“Oh dear Lord and Lady,” Nikolas said. “Cease talking.”

She frowned at him, and from the uncomprehending expression in her eyes, he realized he had slipped into the old tongue again.

“Mmm-hmm, and when you talk like that?” she said, drawing a circle with a forefinger in front of his face. “You just sound stuck-up, because you know I don’t understand a single word you’re saying.”

He glared at her. “Stuck-up.”

She nodded. As tired as she looked, the dark shadows under her eyes had lightened, and her eyes sparkled with irate feeling. She repeated, “Stuck-up.”

What an idiotic, immature thing to say. From out of nowhere, a bolt of laughter shot up. He stamped on it hard. She was being ludicrous, and what’s more, he suspected she knew it and didn’t care.

Underneath his hands, her skin felt luxuriously soft and warm. He could feel the rhythm of her breathing. It felt like a heartbeat. It felt alive and vital and as necessary as air or water.

She was something so foreign to how he had grown accustomed to living he didn’t even have words to express it. He thought his shell of isolation had become immutable, irreversible, but with a few words and that diamond-like fire in her eyes, she shattered it.

So much hunger came roaring out from the same, deep, mysterious place the laughter had come from. So much. His fingers tightened on her soft flesh. She opened her mouth, and he could tell from the saucy spark in her expression that she wasn’t done telling him off.

Instead of listening to any more of her lecture, he came down on her, torso to torso. “You’re a damn mouthy broad,” he said and kissed her.

Her curved, generous lips were as soft as they looked. As his body came over hers, the sensation of her lying underneath him satisfied something deep and primal in him.

He could feel the curve of her breasts, her narrower, slighter bone structure. Her warmth burned him, and that mouth, that mouth, he had never felt before the kind of hunger he did as he conquered that soft, lush mouth.

After a moment of shocked stillness came the biggest surprise of all. She tilted her head and kissed him back, molding her lips to his, shifting as he shifted, giving way as he pressed hard for entrance and plunged his tongue deep inside her. He could feel every single one of her fingers as she threaded them through his hair in a caress that sent a shock of pleasure through his entire body.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had been touched with any kind of sensuality or affection. That part of his nature had been cold and unused for so long it roared to life with the strength of a tidal wave.

Hungrily he ate at her. He ravaged her mouth as if it were the first meal he had seen in years. Another shock of awareness bolted through him as her tongue dueled with his.

She lifted her head off the pillow in order to kiss him back, following him up eagerly as he tried to ease back to take a breath, to take stock. Her fingers worked at the back of his neck, wordlessly asking him for more.

It brought him down again. Cupping her head in both hands, he kissed her wildly while his cock stiffened into a hard, painful spike of hunger that he pressed against the curve of her hip. Her legs shifted restlessly, entwining with his.

Just like that, he was crazy to discover what she felt like naked. As he cupped her breast, he could feel the jut of her nipple through the thin material. It would be as plush as her mouth and just as pink. Maybe a darker, dusky rose.

It would taste fantastic. She had generous breasts. The curve fit beautifully into his hand. He molded the lush mound of flesh while he licked at her mouth. Her breath was coming fast, soft, urgent puffs of air against his heated skin, egging him onward.

Her fingers closed around his wrist, and she turned her face away from his kiss. “Stop,” she said, her voice strangled. “This—we—I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Nikolas froze. His heart pounded as he tried to make sense of what she was saying.

Then her words sank in, and they leveraged a glimmer of sanity into his overheated, lust-filled brain.

Her heart was pounding as hard as his, and they were both breathing heavily, the sound ragged in the quiet room.

Her expression held a wry vulnerability he had not seen in her before. Carefully he lifted his hand from her breast and told her, “I had not intended for this to happen.”

“No,” she said. “Of course you hadn’t. Neither had I. You are not one of my short-term goals, and you have no part in my life plan.”

“And you are certainly not in my agenda, in any way.” He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t even like you.”

She threw open her arms and let them fall onto the bed. “Exactly! I don’t like you either! In fact, you’re pretty insufferable.”

At that, he cocked his head and glared. “As are you.”

She shrugged. “I’m blaming my part in all of this on jet lag. I haven’t slept in so long everything feels unreal. Why not kiss the hot guy in my bed? It’s all a dream anyway, ha-ha. You’re going to have to come up with an explanation for your own behavior.”

“I have no explanation,” he said between his teeth. “This is inexplicable. You’re a pain in the ass, you make foolhardy, dangerous decisions, and I don’t think you know how to have a normal conversation.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly while something darkened in her expression. Something that might look a little like disappointment. “Glad we cleared that up.”

His eyes dropped to watch her lips form the words.