Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 01] by Forbidden

I can never surrender, Roman.”
    His calloused thumb caressed her cheek. “You, my lady, need only surrender to me.”
    Flame licked through her womb, caused the muscles in her damp channel to contract with need. She wanted to surrender to this exotic warrior. But she could never betray her people by accompanying him to his fortification.
    She caressed the curve of his ear. So strange for a man to have not even one piercing in his lobe. “And yet I remain here.”
    He cupped her nape once again and the warmth from his hand branded her. “You would defy me?” The words were threatening, and yet she didn’t feel threatened. She felt exhilarated.
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t need your permission to take you, lady. How would you prevent me from carrying out my desire?” His grip became possessive and tension radiated from him, as if it were a living entity, coiled, ready to spring.
    “If all you want is a slave, then there’s nothing I can do to prevent it.” Sweet Cerridwen, she didn’t want to prevent him from carrying out his desire. Only his arrogant wish to enchain her. Her pulse throbbed erratically against his imprisoning hold, stirring her blood and heating her brain.
    Time suspended in a shimmering haze as she returned his unwavering gaze. No breeze stirred in the sacred glade, no call of bird, nor rustle of woodland creature.
    Her Roman was the only man in the world, and her future rested on his response.
    His hand slid around her throat, across her collarbone, and deliberately grazed the naked swells of her breasts. She gasped involuntarily, arching toward him, begging for more. But his hand dropped from her.
    “A slave?” His voice was deceptively calm, yet she could feel the hum of anger in his tone, as if her accusation offended his honor. “Is that the only way you would come with me, Celt?”
    She dragged in a lungful of air, tried to rein in her cantering lust. But her mind wanted release just as much as her body. “You could come to me.”
    Silence, so deep, so profound, it echoed in her bones and shattered through the stars. His eyes narrowed and brow creased, as if such a notion were astonishing, unbelievable.
    As if the thought of a centurion bowing to the wishes of a Celt were beyond comprehension.
    Eternity whispered with each frantic beat of her heart. And then he retreated one step. “You would meet with me illicitly?”
    Her breath tangled, constricting her throat. “Yes.” It was the only word she could manage. She hoped it would be enough. Already she had said too much, given him too much, and yet she couldn’t help herself.
    Surely she wasn’t a traitor if she never divulged who she truly was? Where her people hid?
    This was purely for her. To satisfy her dreams and fulfill her frustrated desires. Nothing more. There could never be anything more. The Roman would satisfy her craving for mutual orgasmic knowledge, and when they had both slated their lust she could quietly vanish within the sacred spiral.
    “Why?” His voice was hard, unyielding.
    “Because that is what I wish.”
    Incredulity washed over his features. Had he never been crossed before? “And I should acquiesce to this, simply because it’s what you wish?”
    Carys resisted the overwhelming urge thundering through her blood to reach out and touch his arm, or run her fingers through his irresistible hair once again. He had stepped back from her. It was up to him to make the first move forward.
    “Yes.” There was no other answer she could give.
    Another silence vibrated through the glade, scraping along every nerve she possessed. Once again his inscrutable warrior mask shielded his true emotions as he contemplated her, as if assessing her worth as a mere spoil of war.
    In his mind perhaps that was all she was.
    But deep in the fundamental essence of her being, Carys knew that wasn’t so. If it were, he would have taken her with him two days ago.
    “What would your family do to you, if they ever discovered you’d