Page 50 of The Trick of It

He lunged, snatching her about the waist like he were spinning her during a cotillion and then releasing her before she could react.

She stumbled, gasping in outrage as he held up the first piece of fool’s gold, swaying it in front of her like a taunt, and then tossed it to the floor with a clatter.

“There’s more,” she told him.

“Oh, I know,” he replied. “You can even take that piece back if you like.”

“I’ll consider it,” she said, rounding the till to put a barrier between them, her heart thundering in her ears. “I always know when you’re lying.”

“You often do,” he allowed, putting his hands on the wooden counter between them, palms down, fingers wide, and leaning toward her. “But you’ve fallen for a fair few. Just like any dazzled lady in the audience.”

She gasped, a barb of genuine outrage pricking her in the sternum.

He used the opportunity to leap directly over the wooden barrier, sliding over it like he were weightless, and taking hold of her wrist. In scarcely the space of a breath, he’d twisted her arm behind her back and pressed her into the wall, her cheek firmly against the cold wood.

He wasn’t hurting her, but he was shockingly strong.

She wriggled, attempting to stomp on his foot as he held her still, his hands running down her sides to check her skirts for pockets and pluck out the next chunk of glinting rock, tossing it to the floor with a clack.

She could feel the muscle in his body against her back, the tension and firmness that he hid in his lithe frame. It was truly, genuinely shocking.

“My sisters are stronger than me,” he whispered in her ear, holding her tightly. “Lie.”

She squirmed and he held her tighter.

“I don’t like blondes,” he said again, his breath hot against her neck, his cheek resting against the cloud of her hair. “Lie.”

“Rhys!” she squeaked, unable to wrench herself free.

He found the third piece of fool’s gold and withdrew it from her pocket, holding it up in the corner of her vision.

“Princesses do not heat my blood,” he said calmly. “Lie.”

“Yes, fine!” she managed, struggling to get air into her lungs for reasons far beyond the physical restraint he was exerting. Her cheeks were heating, her throat flexing around a sudden lack of moisture.

“I don’t see you that way,” he said again, this time pressing his hips into her backside. He dropped her wrist, which sang with the pressure he’d put there and dragged his fingertips over the bare flesh of her arms, still pressed firmly against her but no longer forcing her into place. “Lie.”

She shivered, no longer squirming or wriggling to be free, a delicious, tingling heat flaring up over the skin under her dress. She held her breath, waiting for him to say more, to do more, her eyes flickering shut so that she could give her entire being to feeling this. To experiencing this.

He inhaled her hair, his hands coming around to stroke at her throat. She could feel his arousal against the rounded flesh of her backside, could time the cadence of his pounding heart against her spine, but he was being gentle. So, so gentle.

“Do you know how many times I’ve had you, Seph?” he whispered in her ear, touch trailing lower, over her collarbones, over the tops of her breasts. “How many times I’ve closed my eyes to imagine the one I’m with is you instead? How many times I’ve told myself I’m feeling you? Tasting you? Fucking you?”

She shuddered, heat flooding through her body, crashing and pooling deep in her belly. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t.”

“No,” he agreed. “You don’t.”

His hands trailed lower, fingers ghosting over the shape of her breasts. His breath caught behind her, hips digging deeper into the cushion of her backside. “What was I supposed to do?” he asked, nipping at the shell of her ear, his teeth even and sharp, scraping just enough to warn, but not harm. “What the hell was I supposed to do when the most important person in my life started to change and blossom into a shape that sparked shameful and wicked impulses? How was I to protect you from the filthy derangement of my dreams and how I’d wake, spent and panting at just the thought of touching you?”

Her breath quivered, his cheek pressing into the column of her neck. “Stop me,” he suggested. “Tell me how wrong this is, how it cheapens our partnership. Remind me that you are more to me than ache and want.”

She shook her head, refusing. She clamped her jaw shut and leaned back into him, taking from his heat while providing her own.

He exhaled, a sound tearing from his throat like a whimper as he allowed himself to cup her breasts through her dress, to explore the shape of her, his hips rocking against her from behind. “Do you know what I wanted to do with those ropes?” he breathed, groaning at her little gasps as he filled his palms with her, as he stroked her stiffening nipples through the fabric of her dress. “Do you have any idea the things that occurred to me when I’d tie you up, again and again?”

“Yes,” she managed, her voice splitting through the overwhelming sensation that had taken her by the throat. “They occurred to me too.”

He cursed, his open mouth descending on the back of her neck, the curve of her shoulder, nipping and licking at the skin there. “You have to stop me,” he said again. “Seph.”