“Damn me tae hell and back,” he muttered as his breath fell hotly over her lips. “You’ll hate me and then some one day. Mark my words.”

And with those prophetic words, he gave in to his impulses and rushed his mouth against hers. There was nothing gentle about the kiss, nothing introductory. He kissed her as though he’d earned every right to ravage the breath from her body. His words had spoken of caution and concern, but his mouth … Oh, his mouth was not holding anything back. It took only a second for utter craving to take the wheel. He pressed into her with a deeply indrawn breath, his weight falling over her, his body propped on one elbow while the other hand gripped her at her hip and drew her tightly against him.

Sweet hell, he thought an instant after he ran his tongue across the plush seam of her lips, the craving she felt for the coming of it reflected in the softest little moan on the back of the softest little sigh. Had he not been so keen of hearing he might have missed it, and that would have been a crying shame. He swept his tongue into her mouth and there it was, instant bliss, the sweetest of flavors known to man. Oh, and the heat of her. Wet and lush it was searing him to the quick. All of her was searing him to the quick.

He feared he was being too rough with her. After all, he’d not been with a human female in nearly three centuries. No. He’d slaked his bodily needs on Gargoyle females. Women as much beast as he was. Women who could readily take him at his worst.

But here was this gentle, delicate thing beneath him and he had no right, no right at all, to be doing this. Yet that lecture, like all the internal lectures thus far, fell on his completely deaf ears. He was too full of longing. Too overwhelmed with the taste and feel of her. And then her hand reached for his hair, her fingers plowing through the thick black locks, her palm pressing against him and …

… encouraging him? Wanting more of him? She was unafraid? Or was she just unaware of the fire she was dancing so close to?

That was when her tongue came forward and slipped inside his mouth. Had he thought himself hard before? Oh, what an unsuspecting fool he was. The feel of her aggressing into the kiss was the most erotic thing he could ever remember to that date. But why? Why was she affecting him so hotly?

He didn’t care. He grabbed her at her hip, shifting himself over her, groaning when she parted her thighs and welcomed the weight of him between them. Their kiss took on a new, fiery life, her lips burning against his, the wetness of her toying against his tongue. He felt honored. Couldn’t help but to feel it. He knew he was undeserving of her trust after what he’d just done to her, undeserving of her, period. But he couldn’t make himself pull away, couldn’t keep himself from pressing his hips forward against her, his naked flesh rubbing up against the denim of her jeans.

Her hand left his hair, her nails raking down the back of his neck. Every muscle in his body clenched as the sensation rode through him. Then her touch was curving over his shoulder, sliding down his chest and under his arm so she could draw her fingers down his back. The feel of her touching him was more arousing, it seemed, than him touching her was. The idea boggled because right then he couldn’t get his hands on her fast enough, hard enough, thorough enough.

He drew back from the kiss, catching his breath, his mouth hovering so close to hers as he groaned with pleasure from her touch. If she kept heading in that direction, she’d soon have her hand on his ass, and the anticipation of it floored him.

He tried to do her one better. His hand drew down to the hem of her sweater and lifting it with quick fingers he slid his hand beneath it, his palm running up over her ribs, his fingertips brushing the underside of her breast. It was far too tempting, far too overwhelming, the craving for more. He hotly embraced her breast, felt the fullness of it filling his hand, her nipple pointed and sweet.

She moaned and lifted into his touch and it was like he’d captured starlight—that was how bright and burning his reaction was.

“There now, there’s a willing lass,” he groaned against her mouth.

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. All her pliancy disappeared like the whip of a magician’s cloth revealing a trick. She drew back from him, before he could reclaim her in another kiss, as if she suddenly realized what she was doing and who she was doing it with.

Damn, he thought with vehemence. Bloody hell and damn! I want her too much to stop!

“Wait! Stop!” she said, her hands leaving his skin to push at him. Pushing him away as if she weren’t soft and wet with wanting him. And he could tell, just by the power of scent alone that she was all of that and more.

It was too late for her to suddenly agree he was too much a beast for her liking, he thought fiercely. She couldn’t give him just a taste of something that powerful and then expect him to stop wanting it altogether.

“Why wait?” he asked her, his hand leaving her breast to curve around her hip and around to the sweet shape of her arse. He loved the shaped of her, the way she filled his hand so well in spite of how small the rest of her was.

“Because I don’t want this!” she blurted out.

A fine and balder lie was never heard, he thought with amusement.

Kat was suddenly awash with conflicting emotions and desires. Oh, he felt so good. So damn good. So male and powerful under the grip and press of her palms. One hand held him in a tight grip around his shoulder, and one hand was pushing against his chest and it was as if she couldn’t make herself agree on what to do.

But she wasn’t going to be a “willing lass.” The kind of willing woman who acted and thought nothing of later consequences. She had made a good life for herself here, and she wasn’t going to let him come in and ride roughshod all over it. She wanted things. Things that had nothing to do with big, sexy Gargoyles.

Just then his voice turned deeper, lower … guttural, his accent growing thicker with obvious desire.

“I ken you’re afraid of me half the time, but the other half,” he said, his face turning against her neck until he was breathing her in, “the other half of the time you’re wanting me. I know it because I feel it. I smell it. ’Tis a thing so ravenous that I canna ignore it.” His hand ran up the side of her body in a long, purposeful caress, ending with him cupping her left breast in a hard, insistent hold again that made her gasp. “And I’ll be willin’ tae bet that if I touched you below and between, you’re wet and wanting me as well.”