her back toward him. “You don’t have to worry about vengeance, for there is none to be had.” She heaved a great sigh. “And besides, it’s not your responsibility to exact.”
“I know that.” His demeanor darkened into something vicious and altogether frightening. “In here, I know that.” He tapped his finger to his temple. “But in here…” He pressed his fist to his heart, but didn’t finish his sentence.
Kylah reached out and put her ghostly, iridescent hand over his fist. “Sometimes, I’m sad that I cannot touch you. At first, I was glad of it, because I didn’t have to be afraid. But now…”
He shuddered as her hand passed through his to settle by where his heart beat. Kylah could almost feel the power of it, the strong, steady rhythm accelerating along with the shallower breaths he took.
“Ye should be grateful for it still,” he murmured, then blinked, as though stunned he’d said it aloud.
“Why?” she frowned.
“Ye have good reason to fear me.”
“Because you’re going to find a way to kill the Fae, possibly even me?” She met his eyes and saw something in them that transfixed and repelled her with equal force.
“That,” he said in a low, rumbling growl. “And because despite everything, I desire ye, Kylah. Just as much as that MacKay bastard wanted ye, probably even more.”
Kylah snatched her hand back, horrified. “But-but you said that beauty doesn’t matter. That it doesn’t mean anything! You told me you didn’t want me.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped and he turned his face, the tattoo flexing with the clench of his teeth. “I know what I said.”
“You lied?” she gasped. “You, who seek and regard truth above all else?”
“Aye,” he hissed, advancing on her. “But I didna lie to ye, I lied to myself, which is the greater sin.”
Kylah shrank back, forgetting that he posed no physical threat. Right now, he was the most dangerous being on the planet. How could he? How could he make her care for him, make her trust him? Lure her into a false sense of security, make her feel again. He’d delighted and soothed her with his poetic knowledge about the Universe and her place within it and then he tells her this. It changed everything.
“You would hurt me like they did?” she accused, suddenly feeling very small. Like she wanted to crawl inside of herself until the moon let go of the earth and the sun evaporated the sea. She wanted to die. Again. “You would humiliate me? Bind me? Expose me and—”
“Nay,” he rasped, reaching out like she was a cornered, skittish animal he was trying to tame. “Never. I wouldna cause he pain for the world, but teach ye all the pleasures a woman’s body is capable of.”
She squinted at him, weighing the earnestness of his expression, the desire in his voice, the veracity of his words.
Never had he looked so open. So naked.
“What do ye mean by ‘pleasure?’” she ventured.
“Och, Kylah, a woman’s pleasure is a very powerful, very complicated thing. But once attained it is… indescribable to behold.” He ran the backs of his knuckles down what would have been the curve of her cheek.
Kylah’s eyes fluttered closed and if she concentrated very hard, she could almost feel his touch.
Almost.
Her curiosity tempered her anger at him, anger that should have been stronger than it was. She had to admit that beneath the fear, beneath the dark memories and instinctive revolt, relief resided there. He’d noted her beauty, as she’d noticed his. He was not immune to her, as she was so entirely affected by him. “Where does one find it?” she whispered. “How?”
His lids lowered by half, a knowing smirk toying with the edges of lips that appeared much more full than any time previous. “The incidentals differ for every woman, but it culminates in the same place for all of them.”
Kylah had a feeling she knew which place that was, for at his low, silken words it clenched and ached with a foreign awareness. She couldn’t think of that place. She couldn’t face it. It couldn’t exist.
“I don’t believe you,” she breathlessly denied.
He chuckled. A dark, threatening sound that washed over her like a cauldron of boiling tar, scalding skin that no longer existed with a heat that was not unpleasant. “I could prove it to ye.”
“Nay, you cannot!” she quickly reminded him, holding up a hand to ward him off. “You can’t touch me.”
“Aye, but…” his brow quirked.
But what? He could not touch her. He couldn’t