Page 173 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

He smiled at her. "Trust me. All will be well." His hand drifted to her shoulder, skimmed down an arm. "Stay the night," he said. "Or two."

Her foolish heart twinged again. "I can stay tonight. But only that. I have an assignment out of town." She didn't want to tell him what it was. A sanctii was her choice. No one else's opinion mattered.

"So soon?"

"Only for a few weeks."

"When you return, perhaps?" he said. His voice was light, but there was a hopefulness to his tone that only deepened the knife pricking her emotions.

"Oh, you will have met some other pretty face by then." She tried to keep her tone light in return though the words were not easy to say.

"Lieutenant, I think you underestimate your charms."

Damn it. She had underestimated him, that much she couldn't deny. "Maybe. But I cannot ignore the reality of who you are. You're a duq to be, Jean-Paul. I'm a nobody. There's no happy ending to this story."

His expression darkened. "You're not nobody. Don't say that. I—"

She stopped his words with a finger to his lips. "Don't. You can't change my mind. I knew this before I agreed to come here with you tonight. You knew it, too. Neither of us has to like it, but we have to accept it. We are...only what we can be. And what we can be ends when I leave in the morning. So, my lord, you can storm and be angry at me, and I'll leave now and save us the aggravation. Or you can kiss me again and we can take what we've been given and enjoy it a little longer. Your choice."

She could fairly feel the frustration rising off him, the need to argue, to talk her around, to shape the world to how he wanted it to be. She tensed, waiting for the argument. But then she saw him make a choice. Saw him let it go. Lethergo, perhaps.

"As my lady wishes," he said in a tone not completely free of regret. Then he drew her back down to him and she went, trying to focus only on the joy of his touch and not the dawn that was coming too fast.

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