Lucian smirked at her. “I can really tell how much.”
Rosalie snarled as she pulled his lips back to hers. This was the only way Lucian’s company was acceptable—when he was using his mouth for kissing, which he was exceptionally good at, as opposed to speaking, which often seemed like a good thing at the time, but turned out to be nothing but a pack of lies.
He brought one of his big, strong hands up and cupped her breast. He groaned in her mouth. She knew she ought to stophim, but she couldn’t seem to summon the willpower. How on earth had this happened? It reminded her of a chemistry lecture she had once attended at the Royal Society. The speaker had taken two substances, sodium bicarbonate and vinegar. Both seemed utterly unextraordinary on their own, but when you brought them together? Boom! That was what it was like between her and Lucian.
In the event that she found herself forced to marry him, she wondered if they would ever be able to exchange a normal kiss. A chaste brush of lips to say good morning, or a quick peck on the cheek before one of them left the house. Or if every time they came within three inches of one another, they would wind up half-dressed and panting in whatever room they happened to find themselves, straining to bring each other to climax.
Lucian kissed his way across her cheek to her ear. “Draw up your skirts,” he ordered.
That shook her out of her pleasurable haze. “Draw up my… No!”
He sucked on the lobe of her ear, making her shudder. “I’ll kiss you between your thighs, like I did last time.”
The part of her anatomy he had offered to kiss gave an enthusiastic pulse as she remembered how good that had felt. “Why should I let you do that?” The question came out less caustically and more breathlessly than she would have preferred.
He reached a hand down and squeezed her bottom. “Look at you, rubbing against me. You’re going to make yourself come. You know you are. And I can make it so, so good for you, Rosalie. I can give you such a beautiful climax. It’s going to happen regardless. Why not really enjoy it?”
“Because I… hate you,” she said weakly.
“So you’ve said.” He slipped his thumb inside the bodice of her gown. Rosalie gasped as he thumbed her taut nipple.“Perhaps I can start down what I’m sure will be a long road of atonement.”
She scowled at him. “There’s no atoning for what you did. I’ll never forgive you.”
“Fair enough. But I could at least try.” He dropped his voice low. “Do you remember how good it felt last time?”
“Y-yes,” Rosalie admitted.
“Wouldn’t you like to feel that way again?” Lucian crooned.
“I…” How was Rosalie supposed to be able to think? She couldn’t even breathe. “I would…”
He drew back, and his grey eyes were both rueful and sincere. “Will you let me, Rosalie? I’d quite like to do something nice for you, for once in my life.”
It really was unfair how handsome he was. How on earth was she supposed to resist? “All right.”
He did not move but studied her for a beat. “You’re certain?”
She swallowed thickly, then nodded. “I’m certain.”
He dropped to his knees. Slowly, almost reverently, he smoothed her skirts up until her thighs were exposed. “God, Rosalie. Look at you. You’re so beautiful.” He pressed a kiss against the inside of her thigh. “And you smell like heaven.”
She laughed as his lips found a ticklish spot.
He was still speaking. “Missed you”—he pressed her thighs an inch wider as he approached his destination—“so much.”
He was such a good liar, so convincing, that, just like that night on the balcony, it was easy to fall under the spell of his words. She knew better now, of course. But in spite of the fact that she knew it was all a lie, it felt strangely natural being with him like this, allowing him to do things to her she couldn’t even imagine doing with another man. She knew they weren’t meant to be, the way he had said on the balcony all those years ago.
But itfeltlike they were.
He made a sound of pleasure as his lips found her most intimate spot. It had not been a figment of her imagination, how good this felt, how good he was at it. She was already primed from his previous ministrations, already so close.
He swirled his tongue around that little bud that was the center of her pleasure, and sparks flashed behind her eyes. She threaded her fingers into his glossy black hair. It felt just as silky beneath her fingers as she remembered. It felt so good, what he was doing, that she wanted it to last forever. But she knew with rueful certainty that it would last for less than a minute. There was no way she could withstand such overwhelming pleasure.
Suddenly, Lucian stopped his delightful strokes. Rosalie grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and was just preparing to make her displeasure known when he sealed his lips around that special spot and started tosuck.
“Lucian!” she shrieked. “I… I…”
She had to clap a hand over her mouth to muffle her screams of pleasure as she came apart right there on top of the desk. Her thighs were quaking wildly and her hips were bucking so hard that she would have slid right off had Lucian’s hands not been there, holding her in place.
