He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around to face him. “We can’t do this now.” His naked body spotted with droplets of water, muscled forearms flexing as he pressed his hands on each side of my head to cage me in. “It’s not safe out there. You have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” I spat the words.
I knew it was a mistake to do this while hiding. When the enemy was out searching for us. His enemy. But what about the enemy within? The man who was just as much a hazard for me. Even as he stood before me dripping wet and totally naked, his primal stance of overpowering me was doing something to my head and causing ripples of sensations. It felt like our hearts were beating at the same time and in the same rhythm. That what passed between us intensified our bond.
These thoughts and feelings raging against what I knew to be right, to be true. That no matter how much I wanted to dress this up into something sacred, the harsh truth remained; I was his prisoner. Even as some part of me yearned for more of this captivity with him.
Maybe it was wiser to try to get home.
Surely my father would greet me with open arms. He’d never hurt me. Doubt settled in. Every breath taken as fragile as the last.
“My dad loves me,” I said bitterly. “He doesn’t kidnap young women like you do.”
Cassius peered down at me, conflicted. “You were collateral.”
Tears stung my eyes.
“Anya—”
“And now? What’s your plan now? What do you plan to do to me?”
He broke my gaze, seemingly trying to search for the right words. “I can’t let you leave. I nearly did back at the parade. But that would have been a mistake.”
“I hate you.” Even as I cursed him, I craved him.
“You have every right.”
Fury swept over me, and it refused to let go. Frustration for these roiling emotions, daggers of pain that felt like flung knives, forcing agony deeper and deeper until I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Do you feel anything for me?”
His denial hurt worse than anything I’d felt before.
“Tell me.”
He shook his head as though trying to shake off a thought. “You and I . . .”
“Because I’m his daughter?” Even as I said it, I couldn’t share the truth, couldn’t speak the words that would prove I was as deceitful as my family.
“My feelings are irrelevant, Anya.”
“How can that be?” Frustrated with him, I raised onto my toes, leaning in and pressing my mouth to his. Kissing him hard. Punishing him with a bite to his lip, feeling his mouth open in response. He let out a sigh, breathing into my mouth. His hands reached for my wrists, and he held them tight and lifted them above my head.
His crushing kiss widening my lips so his tongue could enter. Battling with mine, forging a truce between us, then launching an attack of passion, a fight for the truth in a rousing and needy way, biting and nipping and clashing teeth.
He pulled back. “Bad idea.”
“Why, because it’s me?”
“Because I want it. And what I want usually turns out to be a mistake.”
“What if this one time you did the right thing?” I’d tried to cure this longing for him, but nothing worked.
There was an endless need that tore into me.
Was he saying we’d never fall in love? We’d never get to that place of trust because there was too much distance between us? Too much had happened that could never be faced. Yet my heart clenched with the thought of not having him.
Tears pricked my eyes. “I want . . . this.”
“You don’t know what it is you’re asking for.”
“Yes, I do, Cassius. I see past the wall you’ve put up. I see the good in you. The fight. I see the pain. I’m trying to reach you. Meet me halfway.”
“I don’t do . . . feelings.”
“Really, because I can see all this is hurting you.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
His lips curled seductively, a coyness in his half-smile.
“I want you.” And it had always been yes to this.
The promise of intimacy between us—stretching beyond the world outside and all that it had done to us.
He let go of my hands, allowing me to shrug out of the white robe. It slipped from my shoulders to the floor, leaving me standing before him in my bra and panties. I reached behind my back and unhooked my bra. Let that slip from my shoulders, too. I showed off my breasts, feeling empowered as he drank in my nakedness.
Glancing down to see his erection rising out of dark curls, regal and as intimidating as him.
He stepped forward and pressed his forehead to mine. “Everything will change between us.”
“It already has.” I breathed. “I know you feel this, too.”