The Wolf stretched out his hand. She stared at it, knowing that to touch him of her own accord would be to admit defeat, to be defeated by the heat and flame, the passion of desire that raged through her with such incomprehensible urgency.
Servanne’s hand shook where it was buried in the ivy. Her fingers released their grip and moved haltingly to where the thicker, stronger ones awaited with such infinite patience. She saw his hand close around hers and she could not stop the small sigh that escaped her lips.
It was unthinkable to surrender to him, and yet Servanne did so, moving without the strength, the energy to resist any longer the lure of his male potency. She followed him into the clear, steaming water, and it was warm. So warm. And the sand was soft, enveloping her foot like a feather pillow. He drew her another step and the water was only slightly deeper, rising just above her ankle. Another brought the warm caress rippling around her calves, and with the next, the hem of her sheath floated out in a wide white circle midway up her thighs. The incredible wall of boldly sculpted muscle was in front of her, still as a statue, tall and terrifyingly virile in his nudity. The mist and shadow and eerie blue-green glitter of the cavern surrounded them like an unearthly spell.
Without speaking and with a carefully blank expression, absent of any hint of triumph, the Black Wolf turned and sank slowly to his knees in the water, presenting her with an agonizingly stark view of the scarred shoulders.
Deformed and maimed, capable of conjuring ghouls and grotesques, even elfin demons at the snap of a finger.
His words, mocking her.
Touch them, you would not burst into flame or see the bones turned to ash on a devil’s curse.
Her fingertips barely creased the surface of the water and she raised them with a curious detachment, watching the droplets fall brightly back onto the glassy surface. She dipped and raised them again, this time lifting a cupped handful of the steaming stuff and observing the glistening path it left on the hard-surfaced flesh. With the scantest tip of a finger, she traced a wet curl of chestnut hair from the base of his neck to the solid ridge of his shoulder. She lifted more water, smoothing it in with long, circular motions that tempted her hands down the plated knuckles of his spine, then up and over the wide, hard slabs of muscle that armoured his shoulder blades.
Despite the moistness in the air, her throat was dry and her mouth felt stuffed with raw, unspun fleece. The skin across her breasts was stretched so taut it felt brittle; the slightest abrasion from the silk sheath sent shivers of icy pleasure into her nipples until they were puckered tight, straining with impatience.
The Wolf had not moved; he did not move now as she waded from the side to the front and stood before him, the black centres of her eyes dilated, the surrounding rim of blue shimmering with the weakness that throbbed and vibrated through every vein and nerve in her body. The broad expanse of his chest filled her gaze; it lured her hands like the sin of untold riches, and she did not even use the feint of bathwater as an excuse to lay her palms against the bulge of muscles, or to drag her fingers through the crisp, lush pelt of curls. They climbed slowly to his shoulders, then to the broad base of his neck. Of their own accord, her fingers buried themselves in the thicker, lusher waves of his hair.
Servanne’s lips trembled apart. She did not know what to say, or how to ask. She did not even know what she was asking for, but the Wolf knew, and his hands rose up from the water, caressing her skin, moulding to the narrow indent of her waist. He drew her forward against the incredible heat of his chest and his mouth was there to smother her gasp. His lips moved forcefully, possessively over hers, his tongue barely waiting to reacquaint itself with the supple outer contours of her mouth before it was delving boldly, deeply, hungrily for sweeter rewards within.
Servanne’s cry went unheeded when, with brutal disregard for her sanity, her mouth was left gaping and abandoned while his lips plundered the swanlike arch of her throat. He sent her senses reeling on waves of carnal promises as he blazed