Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

her control.
    Frustration vibrated in her throat. She lurched on tiptoe to meet his mouth. Her teeth scraped his lower lip. Her body registered the jolt of his before he plunged into the kiss with her, taking her, tasting her, in soft, hungry bites. Her muscles tensed at the shock of heat and then the surge of delight like slipping into the bath before everything went fluid and warm. Response seeped through her blood and rose in a flood to her brain. More, yes, now, again . . .
    She suckled his tongue. She wanted to eat him alive. All her life she’d been starving for him, for this. He slid his hand under her hair, holding her head still while his mouth plundered hers and her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. Swamped by need—to touch, to take—she tugged against the grip on her wrist. His fingers tightened and then released as he swept her up, as she wrapped both arms around his neck. His knee pushed between her thighs. His broad hand molded to her bottom, pulling her roughly against him. He was fully, hotly aroused, thick and long against her. He dragged her toward the bed.
    Panic reared out of the fog of emotion, the wave of need. Panic and reason.
    She surfaced, gasping. “No.”
    “Too late.” His mouth claimed hers. His touch was hard and branding. “Let me have you. Give yourself to me.”
    Oh, she was tempted, horribly tempted and afraid. He was too strong for her. If she let him take her, if she once gave herself up to him and her need, he would consume her, body, mind, and heart. Her pulse raced. The back of her knees hit the bed.
    “You said you wouldn’t force me,” she reminded him breathlessly.
    “Not force.” His lips were warm on her cheek, her ear, the side of her neck. “Persuade.”
    His skill weakened her knees. Her will. But inside, a small, hard kernel of her Lucy self remained, stubborn as a seed in winter. She shook her head. “It’s the same thing. It’s the same if I can’t walk away.”
    His hands stilled. He raised his head. “Bollocks. You want this. You want me.”
    She fought not to squirm. “Maybe.” Yes. “But I won’t have sex with you as long as I’m your prisoner.”
    His eyes narrowed. He was angry, she realized. Anger—strong emotion of any kind—had always terrified her. But losing herself, losing control, scared her even more.
    “You would use your body to bargain for your freedom?” he asked.
    Heat whipped into her face. “It’s my body. We can’t have any kind of equal relationship, we can’t have sex, if I’m not free to choose.”
    “Equal.” A snarl of fury and frustration tore from his throat. “I am more your prisoner than you are mine.”
    If the bed hadn’t been behind her, she would have wobbled. Retreated. She took refuge in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I am selkie.” He ripped the sealskin from the foot of the bed and thrust it between them. The fur spilled between them, heavy, enveloping. “I gave my pelt into your keeping. I gave myself, my freedom up to you. You hold my life in your hands as surely as you hold the fate of my people.”
    She felt battered, bewildered, assaulted. Trapped against the bed, she faced him, bristling like a small, cornered animal. “I didn’t ask for your life. Or your pelt. I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t want it.”
    His silver eyes blazed. “You do not have the courage to take it,” he said coldly.
    He dropped the fur at her feet and walked out.
    Conn sat in the dark in the antechamber that had once served as the selkies’ schoolroom, away from the wardens still gathered in the hall. Most had gone to bed, their own or others’, in pursuit of sleep or Page 58
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    fruitless coupling. The last conversations—of politics and pair bonding—sank to murmurs like the fire.
    Conn frowned into his whiskey glass. He had taught himself from his father’s failures, determined not to repeat his father’s mistakes.
    Never surrender to impulse.
    Never admit emotion.
    Never reveal weakness.
    Tonight he had done all three, with predictable and disastrous results.
    A footfall alerted him he was not alone. His heartbeat quickened. He raised his head, hoping . . . what?
    That she had come after him?
    Griff stood in the room’s archway, outlined in the red glow of the great hearth.
    Conn’s disappointment was sharp as the whiskey in his mouth. He raised his eyebrows.