Sin caught her hands, pinning them over her head. His thighs bracketed hers, and he leaned down, so their noses nearly touched. She was breathing heavily, thrusting her full bosom into his chest.
“That was a mistake,” he told her as he allowed his gaze to flit over her face.
Her eyes were wide, luminous pools of darkness. Her lips parted. “Let me go, you brute.”
Why the hell was she so damned beautiful? So alluring? So traitorous?
He ground his jaw, forcing back a wave of desire that crashed over him when she writhed beneath him. He was not supposed to want her, damn it. “I am the brute? Need I remind you which one of us has just attacked the other?”
“You abducted me!” she shouted, struggling to free herself. “You killed my brother!”
She was panting beneath him, fighting him with all her might. He had to admit, she possessed surprising strength for such an elegant duke’s daughter. He also had to admit, he liked the way she fought him. His cock was hard.
What the hell was wrong with him? She had ruined him and had just accused him of murdering her brother, a crime which he had most certainly not committed. How could he be randy at a time like this?
“I abducted you,” he snapped at her. “I will own that. But I can assure you, I did not kill your brother. The sainted Duke of Westmorland achieved his demise all on his own.”
“A fall down the steps in the middle of the night after you had attacked and threatened him within earshot of the servants,” she scoffed, breathless. “And on the same night as your wife’s sudden death. So many curious deaths, all revolving around one despicable man.”
“Unfortunately for you, I am the same despicable man you are going to marry.” His lip curled. “How will it feel to spend the rest of your life bound inextricably to the man you wanted to destroy, princess?”
He was taunting her, it was true. In truth, it had been a long day. A long journey. He had been filled with rage and desperation for far too much time. And now, it was all mixing with the heady potency of lust. A dangerous combination indeed.
She moved beneath him with increasing, futile violence. “I will never marry you.”
She had no notion that her thrashing only rubbed her breasts against his chest and ground her curves into his straining prick. She had no idea her breathlessness and open berry-red lips called to him. Even her anger excited him. Her hatred made him want her. He had not been prepared for the depths of his own depravity.
But there was a reason he was known as Sin.
Part of him reveled in the depraved.
And this physical battle between them? It was the stuff depravity was made of.
“Oh, marry me, you will,” he promised her.
And then he gave in to temptation, to wickedness. He pressed his mouth over hers. He would not call it a kiss, because it was not that; it was less and yet so much more. It was a claiming. It was also possession. He would never raise his hand to a woman, regardless of what she had done to him, but he wanted to dominate Lady Calliope Manning. He wanted her weak. On her knees.
He would settle for her mouth. He kissed her viciously, with bruising force. And it startled him, how much he liked it. How suddenly ravenous he was for her, this woman he loathed, this capricious chit who had brought about his ruin with her wild imagination and poison pen.
There was something between them. Something more than hatred. More than lust. He kissed her, and he forgot why they were here, what she had done, how he had taken her from London, her subsequent attack with the worthless piece of pottery. For a moment, he forgot all the reasons. Forgot everything but the woman beneath him. She smelled sweet and exotic at once, like lavender and tuberose. He inhaled her scent, her breaths, her fear.
Her lips moved against his. She was breaking, giving in. Kissing him back. He lost himself. Lost reason. Had to taste her. He slid his tongue into her mouth. She made a mewling sound, her tongue moving against his.
And then, the spawn of Satan bit him. His tongue, specifically. Hard enough for him to rear his head back, severing the connection. With enough force to draw blood. For the second time that day, the copper flavor of his own blood was in his mouth.
“Vicious princess,” he ground out, staring down at her.
“I will never marry you,” she returned, all fire.
He smiled. He was enjoying this far more than he had anticipated. Enough of these games, however. He had no intention of consummating their union until she was officially his countess. And before that could happen, he would have to lay out the plain facts for her.
But first, he was hungry. Not just for her beneath him, but for his dinner.
“I will enjoy proving you wrong,” he told her, and then he moved quickly, rising to his feet and hauling her along with him. “Do not try anything so foolish again, Lady Calliope. I would hate to have to cut your pretty flesh, but I will if you make me. It is only fair, since you have drawn first blood.”
He did not want to bind her wrists again. When he had cut her bindings and she had made a sound of undeniable pain, guilt had eaten at him. He was good with knots, but he was not accustomed to binding another for longer than what bed sport required. And despite the fact that he despised this woman and what she had done to him, he had no wish to cause her physical pain.
He withdrew his blade as a reminder, and then he tugged her along with him. “Come. It is time for us to have dinner and to talk.”
