“I should be so lucky,” she grumbled under her breath.
“Very well. No more demonstrations of or discussion about my outstanding talents in the erotic arts, until you decide otherwise. A great loss, to be sure, but I will abide by your wishes.”
Against her will, laughter spluttered from her. Gods. The man was entirely too sure of himself.
With obvious reason,a traitorous little voice whispered deep inside.
No. She wasn’t going to be charmed by him. She wouldn’t be charmed.
He smiled at her. Charmingly.
Her heart began thumping against her chest.
Picking up her fork, she dug into her meal. This time, she deliberately concentrated on the non-Calbernan dishes to avoid rousing any more will-weakening waves of approval.
“I have to say,” she said after sampling the extremely delicious roasted potatoes, “I don’t approve of your country’s customs at all.” Her tone was belligerent. Picking a fight seemed much safer than letting her insides go all gooey and weak.
His brows arched in an expression of mild curiosity. “Oh? Of which customs do you speak?”
“All of them. Forcing all men into military service. Taking a child away from his mother at age five.” She scowled. “I thought yours was a race dedicated to the happiness of its women. Surely the Calbernan mothers can’t be happy to have their babies ripped from their arms at so early an age.” To drive her point home, she met his gaze full on and told him, “I know I could never be. Never.”
I will never be yourliana. I will go through the courtship motions if I must, but that is never going to change. You are wasting your time.She willed her eyes to say the words, willed him to give up and turn away.
He did not.
His smile disappeared, but that wasn’t the reprieve she’d hoped for. His dark, exotically handsome face became sterner. Stronger. Danger and strength and steadfast resolve wedded together in lines that looked much less approachable and yet more compelling than ever.
Laughing, roguish Dilys charmed her. Stern, somber Dilys frightened her a little, even as his palpable aura of power and command drew her like a moth to a flame.
“The women of my country understand what our men must be, for the benefit of us all.” His voice was low, soft, a dark whisper that set every nerve in her body jangling.
She reached for her wine with a shaking hand and took a hurried sip. “Which is?”
“Strong. Fearless. Capable.” He leaned towards her, invading her space with his raw power and overwhelming presence. “Willing to die for what’s most important to us.”
Her pulse was pounding in her veins, throbbing at the base of her throat. “And what’s that?”
“You’ve read about Calberna, about our history, our legends. You already know.”
She swallowed and wet her lips. “Your women.”
“Our women,” he agreed. The words breathed across her skin like a spell. His eyes gleamed, golden, mysterious, hypnotizing. “Our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. Most of all, our wives. Thelianaswho complete us. Manyoulanibelieve there is no bond greater than that which exists between a mother and her child. Perhaps for them, that is true. Perhaps it is even true for the women of my own country. I do not know. But for a Calbernan male, there is no bond greater, no tie more vital, than the bond between a Calbernan and hisliana.Whether she isimlanioroulanimakes no difference to him. Only with her can he give everything that he is. Only from her can he receive everything in return.”
It was there, in the dark magic of his voice... the promise that promised...everything.Everything she feared. Everything she yearned for. Everything that ached inside her like a terrible, gaping wound in the fabric of her soul, empty and unfulfilled.
She took a breath, a gasp that shuddered in and shuddered back out.
Just that quick and she was drowning again in that sunlit sea. Every word from his mouth was like a stone tied to her body, weighting her down, dragging her through the darkest depths of the sea, to that frightening place at the core of her soul. To the volcano. That fiery sun that blazed in the center of her being, that molten inferno that moved inside her like a wild, caged thing, a dragon locked behind a lifetime of stony will.
Call him. Claim him. Speak his Name. Make him thine before all others.
The lure was so strong. To give him everything of herself... to share the burden of that frightening, deadly gift that lived inside her. To receive everything of him back in return: his strength, his fearlessness, his confident certainty that he was a master of the world in every way that mattered. To trust that he was strong enough to protect her, against even herself.
What would it be like to live without fear? What would it be like to love so wholly, so completely? To love without restraint, without holding back the truth of herself?
It would be madness.
A beautiful insanity of self-indulgence.
