He grasped her other hand, now holding both. "I care. I like for you to be different."
She had already learned that if he meant to hold her hand, he would hold her hand. She glanced about warily, knowing there was no escape. Brazen seductiveness gleamed in his eyes and echoed through his body in minute, sinuous movements.
"You're foxed," she accused, futilely tugging on her hand.
"Your fault. Kiss me, Sophie."
Sophie scooted back, pulling against his grip. Suddenly, he let go and her hands flung wide. Lucas tucked his own behind his head, against the stack of pillows and grinned.
"Kiss me," he said again. It was the same beguiling, whispering, caressing voice of the Toad in her dreams.
"I'd sooner kiss a toad," she replied, lifting her nose to a properly arrogant level, yet she leaned, closer, closer.
"But I am a toad, Sophie, you said so yourself. Kiss me."
She wanted the long, strong fingers of his elegant hands to touch her again, the way they had only moments before, but they stayed where they willed, behind his head on the lofty tower of pillows, unwilling to give without receiving.
From the first moment she had seen him so long ago, she had wanted the taste of his kiss. In her dreams, in her waking thoughts she had imagined how their seductively ornate curves would flex to meet her lips, how the very touch of them would sear through her like white-hot lightning.
Kiss him? Oh, no, she must not! She leaned closer, closer, almost touching, almost, almost, almost. She must not.
"Sophie." Her name more breath than word, enticing her, calling her like a siren, out of a turbulent sea.
As unstoppable as the wind, they touched. As inevitable as the kiss, the white-hot lightning sizzled through her. His fingers laced through her hair as it tumbled and splayed around them like a dark curtain. With a sudden jolt and a moan as dark as Africa, his body flexed erotically to meet and mold to hers. All the emptiness in her soul, every crack and crater, filled with parti-colored passion.
She gasped at the sensation, everything she had expected, more than she could have imagined, like the dramatic brilliance of a multi-hued sunset, came to life within her. Oh, yes, she had wanted this, and didn't care about the cost.
She wanted the way his hand trailed down her spine, the astonishing invasion of his tongue that nuzzled against hers, lips that tugged at hers, playfully entreating.
What was so wrong with giving him what she had wanted forever to give? Whatever she feared seemed somehow unimportant with the promise of his passion. He might not love her, but he wanted her. Couldn't that be enough? Couldn't she make it be enough? Maybe he would never find out, and maybe...
Lucas ran his hand down her spine to cup her derriere, bracing her to him, taking her with him as he rolled atop her. His magnificent body pressed into hers, his excitement becoming hers as he eased onto her, pinning her against the mattress.
"Lucas, be careful, your knee!" she protested.
His voice rumbled up from deep inside him, a growl of desperate need. "The knee be damned."
)
