Page 189 of Forbidden

For Duncan to go back on that word would be to destroy himself. To keep his word meant destroying Amber. Neither was bearable.

One was inevitable.

If I loved her, I could not do what must be done.

Pain that was both Duncan’s and her own lanced through Amber, cutting her, scoring her soul.

“As I feared,” she whispered, “it will destroy you.”

Were it not for the equally great need in Duncan to touch Amber, to lie with her, to lose himself within her until he was too spent to battle himself for a time…were it not for that, touching Duncan would have been as agonizing to Amber as putting her hand within the hearth fire.

As it was, touching Duncan was a bittersweet torment that cut her until she bled.

And not touching him also cut her until she bled.

Drop by drop, bleeding into darkness.

And as I feared, it is destroying me.

Yet Amber didn’t lift her hand. Duncan’s skin was smooth, supple, warm. The layers of muscle on either side of his spine lured her. She stroked the resilient flesh with gentle sweeps of her hand, savoring the sheer power of him, ignoring the pain.

“You are strong in so many ways, dark warrior,” Amber whispered. “Why can’t you be strong enough to accept what can’t be changed?”

You’re a fire in my blood, in my flesh, in my soul.

Muscles shifted and coiled as Duncan rolled onto his back. His head turned toward Amber. She held her breath, but he didn’t awaken.

“If you could accept,” she whispered, “then you could love me despite all the truths known too soon and told too late.”

Duncan’s deep, even breathing remained unchanged. The amber pendant he wore shifted and gleamed with each breath.

Sighing, Amber gave in to the temptation to smooth her hand over the hair that curled so intriguingly across Duncan’s chest. The crisp mat tickled and aroused and pleased, making her hand tingle with heightened sensitivity.

Amber lowered her head, kissed Duncan’s shoulder, and laid her cheek on the muscular pad of flesh over his heart. The sound of his life beating so close beneath her cheek swept through her.

“If only I could touch you.Just once.”

Somewhere in his mind, Duncan was aware of Amber’s presence. She could tell by the change rippling through him, savage arguments fading, muffled by the sleek, sensual tide that was rising in him, called by her touch.

Though Duncan had allowed nothing but the most basic physical connection between himself and Amber since he had learned his true name, he had once enjoyed being stroked and petted by her. He had held his own arousal in check simply to savor a less urgent exchange of caresses with his lover.

In sleep, Duncan was enjoying being stroked again, absorbing Amber’s pleasure in touching him as avidly as dry ground absorbed a gentle rain.

“You, too, missed this,” Amber whispered. “You, too, hungered to share tenderness as well as wildfire.”

Relief shivered through Amber. She had feared that the darkness growing at Duncan’s core had eaten away all softness in him. She bent down to brush her lips over his skin once more.

An instant later his hand gripped her hair with painful force. Duncan was fully awake.

And fully furious.

“I don’t want you,” he said through his clenched teeth. “I don’t even want to touch you.”

Though the currents of desire swirling between their bodies made a mockery of his words, his rejection still stung.

“Is that a promise?” Amber asked silkily.

“What?”