“Am I?”
“Emma.”
“Ye cannae win me like a tourney,” she said.
“I daenae expect to.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “And what if I accuse ye of saying things yethinkI want to hear?”
“I am saying things because of what I have learned about ye. If ye want me to wait, I can do that as well. I can learn how ye want to be held—” His voice dropped, low enough to send shivers down her spine. “How ye want to be touched.”
She swallowed. “And what if ye are unable to learn it?”
“That is impossible,” he declared.
She let out a small sound that might have been a laugh, had it not been so quiet. “I may be one of those women for all ye ken. Maybe yer words daenae work on me. Maybe I am only waiting out the five days as promised, so I can return to me clan.”
“If ye wanted to return,” he murmured, pulling her closer, “ye wouldnae have waited till now.”
She swallowed.
“Admit it. Admit that a part of this thrills ye as well. Ye cannae wait to see where this all leads to, and we both ken that.”
“Jack—”
“Ye daenae want to leave because ye want to ken what I am capable of. Whatyeare capable of if left in a room alone with me. What I might make ye do. How I can make ye feel.” His hand pressed into the small of her back, almost as if he knew it would further stoke the heat in her belly. “Whether or nae I can make ye scream me name.”
Emma swallowed, struggling to disperse the wave of red that had crept onto her face. Fortunately, the light in the room was dim, or else this would have been an entirely different story. Thelast thing she wanted to do was grow vulnerable before Jack at this stage in their relationship.
“Ye ken, ye always walk a very fine line between arrogance and confidence. It is quite remarkable.”
Jack smirked at her. “So ye admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“That ye want me here,” he purred. “That ye want me in this room. Ye want me this close to ye. Even closer.”
She did not look away. “Ye are so sure of what I want, are ye nae?”
“Well, here is what Icanadmit. I want to kiss ye. I want that more than anything on this earth,” he admitted, leaning in.
The space between them was barely an inch. The hair on the nape of her neck stood on end. She could feel the heat pooling between her legs.
She studied his face in the dim light, his jaw, the way his lips moved as he spoke, the hunger in his eyes. At that moment, she couldn’t imagine anything else.
Anything but kissing him, too.
“Aye,” she whispered.
Their lips met.
He kissed her fervently, like a man claiming a prize, and his hands roamed over her body as if he needed to discover it immediately. Like his body needed hers to survive.
His tongue invaded her mouth, and she let it, his dominance driving her closer to insanity with each passing second. Her hands, which had been hanging at her sides the entire time, curled into fists, slowly uncurled, and before she could stop them, rose to his chest. The flat of her palm pressed hard against the fabric, feeling his heartbeat and nothing else.
His mouth left hers and trailed down her neck, teasing and biting her skin. A small, broken sound escaped her throat, almost as if it was her final act of surrender, of yielding the last bit of control and resistance.
Amid the frenzy and haze and the smell of books and smoke from the candle flames, one thing was clear. At that moment, in this library, between the bookshelves, she wanted him.
