Yet she made him feel human again.
Why?
How?
He wanted to hate her for these emotions she awakened.
If only he could.
“Was it not enough you haunted my dreams?”
She frowned at his whispered words.
He captured a strand of her pale hair and rubbed it between his fingers. Her hair was so soft and smelled like frost-covered roses.
“I know not what you mean.”
Of course she didn’t. He was speaking even more stupidity than the monks who’d once denounced an innocent child as evil.
But should she ever understand the effect she had on him.…
Push her away. His mind roared the command. He needed to scare her and drive her as far from him as he could. Make sure that she never ventured near him again.
For her sake as well as my own.
That was the safe thing to do.
The kind thing to do.
It was what he intended. Yet when he moved toward her, his body didn’t obey him. Instead, he pulled her closer until she collided with his chest.
The sudden sensation startled them both. She was so much softer than he’d thought. Softer than any woman he could remember.
Her gasp caused her perfect lips to part, and that was his undoing.
Before he could stop himself, he had to know what heaven tasted like. Consequences be damned.
I’m damned already. Let it finally be for something I’ve done.
Closing his eyes, he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her.
Ariel couldn’t move as she tasted Valteri. Her head spun at the contact as she struggled to breathe. Instinctively, she knew this was the first time any man had kissed her.
No one had ever dared. That thought floored her.
She should be offended and yet a part of her she didn’t understand wanted and craved this. Ariel wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, drawing him closer, delighting in the feel of strength and power of his body.
He pulled back slightly, his teeth nipping her lips, then he returned, even more intense than he’d been before. She opened her mouth, welcoming the taste of him, the warmth of his breath. Never in her life could she recall such a heady sensation.
And it caused her to have thoughts so wicked that they left her blushing even more.
Suddenly, he moved away and left her panting.
She opened her eyes to see the fury on his face as he stared at her in disbelief.
His breathing labored, he raked a hand through his long, unbound hair and turned away from her.
“Leave!” he growled.
