Marrok reached for her lopsided shirt. His big hands, like the rest of him, were covered with scars and veins, showing evidence of a dangerous existence. He plucked at her shirt and pried the halves apart. Cool air and his hot gaze hit her at once. All that stood between Marrok and her breasts was a bit of lace.

In seconds, he conquered the bra’s front clasp, then tore both it and her shirt away, flinging them across the room. His hungry stare fell on her. Her nipples beaded under his scrutiny.

For the first time, Olivia felt beautiful. And wanted. Whatever happened—or didn’t—she’d be thankful for this moment.

She arched to him. “Please…”

The needy whimper had barely left her lips before he palmed her breast, caressing, fondling. His thumb stroked across the aching point. Olivia gasped. The sound hung between them as he manipulated the sensitive bud, then squeezed.

Her gasp became a moan when he laved that nipple and moved his fingers to the other, alternately grazing and tugging, driving her perfectly insane.

He kept on relentlessly until every nerve above her waist felt centered in her breasts. And still she wanted more. But Marrok moved on, gliding a rough palm across her abdomen, gripping her waist, sweeping over her hips, setting her ablaze. When she’d first kissed him, she’d expected anger, a brutal attack, a complete domination. Instead, he seduced—awakened.

Olivia encouraged him, hooking her calves around his, fisting her hands in his hair, pulling his mouth to hers.

The dizziness spun her world in a crazy tilt of colors. Fire and euphoria charged her veins. She felt almost drunk, but alive as never before, connected to a man who seemed desperate for her.

His breath rasped hot on her neck as he rained kisses there, making her shiver. “I must have all of you.”

Desire pitched in her stomach as she worked her lips across his stubbled jaw. “Now.”

He tore at the snap of her slacks and forced the zipper down, shoving the knit past her hips, over her thighs. She helped, kicking the pants off as he tugged.

The garment had barely cleared her legs when he gripped her panties. They shredded in his hands, and he tossed the scraps to the floor. Olivia didn’t have an instant to think before he shoved her thighs wider and thrust two fingers inside her.

“Marrok!” A prickle of hot pleasure/pain shimmied down her senses. She arched in silent invitation.

“I dreamt of you,” he whispered against her cheek. “I dreamt of you naked, and wanted you. But this…is so much more.”

He stroked her bundle of nerves with his thumb. Her breath caught. She grabbed him, clawing to keep hold of her sanity as he made her world spin away.

Her thoughts slowly drowned. Logic faded, bleeding into pure, heated need. She moaned and spread her legs wider.

Words began to echo in her brain, words she didn’t understand. These random, garbled, unfamiliar phrases buzzed through her mind, whispers at first. They grew louder and louder with Marrok’s every touch, with each beat of her heart as pleasure screamed inside her skin.

Orgasm soared into a sweltering bliss she’d never experienced, but craved from him. It kept growing. Perspiration filmed her skin. The sensations swelled, congealed. She exploded, pleasure tearing through her like nothing she’d ever felt or imagined. Olivia screamed his name, clutching at Marrok as if he alone mattered.

As if, from this touch on, she had ceased to be alone in this world.

With a hushed curse, Marrok tore at his jeans, shoving them down and off. She watched in an unblinking stare as he loomed above her. Oh God, his broad shoulders packed power. His corrugated abs rippled when she dared to touch them. And his erection, tall, thick-veined. Ready.

The jumbled words swirling in her head suddenly took shape. Old. Odd. Ritualistic. But instinct forced her to hold her hand out to him. He clasped it, their gazes connecting. Marrok fell to the bed, covering her again, settling between her thighs.

“Become a part of me, as I become a part of you.” The words fell from her lips.

“I look forward to it.”

“And ever after, I promise myself to thee. Each day we share, I will be honest, good, and true. If this you seek, heed my Call. From this moment on, there is no other for me but you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The magical Mating Call?

Shock burned through Marrok’s veins. He had read those words in magical texts when he’d researched Morganna’s book. “Olivia” had spoken magic’s equivalent of wedding vows.

Did she understand her words? Of course. No matter that she disguised herself as another woman. That birthmark, those eyes…Morganna could not hide from him.

But why issue the Mating Call to him when she already controlled his eternity? And why did she affect more than his body; how did she compel him to accept her?

“Marrok?” Something painful, vulnerable even, shone from her eyes.

He should not feel for her—not pity, not lust, not this mad desire to possess and protect; he could afford none of these, for her yearning could not possibly be real.

Was it possible that, after cursing him to an eternity alone, Morganna loved him in her own, twisted way? Could breaking his curse be as simple as saying aye to her Call?

Accepting was a gamble, but Morganna already held his destiny in her cruel fist. Staying the course for fifteen centuries had changed naught. Without playing her game, there would be no escape from this hell.

With her soft body under his, the urge to bury himself in her slick heat pounded him. The scent of her arousal drove him mad.

What would happen if he refused? Exactly what new horror would befall him if he rejected her again? He swallowed.

“As I become a part of you, you become a part of me.” Marrok stared into her violet eyes, dragging the words from instinct and memory. “I will be honest, good, and true. I heed your Call. ’Tis you I seek. From this moment on, there is no other for me but you.”

A smile wobbled across her face, then burst forth like the summer sun after a long, rainy spring. Blinding, beautiful.

For an unguarded moment, her happiness woke an answering joy in him, entwined with the need to sink deep inside her. When this night was done, he would either be mortal again—or Morganna’s personal toy for eternity.

“Love me,” she whispered, holding her arms open to him.

Heart thudding, Marrok kissed his way down her body, to her thigh. He dragged his lips across her soft skin and nibbled at her hipbone, brushing the back of his fingers across the curve of her waist. Goose pimples speckled her skin. Another chink in Morganna’s armor.

His first night with her so many moons ago, she’d run him down like a parade of war horses, demanding he bed her repeatedly until he’d felt trampled. Never had she betrayed her own passion until climax hit her in a hard rush, finished and done before he could bask in her pleasure.

Curious about this new Morganna, Marrok explored her, dragging a thumb over the nub between her legs once more. Her breath hitched, back arched, skin flushed. She moaned his name.

If Morganna was willing to show her female susceptibility to his touch, he wanted to see how far he could push her.

Sliding smooth fingers across her pure ivory skin, Marrok laved his way closer to her wet heat, fighting down an urge to drive her up and over. As he cupped her breast, her sweet skin intoxicated him. The swollen folds of her flesh were a temptation he didn’t resist.

He put his mouth to her, ravenous for her taste. Against his lips, she bucked, thrusting up to him. Her small fists clasped his sheets. She tensed as he swiped his tongue over the needy bud again. Try as she might not to verbalize her arousal, her body silently shouted it.

Marrok gloried as she swelled, thrashed on his bed, then cried his name as she convulsed in climax. Sliding up her body, he pulled her thighs wider still with his hands. He claimed her mouth with a kiss thick with urgency. He pressed his stiff cock at the entrance of her swollen sex.

Wet. Hot. Silky tight. Mind-boggling.

Mine.

He gave her one shallow thrust. She gasped, arched. Then he sank deeper.

And encountered something he never expected to find.

“You are untouched?” he choked.

How could Morganna alter her body to become virginal again? Her magic had grown to heights he could not fathom. Bloody hell…

Inky lashes lifted from her flushed cheeks and fluttered up. Violet eyes dilated, dreamy. The woman’s beauty stole his breath; the witch’s power disturbed his peace of mind. If he was not cautious, he would succumb to her enchantment and lose more than his mortality.

“Y—yes.”

A virgin. Marrok wanted to disbelieve her, but the evidence blocking his entrance did not lie. He grimaced at the pressure and need inside him. Sweat poured off his skin. Want gnawed at his gut.

“Marrok.” She swallowed, bit her lip. Lifted to him. “Please…”

Resisting her was impossible. He had answered her Mating Call. Not only must he claim her for strategy’s sake, but he burned to make her his, no matter how daft it was.

Seeking her hand with his own, he tangled their fingers together. “Hold tight.”

She blinked and fixed her gaze on his, shining with a sense of wonder he could not comprehend. But it touched him, damn her.

Marrok inhaled, drawing in her heady scent, then pushed forward, tearing past her barrier, grunting over her sharp gasp as he slid deep down, down—to the hilt. At her jagged sigh, he squeezed her hand. “It is done.”

Morganna nodded. “This feels…meant to be.”

Perhaps.

Intense pleasure clawed up his spine. Zounds, he could not remember the last time the mere feel of a woman roused him so. He eased out, gritting his teeth at the unbearable tightness, the wild friction. As he pushed in again, she made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. Everything inside him thrilled to the utter perfection of her, to be claiming her. Which made little sense. Morganna had enjoyed the centuries of torture she’d heaped on him. Why should he not wish to inflict the same?

Had to be the bond. Apparently, it affected humans. He had not anticipated such. Now that they were joined, he might even be mortal again. If he completed the joining. Deprived of an orgasm since his last days in Camelot, Marrok yet had doubts that he could.

Morganna arched to meet his next thrust. Gripping her hips, he set a fast pace and claimed her mouth as he took her body. Passion gushed up his spine; pleasure pooled in his balls. By God…The urge to release was overwhelming, and as he pressed into her again and again, she tightened, fluttered. Close…

Shifting his angle to graze her pleasure spot, Marrok filled her again. A shudder, a gasp. Her legs clasped him. She tensed under him…then screamed. Her body squeezed him tight. Pleasure spiraled inside him, taking him up, up, up. Sweet mercy! Climax was right…there.

There it stayed, so high that he felt delirious. Wildly, he pumped into her, sliding, falling deeper into her, reveling at the sensations. Closer to ecstasy than at any time in the past torturous centuries. The right touch would send him over.

Morganna clung to him, dusting kisses on his jaw, his neck. Sweat trickled down his back, his temples. As he lunged into her again, pleasure threatened to drown him. He welcomed the little death.

Seconds became minutes. Morganna moaned, tensed, came again. Marrok forged on, pumping hard, reaching for the satisfaction nearly at hand.

When she climaxed a third time and his legs turned numb, Marrok rolled away with a foul curse. Bitter defeat choked him.

Denied completion again…Why?

Was he now joined to the maker of his torment forever, unable to touch another woman, nor climax with his “wife”? If so, he had to give credit to Morganna for creating a new measure of horror. Pity he had not seen it coming.

“Marrok?”

He should hide his anger from her; she would only use it against him. But she wore a look of confusion that crawled under his defenses and made him boil inside.

“What the bloody hell are you about? Why keep me trapped in this immortal torture? What further amusement could I possibly hold for you?”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Playing the innocent to the end, are you, Morganna? Stop.”

“Morg—You still think I’m this woman?” she shrieked, grabbing the sheet and yanking it over her bare breasts. “I’m Olivia, you idiot!”

Her outrage looked real. This new Morganna…very subtle. Tricky. Too easy to believe. Fatal to trust.

“I will defeat you and free myself, Morganna. This I vow.”

“You took my virginity, believing I was another woman?” She glared at him with angry tears trembling in her eyes. “All that need and passion…You lying snake! I can’t believe I let you…Don’t touch me again!”

He wished it was that simple, that his every touch had been a calculated ploy, rather than a surrender to her spell. “Do not act as if you are the one wronged. We both know better.”

“No, one of us knows you’re a delusional asshole. I felt…connected to you, and you were acting? Of course you were. God, I’m an idiot.”