. “Leave me—before I give you what you have sought from the first.”

She stumbled backward, eyes wide and dazed. She did not speak, only stared at him, one trembling hand reaching up to touch her swollen, bruised lips.

He closed the distance between them in one stride. “Get out!”

She turned and fled so fast that she left the door open behind her. Left him alone, his body still shaking with the ferocity of his passion for her.

God help him, would locking her away be enough? Even if he banished her to the most distant, unexplored corner of the world, would it ever be enough?

Enough to keep him from seeking her out ... and giving in to the desire that burned his soul.





Chapter 8


Two nights later, as Celine lay alone in her room, tossing and turning, she thought she could still feel the tingle of his kiss on her lips.

Which was ridiculous, she knew. Temporary insanity. Cabin fever. Castle fever. Brought on by two days of being locked up with nothing to occupy her time.

But whatever it was, she couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. About him.

Her entire body felt warm with awareness. Sensitive. Tense. As if that wild embrace had triggered some secret switch, sending a constant electrical charge through her nerve endings. Even the soft velvet of her tunic and leggings chafed. Her daily baths didn’t relax her. The herb tea that Yolande and Gabrielle brewed for her didn’t soothe her. Nothing helped. She felt tingly and restless all day—and it only intensified at night.

The worst part of it was, she knew her arrogant husband would be thrilled to know he had made such an impact on her.

God, what an impact.

Even now she couldn’t stop replaying it in her mind: his mouth on hers, hot and demanding; his hand in her hair; his hold on her so fierce; his granite-hard angles molded to her body ... and the delicious little sizzles that had melted her muscles when his tongue played over hers.