His eyes snapped open.
It was the second time she had spoken his name so freely, and its effect was immediate. The first had been during their kiss, and the sound had almost made him come undone.
His restraint shattered.
He closed the distance between them slowly, with the quiet inevitability of a storm descending.
“Isabella,” he whispered, stepping so close she could feel the heat of him, the scent of him, the wild turmoil he no longer hid. “You want to know what I imagine?”
Her breath trembled. “Yes.”
He reached up, his knuckles brushing the side of her jaw, feather-light but devastating.
“I imagine,” he said lowly, “how your breath would sound when I kiss the base of your throat. How you’d lean into me… without thinking.”
Her knees weakened.
“I imagine the way you’d tremble,” he went on, “when I trace my hands down your waist. How soft you would feel beneath my palms.”
Isabella’s pulse hammered.
“And I imagine,” he said, voice dropping, “how you would look if I pushed you against the wall behind you, how your lips would part, how your body would arch, how you would?—”
He stopped suddenly, jaw locking so tightly she thought it might crack.
She swallowed.
“Cassian… what if I…?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “What if I would like that?”
Every muscle in him went taut. She could see it by the way a vein suddenly appeared in his neck and the stiffening of his jaw.
Slowly, almost reverently, Cassian stepped forward, and her back brushed the cold stone of the terrace wall as she, too, willingly took a step back. He lifted one hand to brace beside her head, caging her in. The other hovered at her waist, not yet touching, as if he was held back by the last thread of restraint he possessed.
“Isabella,” he said hoarsely, “if you keep speaking like that?—”
She bit her lip, eyes shining in the moonlight. “Then what?”
His breath faltered. “Then I will not stop.”
His hand finally settled on her waist, warm, firm, undeniably possessive. She inhaled sharply at the contact, and his eyes dropped to her lips like a man starved.
He leaned in.
And their lips crashed together. The kiss was nothing like the first. This one was fierce, consuming, shattering. He kissed her as though it was with all the frustration he had swallowed for weeks.
Isabella melted into him, her hands gripping his coat, pulling him closer, closer still. His arm curled around her waist, drawing her sharply against him, and she gasped into his mouth.
He groaned—deep, low, tortured.
His lips trailed to her jaw, to the sensitive place beneath her ear. She felt the heat of his breath, the dangerous intent in every movement of his hands.
“God help me, Isabella,” he groaned painfully against her neck. “But I cannot stop.” The longing in his voice was all too tortured as it echoed the hungry consent in her heart.
Isabella had never heard a thing like that in her entire life. She shivered under his touch, her body coming alive in a way she never thought possible.
His lips trailed down her neck, her chest, until he was on his knees with her skirts gathered in his large hands, the fabric bunched in his fists.
“Cassian, what?—”
