Their mouths were so close she could feel his breath on her. She wanted his breath.
Slowly, the hard fingers cupping the back of her neck pushed up into her hair and tipped her head back.
“Now, Katy, let me show you the truth of us,” he said, and bent to her neck.
She leaned back against the table before her knees buckled, her neck arched as he kissed the base of her throat, raining a wash of chills down her body so potent, she almost did not notice the wide palm skimming down her waist. She was far too focused on his other hand, plunging deeply into her hair, fingers splayed, forcing her head back further. The pressure was hard and exquisite. Heat streaked down her body, followed by chills. It tore a heady, hot gasp from her lungs.
He worked his way up her neck, over the ridge of her chin, and, wasting no time on preludes or introduction, when he reached the summit of her mouth, he simply claimed her. Slanted his lips over hers, spread her mouth wide, and delved in deep.
Stunned by the onslaught, whipped by fiery threads of desire, she could do nothing but follow the command of his hands to bend back more, the urging of his lips to open wider, to meet his tongue with her own in a hot swipe that made him groan deep into her mouth, which sent a shudder of excitement through her. And somehow her hands were around his shoulders, and she was pushing her body up to his.
This emboldened a man who needed no more boldness, and he tore his mouth free enough to suck her bottom lip into his mouth.
Her mind shut down, shocked by the carnal move, but her body, oh, her body reveled in it. She pushed up on her toes to meet him, to give him more.
More and more and more. It would never end. The fire-scorched clarity of her desire saw the truth. Aodh would ever demand more of her, and she would give it.
“We are meant to be, Katy,” he said by her ear. “It will be so good, I will ensure it. Sign the papers, stand down your men, and we will be together.”
Her heart leapt, for a brutally long second, then crashed back, yanked down by cold reality. But in that leaping, she saw the deeper danger of Aodh expanding like a storm on the horizon: he could make himself matter to her.
For a moment, at his words, her heart had been buoyed by…hope.
But this rebel was not hope. He was her downfall.
She’d simply been seduced. By a warlord with an agenda. And despite how her body became a candle for him, this was no matter of seduction. This was politics and power and war.
This was treason.
Woe to her if she ever forgot it again.
Resist. Deny. But never, ever give him anything he wants.
For once she began, she might never stop.
As his head hung beside hers, his breath warm on her neck, she whispered back, “No.”
“No?” he repeated softly.
“No.” With effort, she lifted her head. He was watching her, his ice-blue eyes searching.
“Céard sa diabhal?”
It was in Irish, but Katarina had spent her life in Ireland, and she knew very well what it meant: what the hell?
So she repeated herself. “No. No. No.”
He straightened away from her. “What are you saying?”
“I cannot wed you.”
“Why not?”
“Treason is why.”
The dark brows descended. “If ’tis treason now, ’twas treason before, when you were willing. What has changed?”