His grip tightened as he tried to ignore the slide of her barely covered skin on his and the way her scent, warm and heavy with sleep, teased him.
“Never.” He knew his damnation lay in the word.
“Leave me in peace,” she whispered, finally going still in his arms. “That’s all I ask.”
“I can’t.” He heard the sadness in his voice. “Hush now.” Hitching her higher, he carried his prisoner back to her bed.
In the bleak hour just before dawn, Kylemore woke hard and ready.
A kind man, a good man, would leave his mistress in peace, let her sleep, grant her a reprieve. But she must know now she could expect neither kindness nor goodness from her cold lover.
Although cold was the last word he’d apply to himself at this moment.
He shifted to ease his aching erection, disturbing Verity, who stirred from her troubled doze. Neither had slept well. This house would forever put genuine rest out of his reach. And he couldn’t forget the woman who lay such a careful distance away from him.
Even asleep, she didn’t want to touch him. A fleeting memory arose of that strange moment when she’d woken in his arms on the journey north. For one brief instant, his world had spun smoothly on its axis before everything had gone reliably awry again. It had been awry ever since.
With a fatuous optimism he should have known better than to feel, he’d thought sex with her would bring everything back into kilter. But after what he’d done to her in this room tonight, he felt even more lost and adrift than ever.
Although that wouldn’t stop him from having her now.
He flung the sheet to the base of the bed and reached out to place his hand on Verity’s shoulder, feeling the delicate bones and hollows. She was naked—he’d snatched the shabby shirt from her body when he’d returned her to his bed. Now the sweet scent of her skin curled out to urge him closer.
Her skin was so white that even in the darkness, he could follow the graceful curve of her back and waist and the flaring splendor of her hips. Need ratcheted up another notch, became unbearable. His hold tightened.
“No,” she said indistinctly, keeping her back to him and hunching against the edge of the mattress.
“Yes,” he said firmly and rolled her onto her back, releasing another eddy of her tantalizing essence.
To him, it would always be the scent of paradise. And he could brook no delay before he achieved this particular heaven.
Surprisingly, he felt no resistance in her. He moved over her, supporting himself on his elbows. “Put your arms around me.”
Her arms stayed stubbornly at her side.
Ah, he understood her game now. She meant her sullen acquiescence to shame him into leaving her alone. Foolish chit. She should know better than that.
Still, he didn’t immediately thrust inside her. Although the brush of her silky thighs against his hips and the teasing heat of her sex so close to his arousal measured the remotest limits of his control.
But he refused to act the mindless savage again. He’d done that last night. And he’d made her cry.
He’d hurt her, and in spite of three months of dreaming nothing but revenge, he was piercingly sorry. The recollection of tears drying on her pale cheeks gentled the hand he cupped around her breast. The gesture became one of aching tenderness.
Her skin was cool and smooth beneath his fingers. He tested the glorious roundness of her breast, then bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth. Immediately it pebbled hard under his lips.
Triumphantly, he recognized this as familiar—it seemed Soraya wasn’t totally lost to him after all. She tasted like ripe raspberries, and he gorged himself on her summer sweetness, licking and laving and sucking, listening to how her breath hitched with every marauding caress.
She didn’t want to respond to him, he knew. But she couldn’t help herself.
He turned his attention to her other breast. Lengthy delay was beyond his capability, after so many empty months of wanting her and last night’s unsatisfactory coupling, but even so, he was desperate to erase the memory of his earlier brutality. Something in him wanted to cherish her. She was so small and brave and beautiful.
So he made himself linger over her breasts, learning again their taste and texture. And his hand made a slow, stroking journey down the slight arch of her stomach to the plumpness of her mound. As his fingers tangled in the soft hair there, she stifled a moan of pleasure and moved restlessly under him. He gave his own moan as her thigh inadvertently brushed his cock. He’d reached a stage of excitement where even the rasp of the sheet on his skin threatened to send him over the edge.
He couldn’t wait much longer. He dipped his fingers lower, to the secret recesses of her body.
A carillon of victory joined the desire pounding through his veins to create a thunderous symphony of desire. She was hot and wet, ready for him. He wanted to taste her there, to see if she was as succulent and delicious as he remembered.
But his restraint was fraying. He had to take her now or lose his mind. He withdrew his hand and poised himself to possess her.