Page 123 of Carnal Urges

“Aye, the money thing again. You said something about your girlfriend that stuck with me.”

“What?”

“That it would kill her if anything happened to Kazimir.”Caressing my cheek, he gently kisses me. His voice turns husky. “It made me think about how you’d react if something happened to me.”

“I’d be too preoccupied sorting through all the diamonds in the closet to really pay much attention.”

“Bollocks.”

“You’re trying to get me to tell you how I feel about you again, aren’t you?”

“Aye.”

“Will you use it against me when you start talking your craziness about marriage?”

“Aye.”

“Then I won’t tell you.”

“I want to hear it. Ineedto hear it. You said you were intoxicated, but I’m beyond that. I’m addicted. If you don’t give me another fix, I’ll go mad.”

His kisses are tender and quick, gentle pecks peppered over my lips, cheeks, and chin. He’s bribing me.

“Fine. You have beautiful hands.”

He pauses the kisses, lifting his head to look at me. He arches a brow.

“For god’s sake, Declan, you know I’m no good at this.”

“You’re better than you think.”

I exhale a hard breath, take his hand, and press it over my pounding heart. “Here. Just feel that. That’s how I feel about you, you bossy ass.”

He looks at his hand. He spreads his fingers wide and presses down. He closes his eyes. After a moment, he says with quiet wonder, “Our heartbeats are in sync.”

Those few words fill me with a kind of fear I’ve never known. It’s dread, pure and cold, and it sinks all the way through me, straight down into my bones.

Once it’s started, a thing as powerful as two hearts beating in time together is impossible to stop.

Help. I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.

“Don’t look so scared.”

“You said total honesty. My face is just going along with the plan.”

He says drily, “I also said total obedience.”

“Two out of three isn’t bad.”

His gaze sharpens. “Is that your way of telling me you trust me?”

My laugh is soft but exasperated. “Isn’t it obvious? Any other man who tried to make me call him sir would already be a eunuch.”

He cups my jaw in his big hand. “And what about me?” he says, all sudden fierceness and fiery eyes. “Can I trust you in return?”

“Dial it down, intenso. Why does everything have to be so life or death?”

“Don’t change the subject.”