“You wish to know what I feel?” His voice had dropped, roughened into something dark and unguarded. “I feel as though I stand upon the edge of a precipice, and you bid me step forward without knowing whether there is ground beneath my feet. I feel every hour spent in your company drawing me further from the careful solitude I have constructed—and I no longer know how to stop the descent. I feel that if I kiss you again—if I so much as touch you—I shall never find the strength to release you.”
Fiona’s heart thundered. She was acutely aware of him—of the clean scent of soap and sandalwood, of the restrained power in the arm braced beside her, of the dangerous proximity of his mouth.
“Then do not release me,” she whispered.
Whatever fragile restraint he clung to gave way.
His mouth crashed into hers. His free hand fisted in her hair, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss, and she moaned against his lips as her body arched into his.
This bore no resemblance to the kiss in the training hall. That had been awakening. This was ruin.
He kissed her as though starved—thorough, intent, almost reverent in its desperation. She answered in kind, her hands fisting in his coat, dragging him closer, heedless of crumpled linen and displaced cravat. The world narrowed to breath and heat and the fierce glide of his mouth against hers.
He pressed her more firmly against the shelves, one thick thigh sliding between hers in a way that made stars burst behind her eyes. His mouth traced a burning path down her throat, teeth grazing her pulse point, and she gasped his name like a plea.
“Fiona.” He groaned it against her skin, rough with need. “Fiona, I—”
He stilled.
She felt it the instant it happened—the sharp return of discipline. The way his body went rigid, not with desire but with restraint. His hand loosened in her hair. His thigh withdrew by a fraction.
He bowed his head, pressing his forehead briefly against her shoulder, breathing as though he had run a great distance. She could feel the tremor in him—the effort it cost to stop.
“I cannot,” he said hoarsely. “Not like this. Not driven by impulse and half-mad longing. You deserve more than to be taken in a moment of lost control against a bookshelf.”
“I am not concerned with deserving—”
“I am.” He lifted his head, and the look in his eyes stole the air from her lungs. Desire still burned there, but it was tempered now by something deeper—something steadier. “You have given me more in a week than I have received in a lifetime. You have looked at me as though I matter. The least I can offer in return is honour.”
“And if I do not want honour?” she asked, breathless and unsteady. “What if I merely wantyou?”
His eyes closed briefly, as though the question struck him somewhere perilously vulnerable. She watched the struggle play out across his features—want against conscience, fear against hope.
When he opened them again, desire had not vanished. It had been harnessed.
“Then you shall have me,” he said quietly. “When I can give you more than secrecy and stolen embraces. I have no wish to take what is freely given only to discover I was unfit to receive it.”
“You would not be taking,” she said, her voice unsteady but resolute. “I am not some fragile prize to be stolen. I am choosing.”
Something shifted in his expression at that—something humbled, almost awed.
“That,” he said softly, “is precisely why I must be certain.”
“Certain of what?”
“That I can offer you more than hunger.”
He stepped back then.
The loss of his warmth was immediate and almost painful. Fiona had to steady herself against the shelf, her pulse still racing, her lips tingling.
“I must go,” he said, his voice still roughened by what they had nearly done. “If I remain—”
“I know.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, as though committing the sight of her to memory.
Then he turned and crossed to the door.
