With a soft sigh, she opened her eyes slowly to find him staring straight at her. He didn’t speak, just looked at her. In the shadows, his chiseled face was breathtaking, savagely masculine.

His eyes.

She got lost in them for a long moment, wondering how she could have ever thought them tiger-gold. They were the color of dark whisky. And filled with some emotion. She stared. Something like …

Despair?

Deep beneath the coolness and mockery, well hidden beneath the relentless seduction, was it possible that Dageus MacKeltar hurt?

Don’t read into things, she reminded herself. Face value says the man looks like he wants to kiss you, not give you his babies, Zanders.

God, he’d make beautiful babies though, a primordial, feminine part of her purred. That part of her that still bore the biological imprint from cavewoman days, and was drawn unerringly to the most able warrior and protector.

His eyes glittering, he bent his dark head to hers. Oh, he definitely wanted to kiss her. She knew she should turn away, called herself a fool in every language she knew, but it didn’t help. The lights were down, most of the passengers were sleeping, the atmosphere was cozy and intimate, and she wanted to be kissed. What harm was there in a little kiss? Besides, they were on a plane, for heaven’s sake—how far could it go?

Had she known the answer to that in advance, she would have scrambled across the aisle and sealed tape over her mouth. Duct tape. Several layers. Maybe taped her thighs together for good measure.

The moment his lips touched hers, a sultry storm whipped up inside her, and she sizzled with heat lightning. He rubbed his sensual lips over hers, taking it slow, making her feel needy and reckless.

Slow wasn’t what she wanted. She’d allowed herself a kiss and, by God, she intended to have it. A real one, with all the trimmings. Lips and tongues and teeth and lots of soft sighs. With a little sound of impatience, she touched her tongue to his. His response was instant and electrifying, whipping her inner storm into a tempest of heat and desire. With a low growl deep in his throat, he fisted his hands in her hair, and yanked her head back against the seat, his tongue penetrating deep. She couldn’t breathe around it.

The kiss he gave her was not meant to seduce, it was meant to mark a woman’s soul, and it was working. Dominant like the man, hungry, demanding. Beckoning forth the secret Chloe that harbored hunger every bit as deep as his. He was a dark, seductive shadow, all around her, and she was drowning in him. In the spicy scent of leather-clad man, in the sleek wet glide of his tongue, the strong hands in her hair. And she dare not make all that sound that trembled inside her. It was unbearably erotic, being forced to take such a kiss in absolute silence.

His hot tongue thrust and withdrew in blatant mimicry of sex, and she felt herself getting hopelessly wet, just from his kiss. The man made a woman feel like she was being devoured, eaten up, lap by delicious lap.

When he stopped and traced the pad of his thumb over her swollen lips, she panted softly, staring, unable to say a word. He searched her face, clearly liking what he saw in her glazed eyes, the evidence of the mind-numbing effect his kisses had on her. With a low, satisfied laugh, he pressed his thumb against her bottom teeth and forced her mouth open wide, clamped his hands on the sides of her face, taking her in an open-mouthed, deep-tongued kiss. Stealing the breath from her lungs, then giving it back. Making love to her mouth, letting her know how he would make love to her in all kinds of other places.

When she was whimpering against his lips, he drew back, his gaze smoldering. Lifting her jean-clad legs, he pulled them across his own, positioning her so she leaned back against the window, giving him better access.

“If you wish me to stop, lass, say it now. I won’t ask again.”

Some other woman must have shaken her head “no,” because Chloe knew she was supposed to say “yes.”

And it certainly must have been some other woman who slipped her hands around the nape of his neck, beneath his soft black leather jacket and into his hair.

It was definitely some other woman who slid them hungrily down his rock-hard chest.

He caught them in one of his own and pushed them aside.

“Doona touch me, lass. No’ now.”

He shushed her protests by pushing one of his fingers between her lips. He touched her tongue, then traced the outline of her lips. Slowly, he trailed that damp finger down her neck, along the edge of her V-neck sweater, stopping in the valley between her breasts. She watched him, mesmerized. He was so incredibly beautiful, there in the shadows, his sensual lips parted, his eyes narrowed with desire. His breath was warm against the damp path he’d left, teasing nerve endings to fiery life.