A Kiss of Fire: A Kiss of Magic Book 2 (17 page)

“Your inaccessibility is my chief frustration. There is nothing alluring about it,” he said, his tone hard. “What is this all about?”

“I’ve been speaking with your mother,” she said, reaching up to trail soft fingers down his unshaven cheek. “She made me realize a few things. Things I think you have been trying to tell me…but I wasn’t listening.”

“What things?” he asked, struggling to keep hope from blossoming in his chest.

“That I mean more to you than a simple conquest.”

His eyes widened then his brows snapped down in a frown. “If I haven’t made that clear by now, then I’ve been going about this whole business all wrong,” he said. “You are far more than a simple conquest. If I wanted a conquest…I would start a war…invade a country. Not kidnap a woman for my bed.”

“But…according to your laws, I would be nothing more than a royal concubine. I could never stomach the idea of—“

“A concubine! Ariana I do not want a concubine! I want a wife!”

“But I cannot become your wife until I produce your heir.”

His frown deepened. She had a point. According to tradition she could not become his wife until she had birthed him a son.

“Do you mean…if I were to make you my wife regardless of my country’s traditions, you would consider having me?”

She withdrew from that and he sighed.

“I’m not saying that,” she said.

“Then what are you saying?” he asked with frustration.

“I simply want to know that, if the rules were different, you would have me. To wife. Regardless of whether or not I produce any—“

“Damn you Ariana!” he ejected, reaching out and grabbing her by both of her arms and giving her a shake. “I love you! I’ll take you any way I can get you!”

The words were out before he had any hope of recalling them. They fell between them like little explosions and he felt his entire world spinning away. He hadn’t meant to say it. If he had thought she was afraid before, she would be doubly so now.

“I-I mean,” –oh how to fix such a blunder!—“That isn’t…I just…”

He couldn’t figure out how to fix the problem. He was afraid to meet her eyes, afraid of the mocking he would find there.

“You don’t mean that,” she said softly.

His gaze snapped to hers.

“I am not a liar.”

“No. I mean…you won’t take me any way you can have me. You won’t be satisfied unless you can have it all. At first you’ll tell yourself that the physical is enough. But then you’ll want the emotional. Then the emotional won’t be enough. You’ll want to mean more to me than anything else. It won’t be enough until you have every part of me. And frankly, that scares me.” She took a breath. “I’m not sure I can be what you want. What you need. I think you may have picked the wrong woman.”

“Isn’t that for me to decide? Isn’t it my duty to be responsible for my own feelings? I don’t want any other woman. I have waited a long time to feel what I feel for you. To find what drove my father to my mother’s side against all odds and opposition. I believe we can find a way if we both want it bad enough. I know what I want…do you?”

She frowned, a light puckering of her brow. “I thought I did,” she said. “But now I’m not so sure.”

“What does that mean?” he asked her on a sigh. He felt drug out. Defeated. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t have her so close and yet so far out of his reach. “Do you even know?”

“It means…” she turned up her gaze to his, seeming to be only half present as she said, “It means I am tired of denying myself what I want because my people will not like it. It means I want to be able to take what I truly want.”

Sin’s heart seized in his chest.

“And what is it you want?” he asked, almost afraid to ask. Afraid to be disappointed yet again.

“You,” she said simply. “I want you.”

She tipped her chin back and caught him as he crushed his mouth down on hers. He kissed her with barely leashed, savage desire. He tightened his arms around her until she was barely able to draw breath.

Sin couldn’t believe his ears. The words he had waited for were escaping her lips. She was finally realizing she deserved to have more than what her people wanted for her. That she deserved to have love and life independent of their expectations for her. Oh, he knew she did not love him. But that could come in time. The point was, now he would have the opportunity to share time with her. In all possible ways.

Her hands were clutching at his back, her nails digging in to the fabric of his shirt. He kissed her again and again, not letting her catch breath for fear she would use that breath to recall him. To stop him. But he didn’t think he could be stopped now. Not any longer.

Sin reached for the sash at her waist and untied the knot with one hand. He stripped it away, letting her blouse fall loose at the bottom. The instant he could, he slipped a hand beneath it and caressed the warm skin of her midriff. Without undergarments to impede his path, he slid his hand up to embrace one full breast with eager fingers. She was so soft. So warm. He had never felt anything like it. His thumb flicked over her nipple and that softness tightened into hardness, the point thrusting out, begging for more from him.

He made a frustrated sound against her lips and broke his mouth away for just long enough to whip her blouse off over her head. Now she was bare-breasted in his hands and he couldn’t return to kissing her until he had looked his fill. She was so pale and perfect, her nipples so rosy pink. Like the buds of a flower in the stark landscape of winter snow. Only this winter landscape was warm and sweet.

He was breathing hard as he looked down on her. He had no idea how savage the hunger was that was in his eyes.

“Now is the moment to change your mind, Ariana,” he said hoarsely.

She took his face in her hands and made him meet her eyes.

“I’m not going to change my mind.”

“But you may come to regret this?”

“No. I won’t regret this. I promise I won’t.”

That was good enough for him. He didn’t have the strength to refuse her in any event. He had reached the end of his tether. He hauled her up into his arms again, taking her mouth like a starving man. She let him abuse her, making no complaint. His hands raked up and down her back, her warm flesh filling his eager palms over and over again. When he broke from her mouth to catch his breath, he buried his face beneath the fragrant fall of her curls and kissed and bit at the length of her neck. Then he pulled her up off her feet and up into his body, brought her breast to his lips. He caught at her nipple with his teeth then sucked her into his mouth with one strong pull. She released a long, throaty moan. He switched to her opposite breast and plucked at the nipple he abandoned with his fingers, feeling the wetness of it from the saliva he’d left behind.

Then, with a savage curse he scooped her up into his arms and walked the few short feet to her bed. He threw her down onto the mattress and stripped off his shirt. He picked up her hands and brought them to his chest.

“Touch me,” he said. “I need you to touch me.”

She did. She swept her hands over his skin again and again, her touch divine and warm and curious. She devoured every inch of his torso with her questing fingertips. Then he unbuttoned her skirt and slid it free of her body, leaving her lying beneath him in nothing but her slippers. These he removed last, then looked down at his handiwork.

She was breathtaking. As beautiful as she was when she was well coifed and dressed to perfection, she was even more so in her natural state. She was perfectly pale everywhere, the only disruption the rosy hue of her nipples and the brassy red curls protecting her sex. These he reached out to touch with light, drifting fingers, reveling in how hot she was, how she was just waiting for his touch beyond them.

He began to press kisses to all of that bare skin, feeling with his mouth how warm she was. The softly perfumed scent of her skin made him dizzy. He enhanced the scent by bringing her flavor onto his tongue. He kissed her chest, her breasts, her nipples, and her ribs. He dragged his tongue down the smooth plane of her belly and then dipped it into the hollow of her navel. He drifted his lips through her curls then on to her thighs. He worshipped them both inside and out, then moved on to her knees and calves and then, last but not least, her feet. At first their arches, then their insteps, and then her toes.

Then he reversed his path back up her body and as he came close enough her fingers burrowed into his hair, clutching at his scalp, sending a shiver down his spine. He nipped at the inside of her thigh and he could smell the sweet musk of an aroused woman so close. Then he was determined to taste all of her. All these nights when he had been denied her, this was one of the things he had fantasized about the most.

Her thighs fell open as his shoulders nudged between them. His lips and tongue darted to trace the crease of her thigh. Then his fingers traced through those damp, glossy curls and he slowly dipped them into the wet folds of feminine flesh. She gasped when he spread those nether lips apart and opened her up to his tongue.

His first taste of her core would be something that he remembered forever. She was sweet and salty, ambrosia on his tongue. Wet and so very hot. He sucked and nibbled at her succulent flesh and her fingers clutched madly at his hair, holding his head to her…as if he were going anywhere.

Ariana was gasping for breath, her whole body turned liquid and hot. She felt as though every nerve was on edge and exposed. He found where she was most sensitive and began to work her expertly. Heat burned her up from the very insides of her veins and arteries. Her blood scorched as it pumped through her. Pleasure swirled inside of her in hot, driving pulsations.

She gasped when he found her clitoris and sucked it between his lips, toyed with it with his swirling tongue. Then he released it so he could tease the entrance of her body with his tongue. Then, suddenly, he was slipping a finger inside of her, thrusting it in time to his dancing tongue across her clit. She moaned as the symphony of touching and tasting worked her up to a wild point of pleasure. With one swirl of his tongue she was launching into an explosive orgasm, her shout filling the room.

She was panting hard for every breath as he kissed her swollen flesh and let her come down from her peak slowly. But his removed touch made her feel vacant in spite of her still-singing nerves. He lurched up the length of her body and kissed her lips in a wild abandon.

“I’ve never heard anything so sweet in my life as the sound of my name in your passion.”

Had she shouted his name? She had not even realized it. She was glad that she had. She so wanted to please him. But again, it seemed so one-sided. He was always seeking out her pleasure and never taking any for himself. Well, that was about to end. She reached down for his waistband and the buttons that closed the fly of them. He caught her hand, much to her frustration, and stilled it.

“Not yet. If I let you touch me this will be over within minutes. I have waited too long for you.”

“Then it will be over,” she said stubbornly. “And then we will begin again. I
will
have you now.”

She shrugged off his touch and went about undoing the buttons. It was no easy task. His pants were tight to his body and his body was hard and swollen with need. Eventually she loosened the fly and felt warm smooth hardness filling her hands. She wrapped her hand around his erection and he groaned out soulfully.

“Ariana, please!” He gasped as she stroked him down his full length and around his entire girth. Her thumb swirled over the moist head and she felt him shudder. Then he was shrugging off her touch and leaving her so he could kick off his boots and peel off his pants. When he returned to her it was to come up the center of her body, his hips invading her thighs, pushing them wide apart so his shaft was running through wet folds in an eager slide.

“I must be inside of you,” he ground out. “I can’t wait any more.”

Neither could she. She wrapped her legs around his buttocks and pulled him forward. He found the entrance to her core unerringly and began to enter her with a rending thrust. He was so big and so hard. But she knew she could take him. She knew they were built for each other. With two more thrusts he was hilted deep inside of her and he was panting so hard for breath he was rasping for it. He held still deep inside of her and she watched his dark eyes as they were overcome with need for her.

“I can’t,” he whispered on belabored breaths. “I can’t wait.”

With that he surged inside of her. Withdrew and surged into her again. He didn’t start off slow. He simply kicked into a deep, rending rhythm. He thrust hard and fast, their bodies undulating together. Her hands gripped at his shoulders, his sides…his hips. His mouth seized hers. Their tongues dueled even as their bodies tangled together. His rhythm was like punctuation. Hard and short and demanding.

“Oh God,” he rasped. “Arianna!
Jova
!”

Sin felt release clawing up through him, from deep deep inside of himself. From the part of his soul that called her
jova
. Love. The Kiltian word for love. His orgasm descended on him with a fury. He slammed into her one final time and it exploded out of him. Part of him realized he had left her behind, but he couldn’t stop to take care of her even though he wanted to so very badly. She was right. They would need to begin again. But before that could happen he had to survive his release into her. It drained him of all of the tension of the past weeks…months…years. All of it jetted out of him and into her. He spilled seed and emotion into her and became stark and vulnerable. Did she know? Did she understand she had the power to destroy him?