“Why?” he asked hoarsely. “To what end?”
She licked her lips as they parted and the pink tip of her tongue darted out. “Because rutting males are barbarians that pillage the wilderness,” she whispered.
“But what about marriages to honorable men, and then having children?” he asked, stepping in closer. “You need us barbarians for that, right?” Then again, he thought about the advances of technology and realized that that wasn’t a given.
“I don’t understand what has happened…why this time when we were called it was so different…why they would break a vow held for so long?” Her voice was an exhausted lament as she stared up at him. “Unless they felt the decency in each of you that I felt?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, finding it very hard to keep up any ruse with her or even to think of her as the enemy. There was something completely disorienting about her the moment he stood physically close to her. It also dredged the truth, this magnetic pulse and he fought with himself not to ask, but caved to the need to. “What is it about you that the moment I’m close like this, I…”
“My aura,” she murmured in a near rasp, her eyes now heavy-lidded and her breathing shallow. “I’ve never let any male being get this close—you have one, too…an aura field that is…spectacular.”
“Really?” he asked quietly, his groin throbbing so hard that he could barely breathe. “Your nymphs, they have this, too…is that what seduced my men or were they drugged?”
“We don’t use drugs; only Aphrodite does…it is their auras, which is why we stay in the wilderness and away from humans…normally.”
He didn’t know if it was complete hocus pocus or what, but the rational side of his brain was oozing out of his ears as she began to slightly pant. Her dewy skin made his fingertips burn to touch it, but he didn’t want to take liberties that could get anybody killed, so he kept wetting the towel and slowly bringing it over the swell of her breasts and down her bare arms, teasing her neck as they spoke in dètente.
“I am not against marriage,” she gasped, “and I am the protectress of women in labor…during childbirth.”
“Then why do you shun one of the most fundamental rites of spring…mating, making love, and becoming one from two?” He couldn’t deny it; he wanted this woman—bad guy or not.
Her answer was a quick gasp and a shudder as his thumbs finally grazed the swell of her breasts and he dropped the towel, standing inches from her. “I cannot remember.”
CHAPTER 4
A YEAR OF ABSTINENCE WHILE UNDERCOVER imploded in his groin as he took her mouth and summarily drowned in the sweetest kiss he’d ever tasted. He couldn’t help it; it was an involuntary reaction to stimuli too great to ignore. Her smooth hands fought with his jacket and stripped away the heavy outer layer, and she pulled back, her eyes glittering with pure fascination as her fingertips gently outlined the definition of his chest, making him suck in air quickly between his teeth.
“Your bodies are so different from ours,” she murmured, her gaze following her hands.
He didn’t breathe for a moment as she explored, then gasped as her fingertips left his abdomen and settled on his groin.
She drew away confused and concerned. “I’m sorry I hurt you, I—”
He stopped her apology with a kiss and sought her ear. “No, it doesn’t hurt…but aches like this,” he murmured and then kissed down her neck to spill the attention down her collarbone to bring a distended nipple between his lips through the sheer fabric she wore. When she gasped and arched, he gently thumbed the other nipple and then kissed her earlobe. “It hurts like that.”
“Oh…” she whispered on a rush of breath, sealing the space between them. “Then it is normal for every place else to hurt, too?”
He gently cradled her face with both hands and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, and then softly swept her mouth. “Yes…you tell me where it hurts, and I’ll kiss it till it stops aching.”
She closed her eyes and turned her face away.
“Especially there,” he murmured, gently bringing her face back to his with a finger beneath her chin and then slowly taking her mouth.
He lifted her with care, knowing he was wrong, knowing he was out of order, was so far off mission he couldn’t get back on track—but another more primal mission had taken priority. At least for the moment. Right now there was only right now, and the goddess draped in his arms clung to his neck with complete faith in her eyes.