“You know I’m no’ a good man,” he said, his voice deceptively gentle, belying the steel beneath it. “I’ve made no excuses. I’ve given you no pretty lies. You came with me anyway. Doona pretend you doona know what I want and doona think to deny me. Twice now you’ve tried to go back. There is no going back with me, Chloe-lass.” He hissed the last words, his lips drawing away from his teeth. “You know what I want and you want it too. You want it just the way I’m about to give it to you.”

Chloe’s knees nearly buckled. Anticipation shivered through her. He was right. On all counts.

He stalked. “Hard, fast, deep. When I’m done, you’ll know you’re mine. And you’ll never think of naysaying me again.”

Another predatory step toward her.

She didn’t even think about it, she just yielded to the instinct: her feet spun her about and she broke into a run. As if she could outrun him. As if she could outrun what she’d been trying to outrun since she’d met him—the reckless, terrifying intensity of her desire for him. As if she even wanted to. She wanted him more than was wise, more than was rational, more than was controllable.

Still, she ran, a final symbolic resistance and—a part of her knew—she ran because she wanted him to chase her. Thrilled with the knowledge that Dageus MacKeltar was running after her and when he caught her he was going to teach her all those things his eyes had been promising. All those things she wanted so desperately to know. She sped through the tall, thick grass and he actually let her run for a time, as if he, too, were enjoying the chase. Then he was on her, taking her down to the ground on her stomach beneath him. Laughing as he took her down.

His laughter turned into a rough growl as he stretched his big hard body the full length of hers, his erection an iron bar prodding her behind through the fabric of her gown. She wriggled, panicked by the feel of how large he was, yet he gave no quarter, wrapping his arms tightly around her, pinning hers to her sides. He rubbed himself back and forth between the cleft of her bottom, growling in a language she couldn’t understand.

Banding her arms with one of his, he slid a hand between her body and the ground and cupped the vee of her thighs. She cried out at the shatteringly intimate touch. Every nerve in her body awakened brutally to a sharp, hungry emptiness. Muscles deep inside her bore down on nothing, aching to be filled and soothed. His strange temper, his roughness, fed a desire in her she’d not known she had. To be taken, consumed by the man. Hard and fast and without words. Every bit as animal as she’d known he was the day she’d met him.

She liked the danger in him, she realized then. It stirred a reckless part of her she’d long denied, been a little afraid of it. The part of her that sometimes dreamed she was in The Cloisters at night and the alarm systems had failed, leaving all those glorious artifacts unprotected.

His weight was so heavy atop her she could scarcely breathe. When his lips grazed the back of her neck, she whimpered. When his teeth closed on it in a little love-bite, she practically screamed. She was dizzyingly aroused, hot, achy, and needy. Then his big hand was on her face, a finger slipping between her lips and she sucked on it, willing to take and taste any part of him she could get. With his other hand he shoved the skirts of her gown up, his fingers ruthlessly probing her exposed soft folds, spreading the dampness, slipping and sliding. As the hard maleness of him prodded her bottom, he worked a finger inside her and thrust deeply.

Chloe cried out and pushed back against his hand. Yes, oh, yes—that was what she needed! Small broken sounds escaped her lips as he deftly slid a second finger in till he reached her virgin barrier. Gently, but relentlessly, he thrust through it, covering her bare neck and shoulders with searing, open-mouthed kisses interspersed with tiny bites. The pain was fleeting, a small tearing, swiftly surpassed by the pleasure of his fingers moving inside her, his mouth hot on her skin, his powerful body rippling against hers. He was her most private fantasy come to life. She’d dreamed of this, him taking her as if there were no force on earth that could prevent it.

None could, she thought dimly. Since the moment she’d seen him she’d known it would come to this. It had never been a question of “if,” it had always only been a question of where and when.

Then he was nudging, thick and hard as steel, against those soft, delicate folds and she made a small helpless sound of distress. She’d seen him. She knew what was coming, and didn’t think she could take it.

“Shh,” he crooned against her ear, thrusting forward.

“I can’t,” she half-sobbed, as he began to push inside her. The pressure of him trying to enter was too intense.