King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

Oh, how she did not want him to go.

He did not go. For a long minute he looked down at the ground, and when he lifted his head, there was something in his eye that made her breath slow down and her heart speed up.

“Do you need anything?” she said. “Food?”

He shook his head.

“Oh, your money! That you gave me on the quay.” She started to turn to where she’d hidden it, in a pouch under the counter.

He put a hand on her arm, stilling her. “Keep it.”

“But—”

“Keep it.”

His fingers were warm bands encircling her upper arm. She looked into his eyes and felt oddly, shockingly bereft. “Oh, I wish—”

She cut the words short before they did something dangerous, like instill hope, in however small a degree.

He lifted a hand to her cheek, brushed a bent knuckle across it. “No, you don’t,” he murmured. “You do not wish for that.”

“Yes, I do.”

Faintly he smiled, but his voice was hard. “Lass, you do not want what I have.” As if to prove it, he overturned his hand and dragged his thumb roughly across her bottom lip.

All the breath came out of her in a hot rush. “Oh.”

It was a gasp of arousal, of desire and pent-up wanting, as far as she could retrieve the memory from the dusty cabinet of her mind. It made her want to weep for the lost memory of it.

He watched her with dark, unreadable eyes, then slid his thumb back again, a little harder, rolling her lip down the slightest bit.

She tipped her head back and let her lips part under the rough caress.

“That is a mistake,” he ground out. “You do not realize….” He shook his head once. “How much I want you.”

She stepped to him, pressed her breasts up against him. His thighs were hard against the front of hers, the hilts of his weapons bumped against her hips and belly, and dark, dangerous desire burned in his eyes. She wanted all of it. All of him.

“Show me.” She slid her arms around his neck. “For I have been dying to be wanted the way you do.”

Chapter Ten

LUST BARRELED through Tadhg in hot, charging waves, churning his every good intention like flotsam in a storm. Such a hard, throbbing fist of desire hadn’t gripped him in years, mayhap ever. It clamped down on him and yanked him forward.

He dragged her up against him until her curving body was touching his from knees to lips, then forced her mouth open and plunged his tongue in after. No slow seduction this; it was all fierce fire, raw desire. Possessive, assaultive, demanding, he opened her up, mined her deep, made her respond, gave her no room to resist.

She did not even try. She met every plunge of his tongue, every slanting, ravaging kiss, her arms around his neck, her breasts to his chest, kissing so hard their teeth clicked together.

He held her face between his palms and delved in deeper yet, tipping her backward, then ripped free and worked his way down her arched neck, until she was a cauldron of gasps and whimpers, driving him onward.

He slid his hands around to the sweet curve of her buttocks, fingers splayed wide. A rock-hard surge of lust coursed through him at the feel of her bottom in his hands, rocking for him, her breath ragged against his lips, her fingers tangled in his hair. He tightened his grip, holding her immovable, and rocked his hips forward in a fierce, salacious move, so she could feel the hard curve of his erection against her belly.

Instead of being aghast at the bold treatment, she shifted and, equally bold, pushed her small knee between his thighs, then rocked along the top of his thigh, pressing her leg against his hard cock.

Glorious woman. Tightening his hold, he lifted and planted her up against the wall behind them, hard, then stepped between her thighs, so her skirts dragged up on him. She flung her head back, gasping, then they froze and stared into each other’s eyes.

“Aye?” he growled, barely a question.

“Oh, aye,” she sighed, and leaned in to his mouth.