It was perfect.
He abandoned her mouth and trailed fire down her neck with his lips and tongue, kissing her collarbone, lower, teasing the curve of her breast with his tongue.
She forked her fingers through his hair and held him there. “Yes, Mak. Yes.”
He pulled back sharply, his eyes wild, feral and completely uncontrolled. She shouldn’t have found satisfaction in it, but she did.
“No.” He took a step away from her.
“Mak…”
“No more,” he bit out.
“I … I …” She wished she could make her brain connect with her mouth, but sadly, her brain seemed to be on vacation and her mouth couldn’t form words on its own. Even if it could, she had no idea what she would have said.
“This cannot happen,” he said, his voice harsh. “It will not happen again.” He turned and walked away from her and she sagged against the wall, her legs like jelly.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, shocked, needy, angry, sad. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to kiss him again.
“Too bad,” she said into the empty hallway.
She wasn’t kissing a man who didn’t want her.
Except Mak did want her. She was certain of that. But it was possible there were too many things between them for him ever to admit it.
She could follow him. She had almost no doubt that if she did, if she went to him and pressed herself against the hardness of his body, took another kiss, that she could make him give in.
Fighting the temptation to do so almost wasn’t worth the effort it took. So much easier, so much more pleasurable to find herself back in Mak’s arms.
The only thing that stopped her was wondering what the price would be for Mak. How much it could cost him in honor.
It was the only thing that saw her turning and heading to her room, rather than following Mak into his.
Mak cursed into the emptiness of his office. Every foul word in every language he spoke.
Kissing her had been a mistake.
But it had lit him on fire. He had felt more, in that moment than he’d felt for the past ten years. More desire, more need. More frustration.
Because having Eva was impossible. But she was the one his body wanted. The one he wanted. But his honor was at stake, and it was the only thing he had left in the world. Everything else could be taken, he knew that for a fact.
He’d had it all taken.
But that he’d kept. He intended to continue to hold onto it and he was not going to let one spoiled princess, with curves that were enough to make a grown man weep, challenge that.
He poured himself a glass of whiskey. Better drunk than aroused. That was a mantra he hadn’t had to say in a while. He’d mastered his needs too long ago.
Now though, now they seemed to need to be put into place again. And if that didn’t work, he would simply deadbolt himself in his room.
The other alternative was finding Eva and taking her into his arms again. Claiming that soft, sweet mouth. Not stopping there. Uncovering every inch of perfect skin. Maybe she was still wearing that bikini. He could release the knots holding it to her body and reveal her breasts. Hold them in his hands. Taste them.
He gritted his teeth against the sharp spike of longing, so intense it was more pain than pleasure. What was it about this woman? Kissing her, wanting her, was an impossibility. Did he hate himself so much that he would choose to want, to need, the one woman who was forbidden to him?
He’d kept control this long. He wasn’t going to let Eva strip him of it.
As he lifted his glass to his lips, his hand shaking, he acknowledged, just for a moment, that it was very likely she already had.
“Good morning,” he said, when he came into the dining room after an awful night’s sleep.
“I hate that,” Eva snapped, her coffee mug frozen by her lips.
“Hate what?”
“Good morning. You keep saying that to me. I haven’t had a good morning since I met you.”
“You are good for a man’s ego.”
She turned her shoulders, angling them away from him. “Find someone else to stroke it, I have a headache.”
“You certainly woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
She glared at him and he couldn’t suppress the slight feeling of amusement that made him feel. Eva had no pretense. She didn’t have the ability to pretend to feel something she didn’t. She simply was whatever she felt. She embodied it.