Denying his statement wasn’t an option. In the next heartbeat, his lips were on hers in an icy-hot kiss that didn’t just silence her instinct to run, but turned it to ash. He deepened the kiss, his tongue plunging inside to tease and torment in the best possible way. The same rush of desperate wanting that had burned her from the inside out when he’d watched her reflection as she’d changed into her dress before dinner, returned with a vengeance. All of the pent-up frustration of lying next to him while she was wearing only her panties stole away her common sense. Every frisson of attraction since she’d walked up the steps of Moad Manor pushed its way to the surface.
Without ever breaking the kiss, she pushed him onto his back and rolled along with him so she sat astride him. The sheet tangled around their legs, locking them together just as the silver chain around their wrists did. She rocked against his hard cock, the lace of her panties and the cotton of his boxer briefs blocking direct skin-to-skin contact was as frustrating as it was tantalizing.
She planted her palms on his pecs and straightened up, breaking the mind-melting kiss while still undulating against him. Closing her eyes and losing herself in the passion and the electric sensations rocketing through her was the smart move, the trick she usually played with the men she dated. But this time, for whatever reason, she couldn’t. She kept her eyes open and watched him. She drank in the sight of his muscles flexing and the way his jaw tightened in a pleasure and pain mix whenever she rotated her hips. It wasn’t just that, though; it was the war of control playing across his face that fascinated her as much as the pleasure touching him gave her. Like her, he didn’t give in. Ever. He would always find a way to get exactly what he wanted.
An unexpected bolt of emotional want slammed into her. Just the idea of what it would be like to be at the center of all that determined focus hit hard enough that she had to drop her gaze. But that wasn’t her. She would never be that woman. Growing up like she had, she knew better than others the danger of that kind of obsessive devotion.
“We shouldn’t be doing this.” He ground out the words while letting his unchained hand glide up her side and then cup her breast before expertly rolling her hard nipple between his fingers.
“I know.” But that didn’t stop her from moving against his hardness, each forward and back stroke sending jolts of pleasure ricocheting through her core.
“It’s just the situation.” He curled upward and lifted her breast to his mouth. “The nearness.” He grazed his teeth across her nipple. “It’s you.” He sucked it into his hot mouth while doing some magical circling thing with his tongue around it that had her clenching her legs tight against his hips. He released her nipple with one last flick of his pointed tongue. “I’d have to be dead not to want you.”
If he’d meant his words to put her off, to add distance between them, it wasn’t going to work. Not now. The draw was too strong, too undeniable.
“Rationalize however you can, but you want this. So do I.” And she did—more than anything else at the moment. The rest of the world, the chaos of the next few days, the danger that surrounded them like a high-voltage spider’s web as long as they were on Fare Island, none of it mattered.
The air around them changed the moment he’d made his decision, almost as if there was more energy in the room than it could contain. With a muttered curse, he sank the fingers of his unchained hand into the flesh of her hips and pulled her tight against his girth so she couldn’t help but feel every inch of him against her heated flesh. When she began to move against him again, it was amazing their underwear didn’t spontaneously combust.
“You like this, do you? You like rubbing that sweetness of yours against me. You’re so wet for me, so hot.” He sucked in a quick breath. “Do that again.”
She shouldn’t play with him, not when they were both on the edge, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to see him go over that line he was always so sure never to cross.
“This?” She twisted her hips, the move dragging the damp center of her panties over and exposing her slick folds.
“God yes.” He tightened his one-handed grip on her hip and arched, grinding against her.
It was good, it was so fucking good, but it wasn’t enough. Before she could even take the time for a plan to form, she shot up and stood on the bed over him. Their chained-together hands hung in midair between them.
“I want you inside me.” Fast as she could, she shimmied out of her panties and kicked the tiny swatch of material off the bed.
The vein in his temple pulsed. “Not yet.”
Planting her hands on her hips, she glared down at him. “Why not?”
“I want to hear you make that noise again.” He curled his hands around her calves and urged her up toward the headboard. “I want to hear it while my face is buried between those long legs of yours. I want to hear it while you come all over my tongue.”
His fingers tugged her down—not that she was fighting—until she straddled his face. The moment he lapped at her wet center with his tongue, she stopped breathing. It was a soft tease of a touch that had her white knuckling the beechwood headboard with her free hand. The other hand swung loose until he pulled it around her back as he reached behind her, grasped her ass and pulled her core closer to his demanding mouth.
With each lick and twist of his tongue, with ever-deepening suction on her clit, she lost a little bit more of herself to the moment. She’d closed her eyes as the sensations bombarded her, but she still saw him. There was no distancing herself from him like she always had with her other lovers. There was something about Lucas that wouldn’t accept that, and it had pierced her defenses. That made him more dangerous. It also made the vibrations building in her core stronger with his every caress. She couldn’t stop the desperate moan that escaped as she gave in and let her he
ad drop back.
“That’s it,” he said against her soaked, sensitive flesh, his fingers biting into her ass and holding her tight against his mouth. “That’s the sound I want to hear.”
The brush of his words against her folds followed by the rhythmic press of his tongue against her clit sent her spiraling over the edge. Her climax hit like a lightning bolt, sending waves of white-hot pleasure slamming through her and whipping her body taut. If it hadn’t been for Lucas’s hands holding her up, she would have collapsed on top of him.
Breathing hard, she sank down, twisting as she did so she ended up on the bed beside him. There were limp noodles with more bones than she had right now. Lucas didn’t have that problem. Cracking open her eyes, her gaze immediately went to the outline of his hard cock pressing against his boxer briefs. Suddenly, she wasn’t so tired anymore.
“Please tell me you have a cond—”
Thump!
Thump!
Thump!
“Open this door right now, Ruby,” Jasper yelled through the door sounding as pissed off as she’d ever heard him. “You can’t marry that asshole.” He slammed his fist against the door again. “Open. Up.”