A Daring Passion

If anything his expression only hardened at her reasonable words. “When I am finished with Seurat, none of us will ever again have to worry about the bastard. That much I promise.”

“But…”

“Enough, Raine,” he rasped, a muscle twitching at the edge of his jaw. “I will deal with Seurat as I see fit. Do not presume to lecture me as if I am a child.”

She pulled away from his lingering touch, her own temper flaring. “I hardly consider offering reasonable advice the same as lecturing.”

“If I desired your advice I would ask for it, querida. That is certainly not the reason that I brought you to Paris.”

A sharp, ridiculous pain raced through her. Why did she think that she could reason with this man? He obviously considered her opinion beneath his consideration.

“Of course not,” she said bitterly. “I am merely the means for you to lure your prey. And of course, a convenient body in your bed.”

A sense of prickling danger filled the carriage as he gave a short, humorless laugh.

“Not even a fool would ever consider you convenient.”

Raine ignored the lethal softness of his tone and the relentless expression that tightened his features. She had been forcibly reminded of her shameful position in his life and she wanted to strike out at him. To punish him for not giving a bloody damn for her own feelings.

“Then release me,” she charged. “I have served my purpose. Send me back to England and be done with it.”

His green eyes flamed with an unfathomable emotion as his arms abruptly wrapped about her and he hauled her onto his lap.

Philippe felt his control snap as her words sent a flare of possessive fury raging through his body.

It was enough that she chided him as if he were a witless idiot. That she thought to badger him to feel sympathy for the man determined to destroy his family. But to actually demand that he release her…

“Never. You are mine, Raine. Nothing will change that.”

Her mouth parted in protest, but Philippe swooped down to cover her lips in a possessive kiss. He wanted to brand her. To prove to her once and for all that there was no escape for either of them.

Sweeping his tongue into her mouth, he tasted her sweet freshness. Meu Deus, he needed to be inside her. He needed to have her spread beneath him so that he could claim her in the most primitive means of all.

With exquisite timing the carriage rolled to a halt in the gardens of his brother’s cottage and, keeping Raine cradled to his chest, Philippe vaulted from the carriage and headed directly toward the kitchen door.

He ignored the raised brows of the elderly cook and housemaids that swiftly scurried out of his path. Unlike Raine he felt no need to hide their intimate liaison. Especially not from a handful of servants.

Using the servants’ staircase, Philippe climbed to the upper floor that contained the rooms he shared with Raine. Once in the bedchamber, he kicked the door shut and slowly allowed her to slide to her feet.

Her dark eyes smoldered as she glared at him with an anger that matched his own.

“I am not a bundle of rubbish to be hauled about, sir,” she stated, her cheeks flushed. “I am perfectly capable of walking where I wish to go.”

“But you might not have wished to walk where I wanted you to go,” he pointed out. “I have simply ensured there was no tedious argument.”

Her chin tilted. “Only a bully must use his superior strength to win an argument.”

His gaze blazed over her stiff body, lingering on the frantic pulse at the base of her throat. He had made love to her a dozen times over the past days. He had tasted every inch of her ivory skin, he had tutored her in pleasuring him with her hands and mouth, he had listened to her sweet cries of fulfillment as he plunged them both to climax.

He knew the curves of her body more intimately than his own.

This was the point that he began to find his lovers a bore. No matter how hot a passion might flame it was destined to burn out. Usually as fast as it had sparked.

He should be packing her bags and sending her on her way.

Instead his entire body was throbbing with a hunger that he was beginning to fear would never be assuaged by any other woman.

Hell and damnation.