She was going to be the death of me.

Even now, even when my world was teetering on a knife’s edge, and I’d never known more stress—even now, all I wanted to do was take her in my arms and lose myself in her. I knew that one taste of her lips would provide me the refuge I sought, and once I’d had my fill of her...

Somehow, I doubted that was possible.

I was addicted to her, and yet I’d never tasted her. I had no doubt that once I did, I’d be lost.

And yet the stress kept beating at me, a constant current underneath the desire she provoked in me.

All I wanted to do—no, needed to do—was open up to her and tell her everything that was going on. Share the burden with her, have someone else who would understand what I was going through.

But why her? Why did I want to share everything with her?

I hadn’t even enthralled her. I couldn’t trust her with anything.

That’s not true. She wouldn’t tell a soul.

I believed that with every fiber of my being, but the rules of my world caged me. Even if I enthralled her, I wouldn’t be able to trust her with this information. I’d know what she was feeling and where she was, but I wouldn’t be privy to her every thought. I wouldn’t know if she told someone.

She wouldn’t.

Blasted demon, stop haunting me.

I couldn’t trust her.

Everyone kept saying she was a distraction, but they didn’t understand.

They didn’t understand that somehow her presence both calmed and ignited me at the same time. Every moment I was with her, I wanted her; every moment I was without her, I wanted to rip someone’s head off.

Maybe if I enthralled her, that constant need to tear through the castle to get back to her would go away.

Those thoughts kept running through my mind, taunting me with their conflicting natures, leaving me without a word to say. I could only stare down at her.

She fidgeted before my eyes, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear, glancing up at me and then back down at her hands. She was waiting for me to talk, I knew that, but I didn’t know what to say.

Why had I brought her here?

Why had I gone to her and asked for her presence?

You were going crazy. You almost screamed at someone. You needed her.

How ludicrous was that? I shouldn’t need her so much. It was unreasonable that a simple thrall would have so much power over me.

And yet she wasn’t simple in the slightest. She was an enigma I had yet to figure out, a temptress who haunted me. She was smarter than anyone I’d ever met, and she had a brazen tongue that somehow managed to give me the dressing down of a lifetime in private, yet be perfectly well-behaved in public.

She was perfection.

And I couldn’t have her.

At last, she reached her breaking point, apparently unable to sit in my unrelenting gaze any longer.

I couldn’t blame her. It was impressive that she’d lasted so long. If only I’d been able to come up with something to say, damn it.

She crossed the room to the large window opposite the chaise longue and turned her face up to gaze out at the night sky.

“It’s a beautiful night,” she said, breaking the silence that had haunted us since we’d entered the room. Then she sighed. “I wish I was outside. I wish I could feel the breeze on my face again.”

She yearned for the outside?

My heart sped up.

Was it possible that she felt the call of freedom like I did?

No, that was ludicrous. She simply meant that she’d like to take a stroll. No one but Alex understood the all-consuming need I felt to run free through the night.

I walked up behind her, so close that we were almost touching, and inhaled deeply to take in her scent.

Spice. Something familiar and yet foreign to me at the same time. Tantalizing. Begging me to taste her.

What was that underlying current, though? I frowned, trying to figure it out.

Trying to figure her out, just like always.

Why did she have to present such a puzzle? Why couldn’t she be as simple as all the other women before her had been?

As if of their own accord, my hands moved forward to rest on the windowsill, surrounding her.

Caging her.

She was the wild animal I yearned to tame, to make my own.

And yet, I wanted to set her free. I wanted to watch her laugh with carefree abandon, to run with her through the night and know that she felt the call in her blood the same as I did.

The conflicting emotions took hold of me, but the one that reigned supreme was my desperate need for her.

The need to taste her, to touch her, to know that she was mine and no one else’s.

The need to claim her.

I tilted my head so that my lips brushed against her hair, stealing a taste of the scent that taunted me.

Her breath caught, and I heard her heart speed up.

“Do you want me to move?” I murmured, surprised by the deep, husky note in my voice.

“N-no,” she said, her breath coming quickly now.

The beast inside of me roared its approval, demanding that I claim her now.

Settle, I warned myself, but it did no good. My blood was pounding in my veins, and yet I knew that just one taste of her would somehow settle the crushing need inside me and set me aflame simultaneously.

Just one taste.

I lowered my head so that the skin of her neck was mere inches from my lips, fanning my breath out to brush against her skin. I felt my incisors sharpen, dropping from my gums, eager for a taste of her.

“Do you want me to stop?” I asked her again.

It had to be on her terms. Always on her terms, no matter that the beast inside of me was raging at me for hesitating like this.

It didn’t understand that it simply was unacceptable for me to behave in any other fashion.

I might live in a world of control, of politics and careful steps, but inside me was a beast that had no regard for these rules and cared only for the taste of blood in its mouth – and, for some reason, this woman’s flesh against my own.

Taking in another breath of her scent, I closed my eyes, focusing on the temptation she provided and trying to calm myself at the same time.

It felt like ages passed, and still she didn’t answer me. Her heart was hammering loudly, and her breath was coming in short pants, and again I had to wonder what caused this reaction in her.

Fear or desire? Which was it?

I had to know.

The question was on my lips, burning inside of me, but I clenched my jaw to hold it back. No matter how badly I needed to know, I could never ask her.

I couldn’t open myself up to her rejection like that, cowardly though it was.

As long as I didn’t ask, it remained something to puzzle over. The moment I had her answer, I knew she would devastate me.

My body twitched with the desire to shift my weight and wrap my arms around her, spin her around so she was facing me, and claim her lips with my own. I fought against it, fought the beast inside, and prevailed.

Barely.

“Yes,” she whispered at last.

The beast inside me roared.

Taking in a ragged breath, I stepped away from her and walked away.

Away from the temptation, away from her.

I kept walking until I was out of the suite, while I still had control of myself. I shut the door behind me and leaned against it for a moment, tilting my head back so that it pressed against the door.

This woman would be the death of me.