“And you won’t say it. You won’t tell me that I’m not alone in this, but then I think of what you just asked of me. ‘Kiss me. The way you did once.’” A small furrow worked its way between his brows, his gaze absorbing the details of her face. “And I think I know what you’re really asking.”

“It’s not just—” Did she have the nerve to say this? “I want you to be careful,” she blurted. “Tonight.”

Another slow look that seemed to see right through her. “You lost your entire family.” This time his kiss was a feather stroke of lips against hers. His hands softened on her wrists and the sheets rustled beneath them as he moved slowly, deepening the caress. “It makes sense for you to be nervous to let yourself care for someone.”

She’d never even admitted it to herself, but it was true. Though she’d taken lovers, she’d kept them at arm’s length, and there’d only been one true friendship since her parents died… Mina felt the choking weight of something in her throat. She nodded.

“And a part of you is lonely,” he murmured, kissing her jaw. “But you don’t know if you can trust me—”

“Of course I trust you. I wouldn’t—”

“Trust me not to leave you,” he corrected. “Trust me not to die, if you let yourself care.”

She fell silent again, so full of feeling that she was afraid if she opened her mouth to speak it would all come welling out.

“It’s a risk,” he admitted. “But if you don’t take it, then you’ll never truly live, Mina. And I admit I’m biased. I want you to take that risk.” His voice grew husky. “I want you to be my Grace O’Malley—fearless and defiant, despite the odds.”

“I want to be that girl too. I want her back… But I’m so frightened that she died with Stephen, with my mother and father—”

“Then forge her anew.” A hot, molten whisper against her skin.

Silence. Nothing except the pounding of their hearts. Mina let out the breath she’d sucked in. “Yes,” she said. “I could.” Perhaps he wasn’t the only one finding himself again.

This time when he kissed her, she could sense the change. No holding back. Not for either of them.

A kiss to change her world. Suddenly, surrendering didn’t seem like it would be such a bad thing. He knew her fears, her hopes… He knew, without her even saying, what she really wanted.

Mina’s tongue plunged into his mouth as she set herself free. Taking what she wanted from him and demanding the same. Barrons—God, she had to stop thinking of him like that. Not now, when his hands and mouth wrought such delicious damage on her body…

“Leo,” she whispered in his ear as he caressed the full curve of her breast. The word was a shocking intimacy between them, and his eyes lit up with something heated before he tugged her trousers down her legs. His were gone too, the proud jut of his cock angling against the flat plane of his stomach. She hadn’t had time to admire him before, but she did now—from the tempting trail of dark hair leading south from his navel to the chiseled vee of his hips… Mina held out a hand to him and he lowered himself over her.

“Say it again,” he demanded.

“Leo…”

The whisper of his skin against hers made her writhe. A hot mouth closed over the rosy bud of her nipple and she gasped, hands sinking into his hair and encouraging him lower, her eyes clenched shut as she threw herself into the sensations. His heated tongue dipped into her navel, the gravel of his stubble rasping against sensitive skin as he moved lower. Mina’s fist curled in his hair as he cupped her bottom in both hands and spread her thighs, leaning down to devour her.

“Blood and glory!” Her eyes shot open, staring at the ceiling as her hips worked beneath him. She was shameless.

And so was he. The things he did to her with his mouth… The heated coil tightened within her, leaving her wet and gasping, demanding more with harsh whispers and her own hands clenching in his hair. Her sex throbbed at the sight of those broad shoulders spreading her thighs apart… Mina threw her head back with a cry as his tongue circled her, thrusting deep into her molten body.

The sounds she made… It wasn’t her, and yet somehow she felt like she’d never existed like this before, never given herself over to a man to be loved like this. Pleasure mounted within her until she felt as though she were on the verge of falling. Mina held her breath, her body arching—

Leo lifted his mouth, a devastating smile curling over his lips as he wiped them with the back of his hand.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, her hips collapsing back on the bed with an explosive exhale of air from her lungs. She lifted her head weakly from the pillow. So damned close…

Hunger filled his eyes, the blackened heat of the craving. Mina’s heart thundered to a halt in her chest at the sight.

“I’m taking what is mine.”

This time, when he pressed her into the bed, there was a sense of urgency to their actions. Hooking her knee up against his chest, he drove into her, his eyes lost to anything but lust and his lip curled in a silent snarl. The feel of his hard body inside her… She’d forgotten how large he was, how delicious it felt to be utterly, utterly claimed.

Mina clutched at him, unable to take her eyes off his face, until she could no longer hold herself together. She shattered with a cry, fingernails biting into the sleek muscles of his back, leaving little red marks on his shoulders. The angle was shockingly intimate, her knee trapped so that she couldn’t escape the flood of sensation. She came again, her entire body shaking as he buried himself inside her with short, hard thrusts, knowing exactly what he was doing to her.

A quiver ran through his shoulders. “Mina,” he said, burying his face in her throat as he thrust a little deeper. A gasp was torn from his lips. “Damn it…” He filled her again, long and hard. “Wanted to take this slower…”

She met his eyes and saw the feral need there—Leo Barrons stripped of all his cultured finesse, all of his smooth, seductive devices lost in a shattering haze of need. And suddenly she wanted to drive him beyond control, to prove that he was just as much hers as she was his.

A tight clenching of her body around his wrought another strangled groan. He knew what she was doing, thrusting harder, deeper…until her entire body ached with possession. And still it wasn’t enough. She wanted to shatter him.