Chapter 14
With him just inches from her, Cat got an eyeful of Thane’s chest. Even though his flesh was covered in the fine wool weave of his shirt, the drape of the fabric didn’t conceal that he was well muscled, and quite capable of picking her up and hauling her off anywhere he wanted.
Typical male, she thought, ignoring the heat rising in her body, as if she’d stepped near smoldering coals. Using brute strength to dominate.
As if that would work! Cat looked up at him, ready to tell him that no man was going to win her silence through bullying…and caught his gaze.
Years ago, she once touched a scorching-hot andiron when she got too close to a fire in her home. This was hotter. Thane’s eyes roved over her face. He didn’t say anything more, and all Cat could think of was warning words ringing over and over again in her mind.
“What is it?” he asked softly, but with no less heat.
Cat shook her head. “I was only thinking of something Mother once told me.”
“And that was?”
“I can’t remember quite how she phrased it.”
But Cat remembered every word now, etched onto the slate of her memory as designs are etched onto crystal. Men, like mountains, can be stunning to behold. Impressive, even inspiring. But they are best admired from a vantage point far distant, and the wise woman does not venture forth upon them.
It was the sort of advice mothers gave daughters in an effort to warn them, without fully explicating all the true dangers that lay ahead.
Cat dearly wished her mother had been less poetic and more blunt, for what she needed to know was why something inside her craved more attention from Thane MacPhearson, when the prudent course was to ignore him completely.
She cleared her throat. “I…I believe that my staying here would not be very wise.” Not the way he was looking at her now, and the way her body was reacting to his attention. Not the way she wanted to feel more of whatever he was stirring up inside her, just by standing there.
He lifted one hand to her face, his fingers barely grazing her cheek. For such a gentle touch, it sent shock waves down her spine. His eyes seemed to soften, as if he too was surprised by what was happening between them.
“Cat,” he said, her pet name sweet on his lips and tongue. “I’m not making you stay. I’m asking you to stay.”
“Because you respect my autonomy to make decisions as an independent woman?”
“Because you need to be kept safe.”
“Oh.”
“And…” He hesitated, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. “And because I want to taste you.”
Oh. Oh.
Cat tilted her head, even as she lifted her hands slightly, hesitating between pushing him away and dragging him closer. She also very much wanted to taste him, but did she dare take that step off the precipice?
He held still, and she realized he was also waiting for that decision, putting himself quite literally in her hands.
One corner of his mouth quirked, a tiny movement that nonetheless quickened her heartbeat.
“At your leisure,” he murmured. “You see, I respect your autonomy to make decisions as an independent woman.”
She ignored the mockery in his voice. She understood now. This was a dare. And she wanted to meet it. She had to meet it.
Oh, she didn’t know what she was doing, and he was going to tease her for doing it poorly. To hell with it. Cat rose up on her toes to bring her lips to his.
After a split second of surprise— aha, I knew he didn’t think I’d have the courage—she felt his fingers curling lightly around the back of her neck, his touch strong enough to guide her in how to tilt her head to better kiss him, and gentle enough so she didn’t feel steered.
So warm. Warm and vital and rich and sweet. The kiss sent her better sense flying away, and all she wanted was to taste him and find out just what else she could dare him into doing.
Finally, after far too long and also too short a time, Cat took a breath.
“I still hate you,” she informed him, because she didn’t want him to think that she was so easily won over, like a silly woman in love with love.
“Aye, I know,” he said. He sounded quite calm about it, and then kissed her again, teasing her mouth open, running the tip of his tongue over her lower lip until Cat let out a tiny cry that was half satisfaction, half desire.
Hearing her, Thane deepened the kiss. Cat tried to match his actions, but it was difficult to think about what to do next when heat was blooming all over her skin and she felt like lightning was about to strike nearby.
When had she twined one arm around his left shoulder, or hitched herself up on his thigh? Why did she feel the intense need to claw at his clothes till she could shred them right off, and how did she still need more kisses from a man she didn’t even tolerate?
“Thane,” she said, his name lost between her lips and his.
Still, he heard her, and pulled away so she could see the pleasure welling up in his half-lidded eyes. “Yes, Cat. Are you going to tell me to stop?”
“If I did, would you listen?” She wanted to sound acid about it, but it came out breathy and soft, as if she were a butterfly confronting a lion.
He brushed his lips against hers lightly. “All you have to do is tell me no. And you do still hate me, after all.”
“I do.” But she didn’t hate his kisses, which was a problem. “And you’ve been very clear that I irritate you.”
“Constantly.” He ran a fingertip along her jaw, and then traced her earlobe, like he’d never seen it before. “There are a dozen times a day I wish I’d never met you.” He tipped her head to the side and laid a soft kiss on her neck. Cat trembled at the promise there.
“Then why are you kissing me?” she asked.
He smiled a bit, his expression more relaxed than she’d ever seen it. “For the same reason you’re kissing me. We want what we want.”
“It seems a very bad idea.”
“Terrible.” He pressed his mouth lightly on her forehead, between her eyebrows. It was less sensual and yet far more intimate than the previous ones, and for some reason Cat felt exposed in a way she hadn’t before.
“Especially in light of the situation,” she said, striving hard to reach a familiar shore—the sedate intellectual country where she preferred to spend her time.
“That is, I must guard my conduct more than usual, being so often in the company of an unmarried man. That is, we surely don’t want to find ourselves in a situation we cannot get out of.
” Goodness, she was babbling. “I mean, that is, you want to maintain your freedom, and I want to maintain my freedom, and we don’t even like each other, so anything that would result in being shackled together for the rest of our lives is to be avoided, yes? Don’t you agree?”
“You talk a lot, Cat,” Thane murmured, his hands slipping through her hair, half combing, half massaging. She wanted to close her eyes and let his touch soothe her jangled nerves. But wait, wasn’t his touch the very thing jangling her nerves in the first place?
“You probably think women shouldn’t talk at all,” she accused him.
“I don’t mind talking,” he said in a languid, even lazy tone. Then he laid a series of little kisses along her collarbone. “But there’s so much more a mouth can do when not…talking.”
Kiss.
“What lips can do.”
Kiss.
“What a tongue can do.”
Kiss.
“What teeth can do.”
Kiss.
“I want to show you all the ways to not talk, kitty cat.”
Kiss.
“Do you want that too?” he invited, his breath warm and tantalizing on her skin. Her body clamored for her to continue, to say yes, yes, yes to his enticement, to throw caution to the wind and indulge in wickedness she never dreamed of.
A quarter hour ago, she’d have laughed in his face at such a proposition. Now she was melting to hear him call her a kitty cat.
What has he done to me to make me so unlike myself, so quickly?
“Cat got your tongue at last?” he asked, something warm and dark and dry in his tone, something that made her heart thud in anticipation. He murmured, “Just a few kisses, kitty cat. You deserve it.”
Why does he think I deserve to feel this way? Why do I think I deserve to feel this way?
Cat went still. She pushed away all the wonderful, rapturous feelings he offered. She could not endure them any longer.
“I don’t deserve it. And I don’t want it,” she told him, harsh and cold. “Not from any man, and certainly not from you!”