He swallowed a moan.
She would be his undoing, Lady Violet West. She was all he had ever wanted, without knowing such a woman existed. Everything he had never imagined she would be; sweet and hot, brazen yet prim, the contradiction he wanted more than ever. She was the one beacon in his life of darkness, the sole bright light. He never wanted her to fade, to fall away from him.
Some perverse part of him wanted to keep her here forever, just as she was, alive and alight in his arms, her eyes filled with warmth and understanding. But that was not to be, and he knew it. He knew it better than anyone. He would destroy her, destroy those lights and that warmth.
Because it was what he had to do to survive. And if there was one thing he had always excelled at, it was survival.
“Griffin,” she whispered.
His name, and it was all she said, but it was enough.
Indeed, his name in her sweet voice, half husky with desire, half dripping with her need for him, was all he wanted to hear for the rest of his life. If he lost his ability to hear from this moment forward, and his last memory of sound was her husky voice calling out his name, it would be more than enough to sustain him.
He kissed her again, deeper, harder. Then harder still. His lips were unforgiving upon hers, molding, taking. But she kissed him back with every bit of his furor, not shying away from his roughness.
Her fingers were in his hair, tightening, her nails raking his scalp, and he loved it. He wanted her aggression. Her intensity. He wanted her to transform him. To make him hers forever, the same way she would be his.
He dragged his mouth down her throat. His hands found her skirts, bunching, lifting. Even though it had not been his intention, he could not help himself. He believed in functionality, in decisions founded in logic and pragmatism. Indeed, he had based his life upon such principles.
But Violet made him change his every preconceived notion.
She brought him to the precipice, straight to the dangerous edge, where he could linger on the cliff on his own, or choose to leap. Part of him knew he should escort her to bed. Kiss her chastely on the forehead. Bid her goodnight. But now he had started something he could not stop.
He had to have her.
More of her.
All of her.
Whatever part of her he could have. He had her skirts in his hands, still kissing her, for he could not stop. He laid her against the stairs, pressing her into them with his weight, his mouth on hers; open, coaxing, commanding.
She made a sound, half strangled, and reality returned to him. He had Violet pinned to the stairs like a rutting beast.Christ.
He tore his mouth from hers, chest heaving, cock straining, and stared down at her. Her lips were swollen and dark red from the force of their kisses, her eyes glittering back at him, dazed. “I am sorry. You must be dreadfully uncomfortable. Forgive me, my lady, I—”
She caught the slice of his shirt visible above his waistcoat, gripped a handful, and yanked him toward her. “Do not be sorry. Just kiss me.”
Nothing any woman had ever said to him had made him as wild as Violet did with two simple sentences. His mind clamored with reasons why he ought to listen to the tiny speck of him that still possessed the capacity to be a gentleman.
He told them all to go to the devil, and he obeyed his woman.
He took her mouth with his, shifting them so his left arm became a pillow for her head. His right hand sank into her skirts, dragging them to her waist so he could touch her as he wished. His palm skimmed over a trim ankle encased in silk stockings, up the delicious curve of her calf to her knee.
Here was the sweet spot, a place he loved on a woman’s body, that mouthwatering crook of skin serving as the delineation between the lush pleasures of her cunny, and the innocence of her lower limbs. It was the gateway to temptation. He wanted to taste her there, to lick the sensitive skin, to breathe her in. Would she smell sweetly of roses even behind her knee?
But he could not devour her here on the stairs, he reminded himself firmly. She was an innocent, her trust in him as potent as whisky and every bit as fiery inside him. He had to go slowly. To treat her with care.
His fingers traveled higher without breaking the kiss. Over the smooth, supple curve of her outer thigh, finding the heat of her through her soft drawers. There were too many impediments keeping him from what he wanted. Rules. Layers. Conscience.
To hell with them. Perhaps he could pleasure her here after all. If he pleasured her on a bed, he would not stop until he was inside her, and he had promised himself he would not take her until she was his. If they were caught—if for any reason, their marriage did not occur—he would not take that risk with her. She would remain an innocent until she was his wife.
Or she would become another’s.
The last thought filled him with such blinding, driving possession, he kissed her harder. He could not bear for her to be another man’s. She was his. And she was growing restless. Making beautiful sounds of need, arching against him. He would give her what she wanted, what her body desired. What they both so desperately needed.
Tearing his mouth from hers at last, he kissed down her throat. He spoke her name into her silken skin. This woman was made for sin. Made for him. He licked the tender cord of her neck, found her throbbing pulse and kissed her there, made his way back to her ear, giving it a nibble that earned him a new, husky moan. He did it again, his hand skimming over her hip, guiding her legs apart.
When he found the split of her drawers, his cock twitched. Griffin hesitated for a moment, before allowing himself to reach within. He went slowly at first, tracing her seam with one finger in a gentle glance of a touch. She jerked against him.
