“You’re not concerned?” I ask.

“It makes no difference to me.” He shrugs. “You’re not going back to him.”

“And, so you see, I was never really a prisoner to begin with.”

He drops his hand, and sighs. “You might think that, Princess, but I disagree.”

“Oh, for the love of the Goddess, Callum! Will you stop being such a big bloody. . . gentleman!”

He raises his eyebrows, and stills.

His gaze drops down to my body, and the shirt I’m wearing, and something unreadable flickers over his expression. “A spy, not a prisoner, huh?”

When he meets my eyes again, mischief dances amid the darkness.

“I never thought you’d ask me not to be a gentleman, Princess.”

He drags his teeth over his bottom lip, as if considering something. Then he grins. In a sudden movement, he flips me onto my back and climbs on top of me—caging me between his arms. He brings his mouth to my ear, and I shiver as his warm breath touches my skin.

“But I’ll be happy to oblige,” he whispers.

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Chapter Forty-Three

My insides tighten.

Callum’s warm breath heats my skin, his lips almost touching my neck.

His shirt has ridden up to my hips, and I can feel the cotton of his breeches against the bare skin of my thighs.

My legs are parted to accommodate him, my core pressed against his hard stomach. When he shifts, my breath catches in my throat as a jolt of need courses through my body.

And the scent of him—Goddess, the scent of him—he smells like heat and male and the mountains.

He groans into my ear, and the sound vibrates through me.

“You don’t know how many ungentlemanly things I’ve thought about doing to you.” His voice is low, and his accent is even thicker than usual.

He brushes his lips against my neck, then shifts so his face hovers above mine. His solid weight presses down on me. His forearms are flat on the pillow on either side of my head.

I should feel trapped, held prisoner by his body. The strength of him, the sheer size of him, should make me feel weak. He is alpha of Highfell, a warrior and a wolf. I should be afraid.

Yet I feel something else entirely.

It is stirred by the quickening of his breathing, and the look in his eyes—there is dark intent there, but a hint of something else too. Awe, perhaps.

That first moment I saw him, standing stern and warrior-like in Sebastian’s fighting ring, I would never in a million years have imagined that one day, we would be in this position. I thought him a monster. A brute. Someone to be feared. Hated, even.

I wonder if that is what is going through his mind too, as he brushes a strand of hair from my face.

“What ungentlemanly things?” I ask.

A slow grin spreads across his face. “Kissing you.”

“Gentlemen kiss their ladies.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Yes. There is a moment in the wedding ceremony where the groom kisses the bride.”

His eyes glint with mischief. “Hm. It seems I’m not quite as well versed in the ways of gentlemen as you, Princess. You’ll have to teach me. Do gentlemen kiss their ladies like this?”

He brushes his lips against mine. The kiss is gentle. Chaste. Frustrating. I want to buck against him—grab his hair, pull him closer to me. But my arms are pinned by my sides by his body, which holds me in place.

“Yes! And I told you to stop being a gentlemen, damn it!”

His grin widens, becomes wolfish.

“How will I know how not to act like a gentlemen, if I don’t know how they behave in the first place?” His tone is teasing, his demeanor calm. It frustrates me even further. He knows he has total control here. And what’s more, he is enjoying it.

“Do they kiss like this?” he asks.

He lowers his mouth to mine. This time, his kiss is deep. Rough. Claiming. I can’t breathe, I can’t think. There is only him, his mouth, his tongue moving in deep dominant strokes against mine, his groan that rumbles through my body and makes me quiver.

My hips move of their own accord, pushing my center against his bare torso, desperate for the friction.

I whimper when he pulls away, his breath still mingling with mine.

“Well?” he asks, his voice low and rough. The wolf flickers behind his eyes, fighting with the mischief that glimmers there.

“No.” The word escapes on a breath. “They don’t kiss like that.”

“Hm. Interesting. How about this?”

He shifts, moving down my body so he hovers over my chest. Eyes on mine, he lowers his mouth to where my nipple is peaked, visible through the thin material of his shirt. He clamps his lips around it and he sucks hard.

I cry out as my back arches from the mattress.

It should hurt, yet I thread my fingers into his hair and pull him closer as he gives my other nipple the same rough treatment. He chuckles, then moves his hand to my breast, squeezing and rubbing as he sucks—causing raw liquid heat to pool at my core.

I moan as the ache builds. My hips buck, and I cry out in frustration. His eyes are still on mine, even as he brushes his teeth against my breast and gently bites.

I gasp. “Callum!”

He lifts an eyebrow, then carefully, lazily, detaches himself. He doesn’t stop palming my breast. I arch into his hand, wanting to curse the material between us. His breathing is heavy and his cheeks are flushed. He is not as in control as he is implying.

“I asked you a question, Princess,” he says. “And until we get to the bottom of it, I’m not going to be able to move on to my next lesson.”

He pinches my nipple between his finger and thumb and an almost feral sound escapes my lips. The wolf becomes dominant in his eyes in answer to my call, before he pushes it back.

“No. That’s not very gentlemanly at all!” I gasp.

His grin widens. “No? Good. Because, there’s another place I’ve imagined kissing you for weeks now. You’ll have to let me know whether it’s gentlemanly or not.”

There’s a question in his eyes. My breathing is fast as I nod, my head brushing against the pillow.

I watch, entranced, as he lowers himself further down the bed. He pushes himself up, and kneels between my legs. His gaze sweeps up and down my body and his face darkens.

He is a vision of power and dominance. For a moment, he reminds me of a statue of a warrior—impenetrable, his expression serious. Only his chest moves up and down, deeply.

There is the same intent on his face as there was when I first saw him in that fighting ring.

Slowly, he slides his hands up my hips, hitching up the shirt and exposing my midriff and my underwear. I feel all of his attention hone in on the place between my legs that throbs with need. A low, almost inaudible growl builds in his chest, before his gaze moves back to mine.

My breathing is fast. I am completely at his mercy, and I do not know what he is going to do next. I am captivated. I cannot move. Cannot think. Not beyond the restlessness that builds like a storm in my chest, and the fire in my veins, and the ache that consumes me.

He shifts, and plants a soft kiss on my torso. The feel of his mouth and his stubble against my bare skin is almost too much to bear, and I whimper.

Then he lowers himself even further and my breathing becomes frantic.

He plants a kiss on my most intimate place, and I cry out as a jolt of pleasure surges through my body. He glances up at me, his mouth inches away from my core. His breath is warm through my underwear.

I should be pushing him away. I should not be so exposed, so brazen, so wanton with a man. Is this the kind of thing that happens in a brothel? I do not know. This is certainly not the way that a lady is supposed to behave. Least of all a princess.