“You are quite the little grudge holder, aren’t you? Since we’re going to be pedantic about this, technically, you came to me. Not kidnapping.”
“You locked me in a cage.”
“A house.”
“A cage dressed as a house.”
“Also, need I remind you the doors were never locked?”
“NONE OF IT WAS REAL.”
He was in front of me in the blink of an eye. Dream magic was funny like that. Then, with a slow drag of his knuckles over my cheek, he said, “The way I feel about you is.”
I smacked his hand away with a scowl, but not before my uterus performed an entire fucking backflip in my belly and my ovaries set off a grand finale of fireworks.
“I’m just a means to an end.”
He held my stare, not taking the bait.
“You want me to fight with you, darling, but I have no interest in verbal sparring.”
“Then what do you want? Because I have no interest in anything else.”
His smug grin reappeared. “Liar.”
My pulse jumped as his knuckles trailed down the side of my neck. Stupid body, betraying me with its responses. It would be so much easier if I weren’t attracted to him.
Leaning close, he brought his lips to my ear and whispered, “You missed me, Merri. It’s okay to admit it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
A sharp pain shot from my ear straight to my core as he bit down on the lobe. That arousal I’d been trying to fight? She barreled forward like a battering ram, breaking through my weak mental barricade and hitting me hard.
“Physical desire isn’t the same as emotional connection.”
“Would it help ease some of your denial if I told you I missed you too?” he whispered in my ear.
“No.”
Yes.
“I missed you. So much.” His hand slid around my waist, and he turned me to face him. “Iyearn,Merri. For you.”
That fucker. Not the yearning.
How was a girl supposed to keep her guard up against the absolute unadulterated need in his voice? Goddamnit.
I softened. Not completely, but enough for him to see that he had gotten to me. I could feel his smile against my neck.
“Do you need me to prove it to you? That out of the two of us, I am the one whose heart was taken against its will? That forall your talk of cages and kidnapping, it is I who has been taken prisoner? By you.”
I had to swallow against the wave of lust threatening to pull me under. “Prove it how?”
Without another word, Luc dropped to his knees in front of me, hands behind his back, head bowed.
Oh, sweet baby Jesus in the wicker basket with a pacifier.