He shakes his head, and his voice thickens. “I took you from your home, and your bed, and your people. I made you my prisoner, Aurora.” His eyes are shining, and he turns his attention to the posts at the end of the bed. “You think there’s always a choice, but there’s not. Not without freedom. You can’t choose me when you’re not really free.”
I’m blindsided. Emotions hurtle around my chest like the winds rattling the windows.
“Callum, you didn’t take me prisoner.”
I’m not sure if I’m relieved, or confused, or amused, or heartbroken. It is overwhelming. And yet, for once, I don’t want to push the emotions away. I want to embrace them. I want to feel.
I shift on the bed, and turn his face toward mine. “I chose to come. And I’m glad that I did. I have never felt more free than when I am with you. And. . . well. . .” I take a deep breath. “There’s another thing.”
His eyebrows knit together. “What is it?”
I chew my bottom lip. “I was planning on giving my father information about the Wolves once you had sent me back. I was going to use it to get out of my marriage with Sebastian.”
Callum stills. At some point during our time together, I let myself forget he is a fierce warrior, though it is obvious now from the tightening of his jaw, and the tension he emits. Was I foolish to admit this to him?
He told me before that he would die to save his people.
“Are you still planning to do that?” he asks.
“I don’t want to marry him, Callum.”
“Aye. I know that. But. . .” He puts his hand on my cheek. “What you’ve just told me. You cannot tell anyone else. If the king finds out. . . Please tell me you understand that?”
“I’m not a fool.”
Something like relief blooms in his eyes. “No. You’re not.” A soft smile plays on his lips, and he shakes his head. “My wee spy.”
The word my stokes something inside me.
“You’re not concerned?” I ask.
“It makes no difference to me.” He shrugs. “You’re not going back to him.”
“And, so you see, I was never really a prisoner to begin with.”
He drops his hand, and sighs. “You might think that, Princess, but I disagree.”
“Oh, for the love of the Goddess, Callum! Will you stop being such a big bloody. . . gentleman!”
He raises his eyebrows, and stills.
His gaze drops down to my body, and the shirt I’m wearing, and something unreadable flickers over his expression. “A spy, not a prisoner, huh?”
When he meets my eyes again, mischief dances amid the darkness.
“I never thought you’d ask me not to be a gentleman, Princess.”
He drags his teeth over his bottom lip, as if considering something. Then he grins. In a sudden movement, he flips me onto my back and climbs on top of me—caging me between his arms. He brings his mouth to my ear, and I shiver as his warm breath touches my skin.
“But I’ll be happy to oblige,” he whispers.
Chapter Forty-Three
My insides tighten.
Callum’s warm breath heats my skin, his lips almost touching my neck.
His shirt has ridden up to my hips, and I can feel the cotton of his breeches against the bare skin of my thighs.
My legs are parted to accommodate him, my core pressed against his hard stomach. When he shifts, my breath catches in my throat as a jolt of need courses through my body.
And the scent of him—Goddess, the scent of him—he smells like heat and male and the mountains.
He groans into my ear, and the sound vibrates through me.
“You don’t know how many ungentlemanly things I’ve thought about doing to you.” His voice is low, and his accent is even thicker than usual.
He brushes his lips against my neck, then shifts so his face hovers above mine. His solid weight presses down on me. His forearms are flat on the pillow on either side of my head.
I should feel trapped, held prisoner by his body. The strength of him, the sheer size of him, should make me feel weak. He is alpha of Highfell, a warrior and a wolf. I should be afraid.
Yet I feel something else entirely.
It is stirred by the quickening of his breathing, and the look in his eyes—there is dark intent there, but a hint of something else too. Awe, perhaps.
That first moment I saw him, standing stern and warrior-like in Sebastian’s fighting ring, I would never in a million years have imagined that one day, we would be in this position. I thought him a monster. A brute. Someone to be feared. Hated, even.
I wonder if that is what is going through his mind too, as he brushes a strand of hair from my face.
“What ungentlemanly things?” I ask.
A slow grin spreads across his face. “Kissing you.”
“Gentlemen kiss their ladies.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Yes. There is a moment in the wedding ceremony where the groom kisses the bride.”
His eyes glint with mischief. “Hm. It seems I’m not quite as well versed in the ways of gentlemen as you, Princess. You’ll have to teach me. Do gentlemen kiss their ladies like this?”
He brushes his lips against mine. The kiss is gentle. Chaste. Frustrating. I want to buck against him—grab his hair, pull him closer to me. But my arms are pinned by my sides by his body, which holds me in place.
“Yes! And I told you to stop being a gentlemen, damn it!”
His grin widens, becomes wolfish.
“How will I know how not to act like a gentlemen, if I don’t know how they behave in the first place?” His tone is teasing, his demeanor calm. It frustrates me even further. He knows he has total control here. And what’s more, he is enjoying it.
“Do they kiss like this?” he asks.
He lowers his mouth to mine. This time, his kiss is deep. Rough. Claiming. I can’t breathe, I can’t think. There is only him, his mouth, his tongue moving in deep dominant strokes against mine, his groan that rumbles through my body and makes me quiver.
My hips move of their own accord, pushing my center against his bare torso, desperate for the friction.
I whimper when he pulls away, his breath still mingling with mine.
“Well?” he asks, his voice low and rough. The wolf flickers behind his eyes, fighting with the mischief that glimmers there.
“No.” The word escapes on a breath. “They don’t kiss like that.”
“Hm. Interesting. How about this?”
He shifts, moving down my body so he hovers over my chest. Eyes on mine, he lowers his mouth to where my nipple is peaked, visible through the thin material of his shirt. He clamps his lips around it and he sucks hard.
I cry out as my back arches from the mattress.
It should hurt, yet I thread my fingers into his hair and pull him closer as he gives my other nipple the same rough treatment. He chuckles, then moves his hand to my breast, squeezing and rubbing as he sucks—causing raw liquid heat to pool at my core.
I moan as the ache builds. My hips buck, and I cry out in frustration. His eyes are still on mine, even as he brushes his teeth against my breast and gently bites.
I gasp. “Callum!”