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She shrugged. “It wasn’t awful. But I didn’t much fancy a lifetime of it.”

His thumb crept up, lay across her lips. They parted, soft and warm. There was no holding back, not now.

“You would with me,” he drawled.

“Our lifetime is most likely ending in twenty minutes.” She made a sound, either a choked laugh or a sob. “But I doubt we could endure each other’s embraces for half so long.”

“Why?” He brought his face nearer to hers.

“All we do is quarrel.”

“That’s not all we do,” he said.

“See? We’re quarreling.” She sounded triumphant.

“See,” he murmured and closed the last sliver of distance between them. “We’re kissing.”

For a split second, Tib froze. James’s mouth pressed hers, off center. In the darkness, his aim was imprecise, or he else he didn’t care where he kissed her. Her hands went flush against his chest. One instinct told her to shove, to save herself, that there was no coming back from this if she didn’t stop it now.

His tongue teased the hinge of her lips, then his mouth pressed her temple, pressed her eyelids down, pressed the corner of her jaw.

Another instinct, stronger and wilder than the first, bunched her hands, and she yanked him forward by his jacket. He kissed her fully, roughly. He caught her bottom lip between his teeth, drawing her gasp with it, and then his tongue stroked its inner curve. His large hands cupped her face, angling up her chin. His kiss deepened.

Her mind filled with steam. All this frigid water, all this sudden heat. She was fogging everywhere, body heavy and hot, a cloud of sensation, anchored by his tongue, his hands, the clutch of fabric in her fists.

They should have started kissing the moment they entered this cavern, kissing to combat the cold and the lonely horror of the dark. They should have started kissing years ago.

So many wasted opportunities. So much wasted time.

Luckily, James wasn’t tentative, like Malcolm. He didn’t go slowly or cradle her gently. He knocked her hands from his jacket so he could maul her breast. His kisses weren’t made of lips alone but teeth and tongue and growls from the base of his throat. She shuddered under his onslaught, dazed and breathless, stunned.

But why was she stunned? Of course, with James it would be this, a contest, a conflagration. They’d never been gentle, not with each other. They’d always quarreled, always fought. Nothing had changed, except now they fought for the same thing.

His fingers circled her biceps with bruising force, and he lifted her on top of him, without breaking their kiss. Her legs parted, damp skirts rucking up around her waist. She straddled him, and he shoved her higher, which spread her thighs around his hips. His hipbones dug into her flesh, and that other hard ridge—that was his cock. His palmed her arse, driving her into him. She was moaning, thighs trembling, insides gone molten. He twisted a hand in her hair, and the easy mastery of that gesture sparked her fury. He could move her head at his pleasure, and he did, tilting her back so his tongue could stroke deeper still. He was consuming her and filling her, setting their rhythm. He was fanning those sparks of fury into a longing so fierce she didn’t care what she lost, didn’t care if he shattered her control. But he would shatter too. She’d make him.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled, leaning back, timing her motion with the sway of the boat, so he came off the seat, and she went down on her back, splashing into the bottom of the boat, not hard enough to hurt. He controlled their fall, one arm beneath her.

“I dreamed this.” She breathed it against his mouth. “But we were in the moss.”

His tongue slid between her lips, hot and slick. His stubble rasped her chin. Wood dug into her back. Her breasts crushed against his chest.

“In the Fairy Dale?” He kissed her through his smile, the very one she’d always loathed arrogant and triumphant. “You should have told me. I’d have made your dream come true.”

“I didn’t say I wanted it to come true.”

“Oh, you wanted it.” His smile widened.

She had no rejoinder, so she kissed him furiously, licking and nipping, until his smile became a snarl and their tongues tangled.

She tried to turn over, heaved up with all her might. He covered her completely, hard, implacable, his strength as infuriating, as thrilling, as in fantasy.

She pushed his shoulder, and he caught her hand, pinned her arm above her head. She was panting, blood pounding, but he was panting too. She could feel the wild crashing of his heart. If it weren’t for her skirts, she could kick out her leg, use her lower body strength to roll him. The boat rocked violently. She was soaked with seawater, but burning all the same, every nerve laced with fire. She bucked with her hips, and James groaned, groaned and rolled. Her victory cry emerged as a throaty gasp. Now, she pressed him down, and he was kissing her like a man drowning, like she was the air and the sun and the moon and the stars.

“Tib,” he said. “Tib.” Fingers wrapped her hips.

She reared up to fling back her wet hair.

And her shoulder grazed stone.