A noise burst from his throat—part growl, part something deeper. Then he leaned into her hand, closed his eyes, and gruffly pressed his cheek into her fingers.
So prickly. Such a contrast to the softness of his ear.
She couldn’t even pretend she could come this close and not demand more. She cupped his other cheek.
He remained still. Petrified. Unmoving. As if she were the predator and he, the prey. He dragged his big, sweltering palm against the base of her spine.
She lifted herself to her toes. “Ignoring something doesn’t make it go away.”
“I can think of only one thing that can make this go away, kitten.”
“What’s that, darling?” she asked.
He bent his head and claimed her lips.
Finally.
…
Rayne had been focused on his arguments, because when Julia was in the room, he lost all reason. For the love of all things holy, he knew if he was going to make this trip while keeping her safe—not to mentionchaste—rules would be his only lifeline. Without rules, he’d be a rudderless ship.
He’d assumed—mistakenly, as it turned out—as long as they kept talking, he would not be able to indulge any of the other impulses he desperately wanted to indulge.
Like sucking on her plump lower lip until its crimson hue turned scarlet.
A body denied through a long, restless night is not a body conducive to logic or restraint.
She’d taken one deliberate, gliding step in his direction, and the swish in her hips had stunned his attention. Just a small movement. A slight, unconscious arc his cock translated as offering—This is what you want, isn’t it?
Then he’d glimpsed the pointed nipples visible beneath her shirt, she’d acknowledged his erection and its meaning, and he’d not been able to talk or think at all.
Suddenly, everything she’d hidden had been manifest—the curves beneath her shirt, the need beneath her bravado, the want that wafted from her skin like summer-day sweat. When she touched his cheek, his blood turned Thames-mud sluggish…thickly pooling directly into his groin.
Her eyes blurred as she lifted herself onto her toes. Her warm breath fanned his cheeks, and her lips parted, pillow-soft.
Mercy.
He was nothing she needed. She was everything he craved.
Invitation personified, delicious, familiar, laden with nectar-sweetness. Anticipation watered his mouth as he slipped into an age-old pattern—Desire. Seduction. Reward. The pattern on which all life depended. Animal, perhaps, but deeply human, too. Vulnerable and needy, with a persistent undercurrent ofplease.
He encircled her impossibly slight waist with his large, calloused hands, feeling lost. Clumsy. His cock would have none of that. His head tilted of its own accord, probing deeper, conducting the lightning flashes behind his lids as if he could shock her, too.
Not likely. Not when she’d practically begged to be bedded.
He tangled his fingers in the curls at her nape, hearing an untamed growl from afar. His own, likely. An animalmine. Fuck Edmund Alistair Cracked-skull; Julia’s lips had been shaped just for him. Full, determined lips, eagerly demanding.
Julia. Jules. Harpy. Minx. Kitten.
No matter which name he uttered,sheremained the same—less woman than flame. Neither time nor distance nor fierce castigation had purged her from his mind. Nothing under heaven could.
To him, she was irresistible.
Her lower lip trembled as their mouths moved together. With every stroke of her tongue, he came closer to complete disintegration.
Gnat-small doubts buzzed in his ears. He ignored everything but her taste.
Her hands, small, though roughened with the prior night’s ordeal, clamped against his cheeks, angling his face. Her nails bit into the flesh beneath his ears as if, by digging into his flesh, she could merge their bodies into one.
