“Look at me.” His voice was rough, low. All command.
She obeyed, eyes open. He filled her vision: his high cheekbones, the blade of his nose, those beautifully sculpted lips. Whiskers stubbled his strong jaw, lending him an even more dangerous air than he already possessed.
“Tell me, banshee,” he said softly, “is this force?”
She wanted to answer with the rebelliousness on fire in her soul. To lie to him, to tell him yes, that he was the last man she would ever want to touch her. But it wasn’t true, and she could not make her tongue give voice to the words.
Bridget opened her mouth.
His fingers resumed their delicious movement. Slow circles at first, then faster. Harder. He was kissing her again, their breaths and lips and teeth clashing. They kissed violently, like two people at war. Her eyes closed once more.
“Answer me,” he urged against her mouth. “Is this force, or do you want me?”
She tugged his hair and gave him a bruising kiss of her own in response, jerking against him, wanting his clever fingers to finish their torture. For a few moments, he allowed her to take the reins. She controlled the kiss, opened to him, slid her tongue between his lips. She demanded and he gave.
But then, the cord snapped.
He tore his lips from hers. “Open your eyes. Tell me now, have I fallen for your wiles?” His fingers quickened, knowing just what she wanted, needed, without asking or growing hesitant. He gave it to her, everything she wanted and more, and she fell apart in his arms, release ricocheting through her body with beautiful force. “Or have you fallen for mine?”
She opened her eyes, locking on his gaze. Pleasure seized her, took her breath. Took her ability to speak. She came in a thousand shards. Came with a thunderous force. Wetness leaked from her sex, running down her thigh. Shudders racked her body, and had he not held her pinned to the wall, she would have melted into a puddle at his ducal feet.
Bridget could not answer him. Dared not answer him. For he had just proven her a liar in the most visceral sense. She wanted him. Against logic. Against sense and reason. Against her inner sense of self-preservation. Strangely, it only heightened the moment for her. She wanted to be at his mercy.
To be his.
Whatever he wanted. Whatever he needed. In that moment, she would give it to him.
The last tremors of release washed over her, leaving her tingling and sated. Her eyes closed once more. This time, it was an effort to block him out. To forget her enemy was the man who had made her feel more just now than she had experienced in her entire lifetime.
“Always a liar, Miss Palliser,” came the stinging scorn of his voice. He withdrew his hand, lowered her skirts, and stepped away from her. Cool air hit her bare breasts. “We are leaving for London fifteen minutes hence. I suggest you prepare yourself.”
With that directive issued, he turned and stalked from the chamber, slamming the door at his back with enough force that the outdated, gloomy oil paintings on the wall danced. She watched them moving, allowing her knees to buckle. Allowing herself to slide down the wall until her rump landed on the carpet.
He had won this battle.
But not the war, she vowed.
Never the war.
Leo stood outsidethe chamber door after he had slammed it and gave in to temptation. He raised his fingers, still glistening and slick with her juices, to his lips. And then he sucked.
Delicious.
She tasted better than any dessert he had ever consumed.
His eyes closed. He exhaled heavily. Inhaled. Exhaled again.
His heart was pounding. His cock was rigid. His confidence was burned to ash, set on fire by the conflagration that had occurred on the other side of the walls separating him from…he still did not even know what her true name was. It sure as hell was not Miss Palliser.
Miss O’Malley, perhaps?
Or worse,Mrs.O’Malley?
Damn it.
Damn him for his insufferable weakness where she was concerned, which rendered him incapable of staying away as he ought to. She was forbidden. His prisoner. His enemy. And yet here he stood, the sweet musk of her cunny on his tongue. Still thinking of the slick plumpness of her flesh, the husky sounds of surrender she emitted, the tremor of her body as she spent.
He would give anything to be the man inside her when she came like that.
