“All shall heal.” Her sky-blue gaze dipped to his mouth.
The desire that had never been far from the surface brazened forth, roaring like an uncontrollable fire.Do not kiss her, he admonished himself sternly.Do not dally with this woman. You need a bride.
And the widowed Countess of Grenfell had made it more than clear she wasn’t it. But he didn’t want a wife, and that was the trouble. In this moment, he wanted nothing so much as he wantedher. Her with her wild red hair, her audacious ways, her staunch defending of his daughter, her mesmerizing blue eyes, the freckles that gilded her nose, calling for his lips…
“If you don’t move away from me, I’m going to kiss you,” he warned Lottie.
She didn’t go anywhere. Just stayed there, still and tempting, her eyes like twin pools of endless sky, burning into him.
“Lottie,” he said again. “Last chance.”
Suddenly, she did move. But it wasn’t to leap away from him. Instead, she grasped a handful of his necktie and pulled him into her, her mouth hard and hot and open on his. With a growl, he hauled her into him, kissing her back with all the yearning he’d been attempting to control.
Her name was an absolution, singing through his mind, his blood.
Lottie.
Lottie.
Lottie.
She tasted sweeter than he remembered, her lips lush and full beneath his, her tongue invading his mouth just as she had stormed into his town house. As if she belonged there. And God, it felt like she did, her sweet perfume surrounding him in a haze of sensual delight, her breasts crushing into his chest, her fingers sifting through his hair. She kissed him as if she wanted to devour him, and he kissed her in kind, spinning them about so that her bustle pressed into his desk and she was trapped between his body and the immovable carved mahogany at her back.
He ravished her mouth, starved for her, this magnificent woman he couldn’t stop wanting, no matter how hard he tried. But kisses were woefully insufficient. He needed more. Needed her completely undone for him, crying out his name in helpless abandon as she came. He gave her his tongue, and she sucked on it, making a low sound of need that went straight to his ballocks.
The hand that had been holding his neckcloth in a fervent grasp moved, gliding down his chest, over his abdomen,perilously near to the waistband of his trousers. His cock arrowed upward, straining against his falls, needing her hand on him, justneeding.
As if she’d read his mind, those nimble fingers found the buttons on his waistband, plucking them from their moorings one by one until his trousers opened. She slid her hand inside the slit in his drawers, wrapping her fingers around his cock and giving him a decadent stroke from root to tip.
He groaned into her mouth, their tongues dueling, their breathing ragged. It hadn’t been his intention to ravish her in his study in exchange for protecting his daughter today, but here he was. And there was no denying that she wanted him every bit as much as he desired her. She tipped her head back, breaking the fusion of their mouths, her lips kiss-swollen and dark red, moving her hand up and down his shaft in a tantalizing rhythm that had his hips jerking as if he were a green youth enjoying his first frantic frigging. He wasn’t, of course. But he didn’t remember the last time he’d been so desperate to be inside a woman.
Maybe never.
She swirled her thumb over his crown, and he forgot what day it was. Forgot everything that wasn’t her.
“I want you,” she murmured, her voice throaty and low. “Now, here.”
Sweet God, no. He couldn’t. Could he?
Her grasp on his cock tightened.
Yes, he decided. He most certainly could.
Brandon planted his hands on her waist and lifted her to his desk. He’d forgotten about the wash basin. Her tournure knocked into it, sending water raining to the Axminster. He’d deal with that later. For now, he caught a fistful of silk and petticoats and lifted it, his hand finding the silken recess behindher knee, higher to the curve of her thigh, tantalizing him through her fine drawers.
“You’re sure?” he asked hoarsely, some dim part of his brain still functioning sufficiently to recall that he ought to be a gentleman and give her the opportunity to change her mind.
That a frantic fuck on a desk was likely not what she had intended this afternoon any more than it was what he had planned.
With the hand that wasn’t tormenting his cock, she reached for his, bringing it between her parted thighs. “I’m certain.”
Wetness kissed his fingertips as she pressed his hand to her hot, silken quim. He took her mouth again, finding the tender nub of her pearl and teasing her. She was so slick, so ready for him. He sank a finger deep, her inner muscles clenching hungrily on him, and both of them moaned as one. Her thumb slicked the mettle seeping from him over his cock head, and she nipped at his lower lip, the stinging pain mingling with pleasure.
Damn.If she didn’t stop, he was going to spend in her hand.
He jerked his mouth from hers and withdrew his finger from the hot clutch of her velvety cunny.
“Hold up your hems,” he ordered her, his voice hoarse.
