Faer, I know that’s impossible.”
When he spoke, I couldn’t help looking up; those intense sea-colored eyes were so eye-catching it was almost hard to focus on the rest of his handsome face.
“So why are you worried about Tiron and Duncan?” I asked, returning to the knot of worry at the base of my throat. I was furious at Tiron, but I still hurt for him and for Duncan, watching their friendship being torn apart. When I thought of all their banter and comradery, the way it was obvious they’d die to protect each other, the thought of that loss made me ache. They might be royalty, but they had little besides their brotherhood.
“Because you are,” he said. “I would drown anyone who hurt you, tear each finger off the hand of someone who touched you against your will. I would gut anyone to protect you.”
He spoke off-handedly, but I remembered the way he’d flung the guard who tried to hurt me overboard, and I didn’t doubt he meant it. Raile’s obsession with me was a strange thing… and yet something about him sent an equally strange thrill through my body.
He added, “Maybe I’d even gut someone to make you happy. But I don’t know; I don’t trust you not to turn the blade on me.”
I started to protest, but he waved his hand, in a way that encompassed Duncan and Tiron and somewhere across the waves, Azrael. “I only want you. But you want them, and you want them to be happy.”
“I might prefer to toss them to the sharks, but here we are. And I,” he pressed his hand to his chest, bowing his head, “am at your service, as always.”
There was the familiar barb of mockery. But he’d sounded sincere with every other word—a little psychopathic, but sincere—and something was tearing loose in my chest, filling it with an unbearable lightness. I shook my head, trying to escape the sensation. “I don’t understand you.”
His lips tugged at the corners, his smile widening. “Nor I you. But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”
He leaned forward, cupping my chin with his fingers, and my breath stuttered in my chest.
“Maybe I am a monster,” he said softly, “but I hope I will prove to you that I am your monster.”
Raile leaned forward slowly, as if he were going to kiss me. For a moment, I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss him back or slap him or both. I’d never known until I met Raile that I could be angry and aroused at the same time. He made me crazy.
I slid my hand over his cheek, pausing him between us, although my thumb slid over his lips. I hadn’t intended it, but the movement surprised him, his eyes widening, his lips parting under my touch. It was a split-second of genuine reaction, his desire for me written across his face. He looked at me like my touch devastated him.
I’d been about to ask him what he meant about consummating the marriage; that was why I’d paused him. But the genuine feeling on his handsome face changed something.
I dragged my thumb curiously along his lip, teasing him. Then I leaned in and pressed my lips to his.
It was a soft, tentative kiss. But only for a moment. Then Raile took control, his hands finding my waist. He deepened the kiss, kissing me slowly but intensely. My other hand found his arm and the rock-hard bicep within his sleeve; his body felt tense, almost strained, as if he were holding himself back. But he waited, until I teased my tongue along the seam between his lips.
Then he released himself with a groan, pulling me out of bed in one quick motion. The incredible power of his arms surprised me as I suddenly found myself straddling his lap, his hands still wrapped around my hips, our kiss never broken. His lips parted against mine, welcoming me into the warmth of his mouth beyond those cool lips. He tasted faintly salty, as if he carried the sea on his skin all the time.
He broke away as if I left him breathless, his lips brushing across my jawline to the edge of my ear. “Gods, Alisa,” he whispered against the shell of my ear, and then his teeth teased against my earlobe. My core squeezed in response, liquid warmth pooling between my thighs; his cock teased against my thigh, straining through his trousers, thick and hard as iron.
I’d been unfair to him. I still