Page 54 of Sins of Arrogance

I thought that was just a thing ro­mance writ­ers made up. The puls­ing cli­toris thing. I read a bunch in prepa­ra­tion for my wed­ding night, but hon­estly didn’t be­lieve it would or could feel like this.

I’ve touched my­self, but Mick’s fin­gers on me feel dif­fer­ent.

He breathes out like he’s try­ing to keep a leash on some­thing vi­cious in­side him. “You’re so bleedin’ tempt­ing.”

My breath catches. It doesn’t sound like a com­pli­ment, more like a warn­ing.

Mick grabs me up into his arms and tosses me on my back on the bed. My breasts bounce and sting­ing plea­sure knots my ten­der nip­ples.

He rips my Manolo Blah­nik white satin heels right off my feet and tosses them aside but then he steps back.

Chap­ter 15: De­voured

KARA

Mick’s eyes close for long sec­onds as he breathes in and out. I scoot into a sit­ting po­si­tion but that does noth­ing to make me feel less vul­ner­a­ble.

When his eyes open the heat in them burns me, but his move­ments are con­trolled. He re­moves his cuff­links and shirt studs, one-by-one and lays them on the dresser. His gaze never leav­ing mine, he shrugs out of his shirt.

My mouth goes dry.

His white un­der­shirt stretches taut over the sculpted mus­cles of his chest, but then it’s gone too. And I can’t get enough air no mat­ter how much breath I take.

His right nip­ple is pierced. I’ve never seen a man with a pierc­ing and if I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t have thought I would like it. I would have been wrong.

Re­ally, re­ally wrong.

His bi­ceps bulge, mak­ing the tat­too on the left side of his chest rip­ple. It’s a skull with a scythe drip­ping blood be­low it. Fas­ci­nated, I try to read the Gaelig un­der it.

Notic­ing where my eyes are fo­cused, Mick smiles, but there’s noth­ing nice about it. “Ní hionn sé, stop chun an scaidín a ghéil­leadh.”

It’s not a de­lay to stop and sharpen the scythe.

The Irish proverb is about tak­ing time to learn be­fore rush­ing in head­long. Moma has used it many times with us girls.

Why do I think he doesn’t mean the words that way? And why does that turn me on even more?

He’s the scythe, honed to killing sharp­ness.

Celtic mark­ings in­ter­con­nected with a dag­ger, a gun and brass knuck­les – that look like they’re part of the sym­bols – cover the right side of Mick’s chest and shoul­der be­fore flow­ing down to meet and sur­round the tat­too on his bi­cep.

They’re stun­ning and per­fectly shaded, but with­out a speck of color on any of them.

It’s all black ink con­trast­ing with the lighter tones of his skin, giv­ing him the air of an an­cient war­rior.

Dark. Dan­ger­ous. Mes­mer­iz­ing.

He walks to­ward me, wear­ing noth­ing but snug black briefs that do noth­ing to hide the raw power of his body or the size of his hardon.

Re­lief that we can’t have in­ter­course wars with cu­rios­ity and un­fa­mil­iar de­sire. What would some­thing like that feel like in­side of me?

Even my own fin­ger feels too big some­times.

I scoot fur­ther back on the bed, a deer cor­nered by the hunter. Only, I want him to catch me. No mat­ter how afraid I am of the un­known, some­thing deep in­side me craves Mick even more.

He comes down be­side me on top of the rose petal strewn du­vet. “I’m go­ing to de­vour you.”

There’s no chance to an­swer be­cause he starts with the de­vour­ing, his mouth eat­ing at mine in the most car­nal kiss I’ve ever ex­pe­ri­enced.