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He’d checked for animal life, but maybe he’d missed something. A snake. Even some kind of big venomous bug. He’d been on missions in this part of the world before. There were spiders here that were the size of a man’s hand. Or maybe there was another passageway that he hadn’t noticed. He’d been in caves that ran for miles and miles.

“Anoushka,” he said, raising his voice, “where are you?”

Silence.

“Goddammit, Your Highness, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? I told you, the party’s over.” Dec turned in a tight circle, casting the light over the cave walls. His heart began racing. Jesus. If something had happened to her, if she was hurt, if he never held her in his arms again…

She stepped out of the shadows.

He caught her in the full beam of the flashlight. Tears had left tracks on her dirt-smudged face.

“Annie,” he growled. “Goddammit, Annie…”

“I hate you, Declan,” she said. “I really, really hate—”

And then, at long last, she was in his arms.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dec groaned, gathered her hard against him and captured her mouth with his. The taste of her was all he could ever want.

She was all he could ever want.

She rose to him. Wound her arms around his neck. He swept his hands up her back, buried them in her hair.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, “kiss me, never stop kissing—”

Never. He would never stop kissing her.

But it wasn’t enough.

It had never been enough, but he’d been strong in the past; he’d lived on her kisses, on the feel of her in his arms.

Not tonight.

He needed more.

He needed her.

And he couldn’t have her, couldn’t take her, she would draw back, he knew she would, she’d do what she’d always done, take her lips from his, dig her face into his throat or his shoulder, make it apparent that she didn’t want to go further and he would honor that, Jesus, he had to honor it…

He lifted her off her feet.

She wrapped her legs around his hips.

He could feel the heat of her against his dick. His stone-hard dick.

“Annie,” he said, the single word a whispered warning, “Annie…”

She ground her pelvis against his.

There was no other way to describe it.

She was grinding against him. Moving against him. Moaning and moving and, God, he couldn’t do this, he was only human, they had to stop, she had to stop or he was going to strip her pants off, yank down his zipper, bury himself inside her…

Ah, Christ!

She was tugging at his sweater. Trying to drag it up his body, then shoving her hands under it and putting them on his chest, her palms hot against his skin.