It was something Lady Firi would have said—bold and imperious—but Ariel of Firi wouldn’t have released his lip, and she wouldn’t have watched him with the same mixture of expectation and vulnerability. Lady Firi would not have waited for him to kiss her with lips that trembled or eyes that begged. She would have bit him and scratched him and wrapped herself around him, taking what she wanted.
“No,” he lied, harsh. Hell-bent. But his heart betrayed him, quaking, terrified that Sasha would believe him—finally—and release him, shamed, as he intended her to be. Shame was a wonderful weapon. But she didn’t step back, didn’t pull away from him. Instead, she continued to lay herself open, an emotional obeisance that was unfathomable to him.
“How can I feel so much when you feel so little?” she
