A Kiss of Fire

by Jacquelyn Frank

  She stepped closer to him, allowing her warmth to wash over him, radiating heat into him.

  “Please. You must take me back. For the good of my people, you must take me back. Would you do any less for your own people? Are you so selfish that you can think of no one else but yourself?”

  “Yes!” he hissed, grabbing her by her upper arms and giving her a little shake, making her tousled curls bounce. “Yes I am that selfish! You don’t know what it’s been like these past two autumns! And then two months ago when I kissed you…the fire it lit was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It was consuming me until all I could think about was you. Did you not notice the numbers you were tabulating went back farther than two weeks? I am trying to catch up from months of being obsessed by my plans to take you for myself. I worked out every single detail and went over and over it in my mind. By the time the moment came I was so desperate I feared I would accidentally hurt one of your guards.”

  “Wait…you were there?” she asked, shocked. “You didn’t just send your men? You were there?”

  “I had to be. Tradition and my own peace of mind demanded it. A man must capture his own mate. Others may help, but it must be him above all others. And I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you or those that protected you.”

  “But…I didn’t see you. Were you there with us the whole time?”

  “Yes. I traveled with you. But every time you were to alight from the carriage I put myself out of your sight.”

  “You mean all those nights…you camp out alone in the wilderness? Away from the fire and the safety it and your men provided?”

  “Yes,” he said with a simple shrug of his shoulder.

  “But what was the purpose in that?”

  “I…” He hesitated. “I didn’t want you to see me…to give you a hateful target that would make your journey even worse than what it was. Had you known I was with you it would have made things worse for you.”

  Ariana was torn between emotions. On the one hand he was the most selfish bastard she had known…but on the other he kept doing things—selfless things—for her comfort and well-being.

  Her belly churned with her mixed emotions, the dinner she had previously enjoyed sitting ill on her.

  “Leave me,” she whispered to him.

  “Ariana—“

  “Leave me! I cannot bear to be in the same room with you!”

  “You bore me well enough for the rest of the day,” he ground out, giving her another slight shake. “Why must you fight me like this?”

  “I enjoyed the day because anything was better than remaining cooped up in this room alone…even spending time with you!”

  “No…no! It was more than that. You know that it was.”

  “I know nothing of the kind. Now let me go and leave me alone!”

  “Stop this! Stop fighting me!”

  “Then let me go! Please,” she begged him. “Let me go home. I want to go home!”

  “There is more for you here if you would but open yourself up to the idea! If you would just—“

  “No! There is nothing for me here!”

  “Yes there is!”

  He hauled her up against his body, her hands pressing flat against his chest, pushing herself away…or trying to. He was too strong for her. He clasped her with one hand around her body and the other diving deep into her mussed hair, he held her head and sealed his mouth over hers.

  She cried out against his lips, trying to wrench herself away, but it was to no avail. His mouth on hers was relentless. Demanding she open herself up to him and his command of her, he seared her with his heat. In fact, that was what she felt most from him. His heat. Burning and fierce, rolling over her in singeing waves. His ability over his pyrokinetic abilities was seemingly out of his control…or so it felt as he scorched her from the outside inward.

  Ariana was, of course, resistant to the heat and to fire, but she could not seem to make herself impervious to this. She wanted to repel him—wanted to continue to hate him—but he was making it so difficult to despise him with that pure blind hatred she had felt at the beginning of this. He had stolen it away by making her understand him and his motivations better. She wanted to abhor him for forcing himself upon her, but she couldn’t help but admit it was a force she found compelling and arousing. He commanded the moment, commanded her, and it felt good to give control over to someone else for a change.

  Tears burned into her eyes as her mouth opened beneath his, as his tongue swept in and took control. Deep, deep control. He kissed her until she was blinded by her own need, victim to her own lust. Her whole body ached, her mind blank of anything save the sweeping heat of him in her mouth and against her body. Where had all her resistance gone? How had it fled her and abandoned her so quickly? What was it this man could do to her?

  She realized she was about to find out when he broke from her mouth, panting hard for breath and pressed his forehead to hers. He met her eyes, his black pupils wide…so wide their usual oval shape was nearly indistinguishable. His hands ran down her back until she felt a tug at her waist. He freed the long scarf belting her shirt to her waist, making her shirt fall loosely against her body as he let the scarf drop to the floor. Then, with his eyes riveted to hers the entire time, he slipped a hand beneath the hem of her blouse and stroked the bare skin of her back and spine. His fingers were so hot…burning tracing paths across her skin. It was a wonder her clothing didn’t go up in flames. It may yet.

  “God, you’re so soft,” he said in a guttural tone. “So perfectly smooth and so hot.”

  She was hot? No, it was him and he didn’t even realize it.

  “Please…” she begged him, not understanding what it was she was begging him for. To stop? To continue? It could have been either one.

  He continued.

  He kissed her again…and again…each kiss more blinding than the last, her body becoming more compliant and soft each time their mouths met and tangled together. All the while his hand stroked the bare skin of her back, over her side, up across her shoulders. Up and down her spine.

  He broke from her mouth again, but only long enough to grip the hem of her blouse and then strip it off of her in one swift movement. He let the silk go and it floated to the floor, forgotten. Naked from the waist up, she flushed deeply pink as he leaned back a little and devoured the sight of her with hungry eyes. She felt him tremble against her and her eyes widened. It was a hint at what he was doing to keep himself in check, that, as much as it seemed otherwise to her, he had not lost control of himself…but was hanging onto it by the merest of threads.

  A blast of heat radiated out of him as he looked at her and it warmed her considerably. Not that she needed any warming. She was literally burning up as it was. It was a wonder she could keep her clothes from catching fire. It took control to burn without letting your clothing burn up in the process, to make it as impervious as you yourself were…but she had nothing even remotely resembling control just then.

  “I want to make love to you,” he said hotly, the words shuddering out of him as his eyes continued to consume her. His hands gripped at her back, lifting her up on her toes until his lips were brushing over her collarbone. His tongue darted out and flickered against her skin and she moaned, her head dropping back. He took the reaction as invitation—and it was an invitation—and his mouth began to travel over her skin in earnest. Everywhere his tongue touched her singed to a painful point of pleasure.

  His mouth traveled down to her breast, his lips and tongue skiing down the slope of it. But just when he reached her nipple, he lifted his head away from her, making her groan in frustration. She wanted his mouth on her in that way. She wanted his hands all over her.

  He suddenly swept her up into his arms, scooping her feet off the floor. He carried her across the room and to the bed. He knelt on the mattress and laid her down in the center of it. Then he pulled back, leaving her bereft and bare and exposed. His hands went to her feet and then she realized he was removing her fur boo
ts. He gently massaged each foot as it was exposed, dropping the boots onto the floor somewhere. Then he rand his hands up her bare legs beneath her skirt. Her belly tightened as his fingertips brushed up her thighs. Then they disappeared and she felt his fingers working free the ties to her skirt that were keeping it on her body. Once he had them loosened, he stripped the skirt down her legs and tossed it away into the room behind himself.

  Then he stopped, standing on his knees on the bed and simply stared down at her. She was naked, bare of everything but the blush that crept over her. He looked his fill, doing nothing but look at her for several moments until she self-consciously tried to curl away from his regard. He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  “You’re more beautiful than I even imagined,” he said hoarsely. “And believe me when I say I imagined you very, very often. But my mind did you little justice.”

  He reached out then with a single finger and caressed the mole he found on her ribs just beneath her left breast.

  “I told myself I would wait for you to come to me,” he rasped.

  He leaned forward, dipped his head down, and drew a slow tongue across her nipple. He then sucked the tip into the cavern of his mouth, toying with it until it was a hard point between his lips. Ariana felt the sensations right to her very core. Her hands came out and buried themselves into his hair, holding him to her. His hand came to cup her, to lift her into his mouth. The draw of his mouth grew tighter…harder.

  Then he suddenly lifted his head away, his breath coming hard.

  “Do you want me?” he demanded of her.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “No…do you want me. Do you, Ariana Colla, triumvir of Saren, want me, Raja Sin, ruler of Kilt?”

  She hesitated as he made her aware of who they were. Of the ramifications of her answer. Her fingers were gripping desperately in his hair. Why did he have to talk? Why did he have to make demands of her? Why couldn’t he just quench this interminable burning inside of her?

  “That is what I thought,” he said, sounding dejected and more than a little sad. He then stood up away from her, his hungry eyes on her the entire time. “I told myself I would wait for you to come to me.”

  Then he turned and left her there—left her there!—and, with a bang on the door to get the guard to unlock it, he walked out of the room.

  Ariana lay there panting for breath for a long minute, her shock that he had left her completely paralyzing. Then she grabbed for the cover on the bed, drawing the furs over her naked skin.

  What in both hells had just happened? Why had he left? She would have given him what he wanted. He had made his point. The point being that despite all her railing otherwise, she wanted him. Despite who he was and who she was, she wanted him. She wanted him on such a visceral level it was absolutely stunning.

  He had left because she had not come to him? Because he had…he had had to force the understanding on her, she realized. He had pressed and pushed and overwhelmed her until she couldn’t think straight. She still wasn't thinking straight. How could she be? She should be grateful he had stopped her from making a grave and terrible mistake. She should be thanking the One God for this reprieve.

  Only…she didn’t feel relieved. She felt deprived. She felt lost. Why? Why could she not accept her lucky escape?

  Why had he not simply taken her and let them both deal with the aftermath later? He had had perfect opportunity to prove his point. To prove to her how much she craved and needed him. To prove to her that there was a desire between them that was burning out of control. That promised intense and incredible pleasure. She would have given…why had he not taken?

  She needed to get out of there. She needed to get free and get back to her home where it was safe and easy and comfortable. She didn’t want to be near this man who coaxed and coerced and had her thinking and acting in ways she never would have done only a few short weeks ago. She wanted to run away. From him. From his world. From everything that tempted her.

  And yet, if she were being honest with herself, there was an equally powerful part of her that wanted to hunt him down, to throw herself onto him and cry, “I’m here! I’ve come to you! Take me!”

  It was those dangerous thoughts that frightened her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sin was sitting in front of the fire…again…with a glass of liquor…again…staring at nothing but the churning of his own thoughts…again.

  He couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he envisioned her lying naked on a fur-covered bed. He could hear the way her breath caught…heard the soft little moan she had made as he had lain beneath him. He could feel her desperate hands in his hair as she held him to her breast.

  He could taste the sweet flavor of her skin still. Even the scorching swallows of the hard liquor hadn’t burned her flavor away. He was hard for her, just as he had been from the moment his lips had touched hers for the first time. Hells, he’d probably been hard for her ever since their kiss on the ice. He couldn’t recall a time, it seemed, when he wasn't hard for her.

  “Fuck,” he swore fiercely. Why had he left her? He could have had her. She had been willing and wanton, he could have taken her and she would have loved every minute of it.

  Until she came down from the high of it all and realized just who it was she had given herself to. Then she would have hated him even more than she already did…if such a thing were possible. And she probably hated him for leaving her like that.

  He was fucked either way.

  He tossed back another swallow of his drink, enjoying the punishing burn of it. He deserved punishment. For every moment he lost control with her. For every time he had to force her to acknowledge what was between them. He had made such progress with her today…and then he had thrown it all away because he simply could not control himself around her.

  He needed to figure out how to spend time with her without the risk of letting his libido take reign over him. But he knew it was an impossible task. Not between the two of them.

  He sat forward in his chair a little.

  What he needed was a chaperone. Someone who would allow them to spend time together, yet keep him in check. Keep him from losing what little control he had. It couldn’t be Mariah. It was too easy for him to dismiss her from his presence and she was too afraid of him to say anything contrary to his desires. He needed someone who wasn’t afraid of him. Someone he could trust. Someone who was worthy of Ariana’s time and friendship.

  The answer came to him suddenly and clearly. So clearly he wondered that he hadn’t thought of it before. He surged out of his chair, dropping his glass on a nearby tabletop as he passed by it.

  The next morning Ariana was not finished with her morning toilette yet when he came to her. Anxiety and excitement, mixed in a wash together, swirled into her stomach. She shooed Mariah away, dismissing her from the room as she stood and faced him. He looked dark and forbidding, shut away from her. She didn’t know why, but she found herself missing the open congenial man of yesterday.

  “Are you ready for the day?” he asked.

  She was dressed and her hair was done, so that was good enough in her opinion. She snatched up a sash from the back of her chair and tied it about her waist. His dark eyes followed every movement she made. She could see a tic in his jaw giving away the fact that he was clenching his teeth. In an odd sort of way, it gave her comfort to see this sign of tightly leashed control. But was it because it meant he was reining in his impulses…or because it was a sign the impulses were still there and still as strong as ever?

  “I’m ready,” she announced.

  “Good. Come with me.”

  She obediently followed him out of her room. But he had not taken a few strides before he let her catch up to him and placed a light, guiding hand at her waist. They walked in silence for a while before she ventured, “I think we should talk about yesterday.”

  Again that tic fluttered in his jaw.

  “Not yet,” he said. He stared st
raight ahead as he said the words. They, and he, perplexed her. She would have thought he would want to talk about it. Want to press his advantages with her.

  “But I think—“

  “There is someone I would like you to meet,” he cut her off, guiding her into a part of the temple she had not seen before. Like the rest of the building it was shining with newness, the floors made of marble and the walls made of wood paneling. The wood was shined to a gloss, the warm tones of it melting into the smells of fresh cut lumber that still hung in the air.

  He led her into a room with arched ceilings and long windows that let the sunlight stream in. There was a large marble fireplace on one wall and tapestries hanging on the others. In the center of the room was a large loom and sitting in front of the loom was a woman.

  She was about five and a half feet tall, had long black hair peppered with silver, and a pair of sharp, keen eyes. She took in the couple approaching her with a guarded expression.

  “Ariana Colla, this is my mother, Fatima. Mother, this is Ariana, she is a Saren triumvir.”

  Fatima lifted a brow at the introduction, but Ariana had a feeling this woman already knew exactly who she was and why she had come there. She regarded her son with a measuring glance, then looked back at Ariana.

  “She is a pretty thing…if a bit thin,” she said.

  Fatima was a bit rounder of hip than Ariana was. Come to think of it, many of the women she had seen had boasted round hips and abundant breasts. Suddenly, under this woman's regard, she felt she was somehow lacking. She quickly pushed through the feeling though, remembering who she was. She was Ariana Colla. She helped rule her world. She was not lacking in anything.

  “So…you are the infamous Saren woman who has stolen into my son’s every waking thought,” Fatima mused.

  “Mother,” Sin scolded her, looking discomfited. Then he turned to Ariana. “I thought you might like a companion. That you two might get to know each other.” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “I’ll leave you to it.”