Very direct questions. That shouldn’t surprise her. But she couldn’t answer him. No answer would satisfy him. In either event, he’d turn this into some sort of chest-beating competition. And the truth would only cause … issues.

“It’s hardly relevant. You need me, and I am offering. Nothing more or less.”

He flicked his thumbs across her nipples. Slowly. Back and forth. Until she gasped.

“I plan to make certain it is much, much more.”

With a wave of his hands, Ice closed the drape around the bed, shutting her off from the rest of the world. Then he flattened her to the bed, covering her body with his own. The hardness and heat of him overloaded her senses. His hair-roughened body abraded against her, and her skin became a living, breathing, aching entity. It craved more of his touch and possession. Tingles … God, everywhere.

Her will couldn’t overcome her need to clasp her arms around him and draw him closer. His lips glided up her neck. His tongue flirted with her lobe until her attention focused solely on his mouth. Then he moved in for the kill, nipping at the sensitive skin with his teeth.

A shiver scraped its way down her spine. No way of hiding that reaction from him. No way to mitigate how he made her feel.

“That’s it, princess. Show me the woman you hide.”

He knew that? How had he grasped that she hid so much of herself and her desires from everyone?

“Ice, stop.” Her breathy voice trembled, and Sabelle knew that her tone told him that the last thing she wanted was for him to stop.

He heard it too.

“Have I hurt you?” he murmured against her lips. His gaze dug right into hers, making her insides jump, pulse.

“N-no.”

“Given you reason to believe I’ll hurt you?”

“No.”

“Have I scared you?” he challenged.

Yes, but not in the way he meant. She knew, deep in her bones, that he would never hurt her. He’d gone out of his way time and again to see to her safety, her comfort. Even if he had Called to her to spite Bram more than claim her, the magical words themselves afforded her his undying protection and loyalty. Sabelle had no doubt that Ice would cut off his own arm before harming her. She only feared how much of herself he would demand in surrender. Would he wrest away a part of herself that she’d never reclaim? And if she admitted that fear, she’d be completely compromised. He’d have her then, in any way, every way, he wanted.

“O-of course not.”

He smiled as if he knew she lied. “Good.”

Sabelle couldn’t find a reason or the words to stay him before Ice curled his hands around her thighs and pulled them apart. His hips sank between them, and his enormous erection pressed against her mound, rubbing right over the one spot guaranteed to send her reeling.

Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, and he threw back his head with a hiss. “Yes.”

Mad. Ice was mad, just as his reputation claimed. What else could this insanity be?

“I want more of you,” he murmured.

Then he blindsided her, not with a kiss, but a complete possession of her mouth. The force of his lips sank her head deeper into the pillow as he thrust deep. Then deeper still. He entered as if he planned to stay. Forever. And God help her, she opened to him in return. She flirted, her tongue touching his, then retreating, teasing him to chase her. And he did. Repeatedly. Until she lost her breath, her mind, her will to resist.

When he finally lifted his mouth, she drew in a huge gulp of air.

“I want you.” He shook his head, his gaze riveted to hers until she felt locked to him. “Need you. Princess . . .”

He dragged his fingers through her hair and cupped the back of her head, then devoured her mouth again, filling her with the tangy taste of him that, no matter how Sabelle had tried, she hadn’t quite forgotten. He dragged that flavor against her tongue again and again until she felt addicted to him. Blood pulsed, raced. Her heartbeat roared in her ears. Her female flesh more than damp and achy, but drenched and cramping with demand.

When he lifted his mouth from hers, she whimpered and tried to follow.

“Did you come for Lucan?”

The question shocked her out of her bliss, and she recoiled. “It hardly matters. Forget him.”

“I won’t,” he vowed, gripping her face in his hands, his green gaze scoring its way into her soul. “Until I’m certain you have.”

Sabelle dragged in a breath, trying to ready arguments in her scrambling brain. But nothing could have prepared her for the slide of his body down hers, the hot suction of his mouth on her breast.

Lightning shot to the bead of her nipple as he flicked his tongue over it, nipped at it with his teeth, caressed it with his lips. Thunder boomed through her body when he repeated the process with her other breast. She arched to him, an offering, a plea. Growling, Ice wrapped his arm around her waist and brought her closer to his voracious mouth. He consumed the soft skin with firm lips, rasping his stubble gently across the tender sides until she shivered.

“Tell me,” he whispered against her belly. “Did he give you pleasure?”

Sabelle frowned, her body aching so badly, she didn’t want to think about the past, about reality—about anything more than Ice pushing deep inside her and demanding she take pleasure.

“Stop. Focus on this. Right now.” She panted. “The fact we’re together. What you make me feel.”

Ice slid farther down her body, then anchored his palms on the inside of her thighs and pushed them wide. “That’s not enough, princess. I want everything. All of you. I won’t rest until I’ve erased his memory—and every other man’s—from your mind.”

Had anyone else said that, she would have laughed. In the last sixty years, she’d had her share of lovers and taken few seriously. Yes, she turned down more than she accepted. Far more. But she never wanted for men and had never been shy about embracing her needs.

Ice changed everything.

He’d yet to make love to her, and already she could scarcely remember another man’s touch. She trembled as she never had. Shy yes … yet she was so bloody eager to join with him. But if she told him any of that, he would overtake her completely. Of that, Sabelle had no doubt. Once he had any chunk of her soul, he would take more the next time he touched her. And more the time after that. Worse, she feared that she’d lack the will to stop him.

She would then gladly Bind to him—and lose her brother.

Hot breath heated her wet flesh, and Sabelle knew Ice hovered above her, watching. She shivered, panting. Everything inside her strained up to him, and not just for the pleasure she knew he would give her. Pleasure, while nice, was fleeting. No, she felt certain that whatever they were about to share would change her life forever. It scared her … but she wouldn’t—couldn’t—stop him.

Somewhere in the room, the clock began to strike. The twelve gongs penetrated her fuzzy brain. Midnight. Deep in the darkness, yet the beginning of a new day.

Then Ice dropped his mouth to her, right on her clit. He dragged his tongue through her wet slit, greedily lapping at her once, twice … until she began to lose her mind.

Pleasure tilted her, careening out of control. It gathered, built, grew, stretched, crowded her sanity, then hovered her over the edge of an abyss she’d never experienced before. Her body beat like a drum, pounding with need, and the feel of him tasting her in the most intimate way, staking his claim, annihilating her restraint.

“Ice!”

She clawed at him, but the stubble of hair was too short for her to grasp. Blindly, she groped for his shoulders. Something inside her settled when her fingers dug deep into the hard, bunching flesh there as he took another sweet taste of her flesh and moaned.

Sabelle trembled and burned. Everywhere. The impact he had on her was like a tidal wave, rolling over her, drowning good sense, flooding her landscape until he claimed her completely.

“Sweet princess,” he murmured against her flesh, then licked her again, moaning.

Digging her fingers deeper into his shoulders, Sabelle tightened. Close. So bloody close, and now his mouth lingered over her, not quite touching. And she needed. How badly she needed him. Right now.

“Please, Ice. Please . . .” She knew she begged, but couldn’t seem to stop.

He sucked her clit into his mouth, flicked it with his tongue. Her breath hitched. Sabelle hadn’t thought it possible, but she inched even closer to an explosion so huge, she feared it would blow her soul wide open. But she didn’t fight it. Right now, she couldn’t. She welcomed the shattering pleasure he dangled right in front of her. “Please.”

“Did you come for Lucan?”

God, that question again. Had she answered it earlier, would he have demanded this utter submission to his will, to her pleasure? She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. The truth? Concealing it was no longer possible. This moment was too raw to hide behind lies or redirections. From the first, Ice had revealed his emotions to her with such candor, believing he’d be rebuffed. Anything less than truth from her now, while easy and uncomplicated, would be cowardly and wrong. If she couldn’t have Ice forever, she could take comfort in the fact she hadn’t evaded when he needed the answer she could give. Just as she needed him to know that, in this moment, she cared too much to lie.

Now, she only hoped he didn’t hate her for the truth.

“O-once.”

His face froze over, and determination fueled an implacable determination in his eyes that made her shiver. “Just once? You’ll find I can do better.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

ONCE. WHAT THE BLOODY HELL was he to make of that? If Sabelle had never found pleasure with MacTavish, Ice would know she had no lasting feelings for the other wizard. He could use tonight to show her that he would always put her and her pleasure first.

If MacTavish had always brought her pleasure, Ice could surmise that she had deep feelings for Lucan and would have nothing to do with himself. He could have ended tonight with precious memories of her, then tried to repair his heart tomorrow.

But once? Something lay between them. But what? Ice doubted that Sabelle would respond to a man in an animal state like Lucan’s if she didn’t care for him at least a bit. Since the bloke hadn’t been in his right mind, he couldn’t have focused on her pleasure. In fact, Lucan had done nothing more than use her body, and Sabelle had borne it without complaint. Yet she had come for him. Once. Out of friendship? or more?

Ice had hardly expected Sabelle to be an inexperienced woman. Having transitioned some sixty years ago, she’d had lovers. Ice didn’t like that fact, but he understood. Sex was a necessity to magickind. Life depended on energy. But Sabelle taking Lucan to her bed—and potentially having feelings for the wizard—distressed him. No. It made him want to tear apart the Privileged bastard with his bare hands until MacTavish’s blood ran in the streets.

But there were other impediments to Sabelle accepting his Call: class, family, prestige … he and the princess would likely never overcome those issues. Still, he wanted more than merely her body. He yearned for something he would never have: her heart.

Unfortunately, Sabelle’s answer hadn’t told him if Lucan had already captured it. If MacTavish had, it was up to Ice to replace him in Sabelle’s affections, show her exactly how precious she was to him. But if she responded to him, came for him, if she utterly surrendered … he would at least have hope that she cared.

“Ice?” Sabelle breathed, her golden hair floating around her shoulders and waist. An angel ready for sin. He hadn’t believed it possible, but his cock got harder.

He met her gaze. Surrounded by her heart-shaped face and rosy cheeks, her eyes flashed neon blue, like a sign, drawing him nearer. She lay spread out before him on the bed, a naked, writhing, fantasy come to life. The smell of her arousal was driving him mad.

“Please don’t st—oh my God!”

He cut her off by setting his mouth back over her clit and sucking it in. She cried out, keening, her back bowed, legs taut. She clutched the quilt and groaned. So beautiful and sweet.

A thousand things he wanted to do to her. A million ways he wanted to possess her body and touch her heart. But he hesitated. She was like magickind’s princess, and other than Lucan with his animal fury, she had probably taken polite lovers. That wasn’t Ice. He gave and took hard, demanded everything of a woman without apology. But he could hardly do the same with Sabelle. How would ravishing her from head to toe in an urgent, dominant sweep convince her of his love? He was accustomed to women who wanted anything from a friendly romp to a vigorous fuck. Sabelle was, no doubt, used to being worshipped.

He felt her hard little bud swell and begin to pulse on his tongue … and he pulled back. He had to know if she could respond to him while he was buried deep inside her and they lay, gazes locked, heart to heart. That would tell him if he had any chance at all to win her love. It would have to be enough—for now.