He pulls out a stool and sits before me, our eyes level due to our height difference. “I don’t know much. No one does. Ever since it happened, Cernunnos has been something of a recluse. He never leaves Tír na Dubh. Barely even leaves his own estate, if the reports are true. We were all so hopeful. To have the very first quarry after the king and queen’s deaths find two pieces of the Bannrhorn? The Wild Hunt was damn near assured. She’d been with Sabre?—”
“Sabre?”
“Duke Cernunnos’s first name. She’d been with him for nearly two months, but she disappeared on the eve of Mabon, right before the Hunt was set to begin. She never found his fragment, and the ring returned to Desmond a day later. The only reason that would have happened was if … ”
“She had died,” I whisper.
He nods. “Sabre refused to speak about it. Didn’t decry his innocence nor proclaim his guilt. And there was little we orHouse Áine could do since neither has any authority in Tír na Dubh.”
An icy fear settles into my bones. Did I need to know this about my third would-be suitor? I don’t dare say it out loud, but maybe Lachlan was right not to tell me.
“The Gazette spun their own version of the story. Most of the celestial Otherworld take them at their word.”
“And what do you believe?”
“I don’t know. I want to believe that Desmond wouldn’t willingly send you to the home of a murderer, but … ” He shakes his head. “I just don’t know.”
“He doesn’t have a choice, though, does he? If he doesn’t, I’m dead anyway.”
I lean my head back, staring at Lachlan through slitted lids, restless and hungry now that anxiety over my circumstances has smothered my fury.
He’s shirtless, has a hand tucked beneath his arm, innocently popping his biceps. His muscles are a familiar weakness, one I’ve had plenty of time to inoculate myself against.
But the combination of contrition, fear, and bald craving on his face?
I am done for.
“About the other night,” I begin, “you were right, and?—”
He crushes me against the bathroom door and slams his mouth down upon mine. The kiss is desperate. Voracious. Like he’s been waiting far longer than a single week for it.
He lifts me up, then wraps my thighs around his waist, trailing kisses across my collarbone as his hand traces the curve of my waist.
“I was going to make you wait,” he confesses in a needy rasp. “Was going to deny you for another week, even after you came crawling back to admit you want me as much as I want you.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. “I do. You stubborn idiot. You know I do.”
“I hope not. Because every minute this week that I didn’t have my hands on you or inside you was fucking torture for me.” He kisses me again, the hard heat of his cock punctuating his confession. We’ve barely even kissed. “I stopped myself that night because it terrified me, the strength of my attraction. I haven’t felt anything close to it in … a long time. Maybe not ever. And of course, I want the one woman I cannot have.” He sighs a rueful laugh against my skin, running his nose along my jaw. “But if we do this, I don’t want it to be a lesson or built on a lie. Even if it’s doomed to be nothing more than … ”
He pulls back to look at me, wild-haired and feverish with desire.
“Let me have you. For real. Just once.”
I exhale a yes.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“Probably not,” I admit. Though I’m not wanting for sexual experience, I’m not sure exactly what to expect from his particular tastes.
Domination. Pleasure control.
I do know that I trust him. And that I’ve never been so desperate for a man in my entire life. Theoretically, I suppose I knew this type of chemistry was possible, but I’d never dared hope to experience it myself. “I’d really like to try, though.”
He rumbles out a laugh, then cups my face. “Brave, beautiful woman.” He plants a gentle kiss on my lips, then settles me on my feet. “Go stand in front of the mirror.”
Goosebumps pebble my skin as I do as he says. I hardly recognize the wanton forest nymph staring back at me, but I think I like her.
My silk night shirt bares both a single shoulder and a slash of stomach above my loose sleep pants. Flaxen waves tumble downmy back, and my lips are blotchy rose and kiss-swollen. My eyes are dark, my dilated pupils drowning out all but the thinnest ring of hazel.
