The Savage

“Sure you are. You want a pale-skinned, soft-handed pansy to do your bidding.”

Summer bristled. “I want a gentleman for a husband, yes.”

“Well, you damn sure didn’t get one.”

“That is altogether too obvious!”

“Well, I didn’t get what I wanted, either,” he lied. “I want a woman who’ll be honest with me, not try to work her wiles on me every time she wants something.”

Glaring at him, Summer rose up on her knees. “You should have thought of that before you forced me to accept your proposal! You were the one who insisted on this marriage!”

“Yeah, and it’s high time you remembered you’re my wife!”

By now Lance had risen to his knees also, and his face was cruel when he reached out for her and caught her arms. Summer’s flashing green eyes suddenly sobered with wariness, and perhaps a little fear.

Sliding his right hand down her arm, he closed his fingers around her wrist. When she tried to pull away, he held it captive. Slowly, inexorably, Lance forced her hand up and pressed her palm against his bare chest.

“Touch me, princess.”

“Lance, no…”

“Oh, yes. You’re going to learn not to be afraid of me.”

Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her closer, even as she tried to push him away. Giving no quarter, he moved her palm over his chest, compelling her to feel the smooth naked flesh there, the masculine nipples, the flexing muscles of his rib cage, the hard, flat plane of his abdomen.

Summer closed her eyes. “Please, I don’t want this…”

“On our wedding night you wanted it.”

“I…I didn’t…”

Releasing her wrist, his hand rose to cover her breast, and Summer gave a soft gasp. “You remember our wedding night? What I did to you?” His fingers flexed, kneading the soft deerskin, until her gasp turned into a whimper.

“Your breasts are real responsive, princess.” His mouth sought her lips, brushing the corner. “You like my hands on you, don’t you?”

Summer shook her head, not wanting to surrender to his intimidation, or to the heated need that suddenly spiraled through her.

He gave her no choice. Catching her wrist again in his grip, Lance moved her palm downward, over the waistband of his breechclout, beneath the front flap. A layer of deerskin wrapped his loins, but she could feel the stiff bulge beneath the supple leather, the hard ridge of his masculinity.

He pressed harder. “Do you feel what you do to me?” he whispered against her mouth. “Don’t you want to know what it’s like to have this buried inside you? Haven’t you ever wondered what it feels like to have a man moving between your legs?”

Wondered? How could she not wonder? Ever since their wedding night, she hadn’t stopped thinking about what had happened between them, what Lance had left unfinished. What it would have felt like to become fully a woman. His woman.

“No,” she whispered in protest.

“You don’t even know what you’re missing, princess.” His voice was rough and silky…seductive and threatening, all at once. “What you felt before—what I made you feel—that was only the beginning.”

He moved their clasped fingers, edging beneath a fold of the loincloth, bringing her in direct contact with his manhood. Summer gasped at the feel of the hot, rigid flesh beneath her hand, and immediately Lance took advantage. Covering her parted lips with his, he thrust his tongue deeply in her open mouth.

His kiss was a simulation of sexual possession, shockingly graphic, intensely and deliberately erotic, while he forced her to touch him, molded her fingers against his hot sex.

Summer was panting for breath when she finally managed to pull her mouth away. “No…please…”

Lance suddenly let her go. Muttering a violent oath beneath his breath, he abruptly stood up.

Quivering, she looked up at him. He was staring down at her, his black eyes alive with an emotion that was stronger than hunger, more intense than want.

Shaken, she could only stare back at him.