She could pull up her skirts and place a knee on either side of him.
He inhaled sharply, brow furrowing.
She could settle on his lap, grab his face, fingers splaying into the rough prickles of his stubble, and plant a kiss on his lips before a single word left them.
She kissed him like a woman who had finally stopped lying to herself. And oh,lawd. His mouth was warm, and she could tell she’d startled the man into a frozen icicle, but only for a second, before he answered with a deep sound that rumbled through his chest and into hers.
“Liss—” he managed, his voice thick.
She swallowed it. Opened to him. The first shy slide of his lips became a deeper claim, unhurried and consuming, as if he meant to taste the very shape of her soul. She certainly meant to taste his. His hands gripped her thighs, squeezing tightly before moving up to her waist. He didn’t simply hold. He gathered. Drew her closer with a sure strength, as though he’d known from the first moment that she would fit right there, astride his lap.
Merciful heaven.
It should have frightened her. It didn’t. It set a match to the tinder of everything she’d been denying thus far. Desire flared, a ribbon ofheat winding through her belly, slipping upward through her chest and into her throat, spilling forth into him.
Hewas the reason she’d never wished to marry another. He was the reason the wordspinsterhad once sounded like sanctuary. He was the reason she could not, would not, imagine a lifetime with any man who wasn’t him, and the reason why, when her hand had been forced, to insist on a marriage in name only.
She loved this man.
She could no longer overlook this truth. She had always loved him. She could no longer hide it away. She would always love him. Her heart knew it, had always known it, and now her mouth confessed it in the language of kisses.
“You hit Rafferty,” she murmured against his lips.
His mouth hitched upward. “I did.”
“I put him in his place, too.”
“You did,” he said against her mouth, the words a rough scrape. “Little temptress.”
“No,” she denied. She wanted him unmade. She wanted herself unmade. “Seductress.”
Something wild leaped in his eyes. He kissed her again, and she felt the shift of him under her, the set of his shoulders, the whole of his attention narrowing. He learned her body quickly, where to touch her so that her breaths faltered, so that her fingers curled in his hair. He chased her gasps and once he caught them, redoubled his pursuit.
His hands mapped the lines of her, and everywhere he touched, heat and gooseflesh erupted, sparks and shivers. When his palm spread between her shoulder blades and urged, she followed the guidance without question, pressing closer, learning that there was no space left to bridge between them and still burning to bridge it.
She broke away to rub her cheek against his stubble, then trail her mouth along the strong column of his neck, tasting a faint trace of his cologne. His head tipped back, offering, and that small encouragementunmade her afresh. His hands slid lower to cup her derriere, and he rocked his hardness against her.
Feel, he seemed to say without words.Feel what you do to me.
She smiled against his skin, giddy, powerful, terrified—in equal measure.
This was madness. Wonderful, necessary madness.
She nipped at him.
“Liss,” he warned on a ragged exhale, hands tightening as if torn between lifting her away and anchoring her more completely. “I am not a bloody saint.”
“I don’t want a saint,” she whispered. “I want my husband.”
“Christ, Liss.” His thumbs stroked slow circles that set every nerve singing. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked roughly.
“Yes.” Very much so.
He cursed again, lifting his head a fraction, breathing hard, eyes dark behind the cut of his mask. “If you continue, I won’t remember to hold back.”
“Then forget,” she answered, boldness surprising her with its cool clarity. “Forget every rule but me. Is that not a convenient benefit of his marriage?”
“God help me.” His eyes bore into hers. “Tell me what you want, Liss.”
