“I know I said I wouldn’t tell you that. I know I said I would do as you asked, and find another way to compliment you, but I can’t.” He came up on his knees again, reaching for her, lifting her gaze to his. “You are beautiful, Sophie. More beautiful than you can imagine.”

Before she could deny it, he took her mouth in a long, wicked kiss, as though they had an eternity to explore each other. As though time did not pass in the labyrinth. And it was an exploration, a long, lingering journey of tongue and teeth and lips, of sighs and cries and growls that promised more than they could ever deliver.

Because he would not ruin her.

If it killed him, he would not ruin her.

He broke the kiss and ran his lips over her cheek, finding the soft skin beneath her ear, where he lingered before saying, “It’s true.”

She sighed, but he could tell she did not believe him. “I want you naked here, in this place, on this grass open to nothing but the sun and the sky and this statue and my mouth. I want to explore every inch of you, and learn the sounds you make when you come, hard and fast and yes, love, beautiful.”

He sucked on the lobe of one ear, long and lingering until she groaned her pleasure, her hands stroking across his chest, down his torso. “King,” she whispered.

He grasped one of her hands and guided it to where he strained, hard and desperate, against the fabric of his trousers. “Feel what you do to me,” he whispered. “You make me ache for you. You make me want to lay you down and take you until there is nothing left but us and the labyrinth.”

Her eager fingers explored. “Yes,” she said without hesitation, flattening her palm against him and making him want to show her precisely how to make him wild.

Instead, he shook his head and pulled her away from him. “No. I won’t ruin you, Sophie.”

Her brow furrowed. “But . . .”

“This is not for me, love. This is for you.”

She shook her head. “I want it to be for us both.”

He couldn’t let it be for them both. If he did, he might never let her leave.

Hating the thought, King returned his touch to her core, parting the folds there, baring her to the sun and air, loving her heat, her softness, her scent. “You’re so wet,” he marveled, dipping a single finger inside her, adoring the way she responded, rocking toward him, eager for more of him. And he was so eager to give her more.

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t not taste you.”

He pressed her thighs wide and leaned in, painting her pretty pink center with his tongue, adoring the feel of her against him, the way she sighed and moved and guided him without even knowing what she did. He lifted his lips from her and blew a long stream of air directly on the center of her, adoring her cry of pleasure.

Her fingers slid into his hair, clutching him close, pressing him to the open, aching center of her, using him as he tasted her again and again, losing himself in her. He licked and sucked and stroked with tongue and fingers until she rocked against him, her breath coming faster and faster, her hips working to find that magnificent purchase that would give her release.

And just before she found it, he stopped, lifting his mouth from her, knowing he was the worst kind of ass when she cried his name in frustration. He pressed his lips to the silk of her inner thigh once, twice, as she settled before looking up at her, finding her blue eyes glittering with desire and something more primitive. Something like need.

“Poor love,” he said, the taste of her on his lips, teasing him as much as the feel of his words against the hot center of her teased her.

“King,” she groaned. “What are you doing?”

“I want you to talk.”

Her eyes went wide. “Talk?”

“I want you to tell me all the things you desire.”

“I desire . . .”

“What?”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

He leaned in and licked, long and slow, and she sighed her pleasure. “Please.”

He lingered over the place where she strained for his touch. “I like it when you beg, love. What more do you desire?”

“That.”

He blew a long stream of air across her aching skin. “What, precisely?”

“Don’t make me say it,” she said.

“Why?” he teased. “Because ladies don’t say such things?”

She laughed at that, a little huff of air that made him adore her even more. “Ladies most definitely do not say such things.”

“Try.”

“I desire—” For a long moment, he thought she might not say anything, even as he hovered there, a hairsbreadth from where she wanted him. From where he wanted to be. And then she did speak, and in four words, she destroyed him. “I desire your pleasure.”

He pulled back, meeting her gaze at the words, seeing the truth there. He couldn’t find the words to speak.

She reached for him, lifting his face to hers. “Whatever you want, King. I want it, as well.” She pressed her lips to his, long and lingering, before lifting her head and saying, “Don’t you see? My pleasure is yours. I am yours.”

And that was it.

The kiss they shared then was nothing short of a claiming, wicked and full of promise. “You’re mine,” he said, as though her words had unlocked him, and perhaps they had. They’d certainly threatened his control. His desire. His need. “You’re mine,” he repeated, taking her mouth even as she took his. “You’re mine.”

“Yours,” she whispered as he released her lips and returned his attention to the core of her.

“You gave yourself to me,” he whispered, desperate for her.

Her fingers guided him to her. “I did,” she whispered. “I am yours.”

And then his mouth was on her, his tongue working at her, and he was pouring everything into the caress—desire and need and frustration and adoration and yes, anger. Anger that he couldn’t have her like this forever, here, open to him. Anger that he hadn’t met her years earlier. Anger that her love was not enough to heal him now.

He kissed her again and again, making wild love to her with his mouth, wanting to reward her for her honesty and punish her for it, as well—for the way she seemed to know that what he wanted was in concert with her own desire. For the way she used him.

For the way he loved it.

His tongue and fingers played over her and she cried out gloriously to the fountain and the labyrinth and the sun and the sky, first his name, and then a single word, again and again, like a litany and a weapon, at once blessing him and destroying him.

“Yours.”

His.

He gave her no purchase, remaining there at the throbbing, aching place where she wanted him most, making love to her until she came apart, crying her pleasure on that one word.

Yours.

He stayed with her until she returned to earth, to the labyrinth, Ariadne to his Minotaur, somehow able to destroy him with her touch.

Yours.

He would hear that word, spoken in her voice, for the rest of his life.

Yours.

Truth and utter lie all at once.

She couldn’t be his, of course. She couldn’t be his, because it would require him to be hers. It would require him to love her the way she deserved. And that would never happen. It was impossible.

He lifted his head to tell her so, finding her sleepy, sated smile above him, tempting him more than he could ever imagine. And then she spoke, shattering his intentions. “What of your pleasure?” she said, the soft words a blow as hard and harsh as anything he’d ever received in the boxing ring. A blow he’d never wanted so much in his life. “Don’t you wish to take it?”

He did, of course. Rather more desperately than he ever had. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

She deserved better.

“No,” he lied, working hard to keep his words calm and collected, hating himself for saying them. “I don’t.”

If she’d had all the money in Britain, Sophie would have wagered it on his laying her down and taking her there, at the base of the fountain, with only the Cumbria sky to witness it.

She would have lost the wager.

The disappointment that rioted through her was to be expected, of course. She’d been hoping he would agree to make love to her fully, and his refusal was no kind of positive experience. She’d found a magnificent pleasure in his arms, and she wanted more. She wanted to share it with him.

What she had not expected was the desolation. The sense that without him, she was alone in the world. That without his touch, without his companionship, she might not survive the day.

The sense that without him, she might not exist.

The thought terrified her.

She had not planned for this moment. Ever. She’d never planned to want someone so much, or to wish that her future entwined with his, or to wish to see his face every day, for the rest of time.

She’d planned to be happy, yes. To marry, to have a family, to live a quiet, peaceful life. But she’d never planned to want someone so much that his refusal actually pained her.

She’d never planned for a single, inaccessible path to be the only one she could imagine having.

She’d never planned to love.

Vaguely, it occurred to her that other people found love to be a pleasurable experience, filled with roses and doves and sweets and whatever else. Those people were obviously cabbageheads. Because she loved the Marquess of Eversley quite desperately, and there wasn’t anything remotely pleasurable about it.

She cleared her throat and straightened, pushing her skirts down her legs, trapping his hands beneath them for one excruciating moment as she tried to escape his touch. “I see.”

His fingers trailed along her ankle and she shot to her feet at the sensation, the touch breaking something inside her, making her at once wish to leap into the fountain to wash it from her and toss herself into his arms and beg him to continue. She did neither, thankfully, stepping away from him as though the events of the afternoon were perfectly ordinary. As though she weren’t rushing to protect herself from the pain he seemed to be able to exact without so much as a thought. “I see,” she said again, hating the repetition. Willing herself to remain silent.