He turned to her.
The swift drum of her heart was nearly painful.
Finally his hand reached out, and he collected a strand of hair spiraling from her temple with his fingertip.
He gently smoothed it behind her ear.
He leaned forward very, very slowly, until hislips were against her ear. “Tell me you’re sorry you lost,” he whispered.
Wicked, wicked man.
She nearly laughed at his audacity.
But when the heat of his arms stole about her waist her eyes drifted closed. At last his mouth softly landed against hers; her sigh of relief was unashamed.
And with a sensual precision he undid her, as surely as the point of his knife had spiraled the peel from her orange.
His lips were at first so gentle, so shockingly, lingeringly tender, a low keen of raw yearning hummed from somewhere within her. It shocked her. His hand softly slid up from her waist to cradle her head. She curled her fingers into his shirt and clung for dear life as little by little the kiss became deeper, more demanding, more searchingly, teasingly carnal. The sweet, dark taste of him made her wild, then wilder still. She met him with equal hunger. She pulsed with a restless, frantic need. Her hands slid up, latched around his neck.
“Lorcan.” Her voice was desperate and shredded.
His arms tightened around her. She took his ragged groan of desire in her mouth; she could feel it vibrate in his chest. She could no longer feel the confines of her body; she was composed only of the places he touched her, and the places she longed to be touched.
She crashed to earth when he ended the kiss abruptly, with a low muttered oath.
And for a moment he rested his forehead against hers. His breath came in ragged gusts.
Still, he held her. As if he’d just been washed up on shore after being bashed about in the waves.
To stir such a man as this.
The way his back heaved with his breath made her feel powerful. And exhilarated. And frightened, indeed. He could lay her flat on the settee right now, and have his way with her. If he were that sort of man, there would be nothing she could do to stop him.
But what he chose to do instead was to hold her as if she were something he’d rescued at great peril to himself.
Finally he lifted his arms away from her.
She uncurled her fingers from his shirt.
She opened her eyes.
To find his eyes were hazed.
It was a moment before either could speak.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Now you have a choice to make. Will your next kiss be in the shadow of your cleavage, where your lovely breasts meet?”
His eyes fell to the swell of her breasts and lingered. She felt that gaze as surely as if he’d dragged a finger across them.
He returned his eyes to her face.
“Or high on the tenderest inside of your thigh, as I earlier described.”
Shock was like a lightning strike in her mind. She went briefly faint from it.
But the moment he’d said it she knew this was what she wanted.
She wanted to flirt with danger, with vulnerability. She wanted to test the limits of her own control and his.
