Page 38 of The Boxer’s Belle

“You’re nonsensical, you daft woman. You’d rather die than ask for help— Hell, you tried to!”

“What on earth do you— I’m perfectly well as you can see!”

“Of course you are. Perfectly well, just like when you went chasing after Draycott on your own last spring!” The words spewed from his lips unbidden and unwanted, but now that he had named them, he recognized the truth.

Vexatious woman—he’d nearly lost her from her own foolhardiness. She could have died in his arms because she’d refused to wait or ask for help.

Her answering flinch at the name was almost imperceptible, but it shot through his heart all the same.

“I didn’t go chasing after Draycott. He was just—there.” She finished the statement with a hazy gesture behind her.

“Damn it all, Bella. Don’t ask me to hold your limp hand again. I cannot do it!” He thrust his upturned palm between them.

“I had no idea the notion was so repulsive to you. The next time I’m accosted, I’ll be certain to consult you first to ensure the method meets your satisfaction.”

“You delight in willfully misunderstanding me, do you?” he snapped, fingers aching to grab her shoulders and shake sense into her. “I’d hold your hand every damn day for the rest of our lives if I thought for a single second you would allow it. But the notion of a world without you in it— That is unbearable. That almost destroyed me.”

“Oh, please. You⁠—”

“Bloody hell, woman! You are the most infuriating creature in this life or any other.”

“You don’t want me! You’ve never—”A low, hurt tone underlined the forceful top note. The vulnerability in the way her hands clutched at the opposite upper arm, cracked his chest wide open.

He could take it no more. West’s hands snatched at her. A desperate whisper of sanity, propriety, was the only thing that kept him from rutting against her like a dog.

Her dark eyes danced with something unnamable, and her breath hitched as her lips parted. “West, I⁠—”

“Miles,” he demanded. “It’s Miles to you.” He couldn’t have explained why it was so essential to him, in that moment, that she use his given name—the one she had abandoned after that night.

Her eyes widened, flicking between his. “Miles,” she repeated, softer. No sound had ever been more perfect, sweeter—he needed to taste it. “I⁠—”

His lips crashed onto hers before she could finish the thought.

And God, she was perfect.

She should have been too rich for his palette, tasting of spice and crisp autumn air the way she did, but she was even more potent than she had been the last time—full of spirit instead of fear.

The velvet of her cheek was delicate under his fingertips, even as their lips worked against each other, tongues tangling. This kiss was more battle than dance. And finally, he had a worthy opponent. His Belle—she would never let him win, never allow him to take and take and take from her. No, she stripped him of every last sense, even as he tried to steal hers.

She nipped at his lower lip before laving the wound with a sensual slide of her tongue. Surprisingly strong hands clasped at his neck, the other sliding down his chest to grope at the muscles there. Idly, he hoped they pleased her—the way her small curves delighted him.

She loosed a moan against his mouth that reverberated down his spine to his aching prick. Once again, West desperately clawed for any sort of sense, any thought that might keep him from shredding at her damp skirts and wrapping the sopping strands of her curls around his fist until she was as mindless as him.

He banded an arm around her rib cage, clutching her even tighter against him. Together, they stumbled backward into the house, never separating. It was only a step or two before his other hand caught the bannister of the staircase behind her. West pressed her back against the newel as his lips broke from hers to taste the rain against her throat.

Her fingers clenched on his bicep and fisted in his hair with a possessive groan—as though he would let her go, leave her if she didn’t clutch at him—as though he were capable of it.

Bella’s sweet moans, the pounding of his blood in his ears, the filthy slick slide of their lips, the rustling of her skirts as he fought to slide a leg between hers—to erase the possibility of space—wrote a sensual symphony. West had never heard anything more breathtaking.

Without permission, his hand slid from her ribs. Down, down, down over the delectable curve of her arse to her thigh. Bella moved against him easily, allowing him to guide that thigh back up, up, up, to hitch around his hip.

Mindless, he thrust against her center as he traced the neckline of her dress with his lips.

A sharp gasp rang through the ruins of their haven. It echoed in his mind, sinking deep—important even as he traced the salty damp crevice between Bella’s breasts.

Her fingers loosened on the fabric of his shirt. “Wait, Miles⁠—”

His body reacted to the words before his head. He’d wrenched back from her, his fingers still tingling from her warmth before he realized he’d done so.