He was a dead man.
Cadan stared at Diana perched above him and all his good intentions to maintain his distance for her safety fled his mind. He knew, knew, that if his judgment was compromised again as it had been so many years ago, she would suffer an equally horrific fate.
But everything about her clouded his senses. The feel of her, the look of her, the smell of her, and the sound of her all reminded him that it had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Even longer since he’d been with one who made him feel more than simple lust. Two thousand years, to be precise. And Diana was turning out to be more than he’d thought. Much more.
Now he was pinned beneath her, the heat of her making his cock twitch. He had to get up, push her off, but she immobilized him. Not with her strength—hers was nothing compared to his—but with her will. Just a minute longer. Then he would move.
But she leaned down then, pressing herself against his chest, and whispered close to his ear, “Are all the guardians built like you?”
The feel of her warm breath, the brush of her lips, made a shudder run down his spine. Unable to stop himself from experiencing this pleasure just once, he ground himself against her. He forced himself to still, but not before he heard the small noise of surprised approval at his ear.
Fuck, what was her game? But he nodded once in answer to her question, surprised to hear her laugh low in her throat.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she purred as she rubbed herself against him. “I think that you—” She ran her hands down his sides and his muscles tensed at her touch. “—are unique.”
She began to press small, hot kisses along the side of his neck, lightning shooting through him to his cock every time he felt her mouth. He groaned when her tongue darted out, tasting him.
“Make me yours, Cadan.”
Aye. Mine. Always mine.
“Who are you?” His voice was raspy, nearly broken. He’d have been embarrassed if he’d had any blood left in his brain to keep it operational.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice was husky, desire thick in her tone. She glanced down at his mouth.
“You’re different—” He nearly groaned when her small pink tongue darted out and wetted her top lip. “—than you were before.”
She smiled and raised a hand to run it through his hair. “You caught me by surprise, then, that’s all. This time—” She fisted her hand in his hair. “—I’m in control.”
The warrior in him, the leader, the commander, boiled at the idea, but the man in him, the one trapped beneath the temptress who licked and bit and stared at him with endless eyes, thought, Aye.
The internal battle tore at him, one side determined to throw her off and tear her clothes away, pounding into her until she begged, the other desperate to stay beneath her and see what she did next. A small voice, that of reason and logic, told him to get away from her, quickly, before this went too far.
“And I suppose that I want to know something now,” she said.
“What do you want to know?” Alarm pushed at the edges of his desire.
“What is it about you that’s so familiar to me?”
And with that, he remembered his reservations. She’d remember who he was. Who she was. And then everything would be over. Diana—his hope of atoning for his sins—everything would be destroyed because he couldn’t keep his cock in his pants.
“Nothing. There’s nothing about me. And this is over.” He used guilt to crush his regret as he dragged his hands from her full hips up to her waist and lifted her off him.
“What?” Surprise was clear in her voice as he set her on the ground next to him and surged to his feet.
“I doona want you.” His heart tore at the sight of her looking up at him, shock in her eyes, but he forced himself to spin on his heel and walk out of the gym.
Chapter 17
Lightning struck for Diana again three days later. She’d come to the gym a bit early today because she just had to get out of the library. The books had revealed no clues, and worse, she was almost certain that some of them were missing from the shelves. The only person who could have moved them was Cadan.
The idea that he might be hiding things from her stressed her to the point that physical activity seemed like a really good idea. So she’d come here to practice with the small sword he’d loaned her a couple of days ago. She was a natural. Not like someone with unusual skill. Like someone who’d had otherworldly powers handed down from a past life.
She was certain now that her body remembered things that her mind didn’t. As she stared up at the wall of weapons that had distracted her from her practice, she was having the same feeling she’d had when she’d looked upon the image of Verulamium.