Page 89 of Marrying the Savage

His hair is softer than I expected. That feels like an offense. He makes a low sound against my mouth when I tug, and the sound goes straight through me.

“Careful,” he murmurs.

“No,” I breathe, because I’m not. Because I don’t want to be.

That does something to him.

His hand slides under my dress. I go still for half a second, shocked by the directness, by the heat of his palm against my bare thigh, by the sheer fact of him touching me there in his study while I’m still angry and frightened and embarrassingly, painfully wet.

He notices.

Of course he notices.

His mouth leaves mine, and his forehead almost touches mine as his hand moves higher.

“You are very angry for a woman this wet,” he says.

I gasp. “You are very smug for a man who lives in a cliffside murder castle.”

His fingers pause at the edge of my underwear.

His eyes hold mine. “Do you want me to stop?”

The question is quiet. Clear.

Cruel, because I know the answer.

“No,” I say.

His fingers slip beneath the fabric.

My breath breaks.

“Oh,” I whimper. Oh God.

14

DAMIR

“Oh.”

That small sound nearly breaks me.

It slips out of her before she can stop it, soft and startled, her eyes widening as my hand slides higher beneath her dress. For all her sharp words and reckless courage, Sofia goes completely still when my palm finds the bare heat of her thigh. Not from fear. I would stop if it were fear.

No, this is shock. The kind that comes from wanting something before she has given herself permission to want it.

I lower my mouth to her ear and let my fingers move slowly, deliberately, over the inside of her thigh. “You are very quiet now,” I murmur.

Her breath catches. “I’m thinking.”

“No.” My hand moves higher, and her body trembles before I even touch where she needs me. “You are waiting.”

Her fingers tighten in my shirt. “You are very full of yourself.”

“I have reason.”

“I hate that you probably do.”