The Edge of Desire (Bastion Club 7)

When next he freed her lips, she breathed back, “I’ll think about it.”

She could imagine handing him the reins, as she’d recently done, but she couldn’t see him taking them from her without her leave, without her explicit consent.

His smile took on an edge. “You might find that difficult.”

His eyes, dark with a promise she couldn’t—didn’t know enough to—read, held hers, then he bent his head and his lips found hers.

In a kiss so scorching it curled her toes. That had her sinking her fingertips into his skull just to hold on to sanity.

His hands released her face, drifted away—for a moment she didn’t know to where—long enough to have her senses stretching, searching….

Long enough to have her nerves tight with anticipation when he closed one hand about her breast. Her breath caught, hitched; he kneaded, claimed, possessive beyond question, and her heart started to race.

As she felt his other hand pass across the back of her waist, then slide slowly down, tracing, claiming, to ultimately splay over her bottom and hold her, press her helplessly to him as he once again shifted against her.

A promise explicit both in intent and unscreened desire.

He kneaded her breast, kneaded her bottom, and filled her mouth, the heavy thrust of his tongue mimicking what he intended—and she wanted—to come. His touch wasn’t gentle, yet neither was it rough; he was far from untutored, knew just how dominant he could be without awakening her resistance.

He knew her too well; her senses reeling, her wits long gone, sensation her only guide, she reveled nonetheless, amazed and eager to engage with him—this male she’d never before encountered.

Older, wiser, and infinitely more knowing.

More threat to her, and her senses—and she knew it.

But she’d always loved playing with fire.

Christian had a plan. He had no idea if it was wise or not, but now he’d taken the first steps, he couldn’t draw back. Couldn’t put the genie of his possessiveness back in its bottle, not without first paying its price.

Not without first indulging it to the full.

So he filled his hands and his senses with her. Gorged on the bounty of her mouth, fully yielded, gloried in the knowledge she was under his hands and would do all he wished, everything he wished, yield every last gasp he wished tonight.

They’d never had barriers between them, not long ago. But long ago he hadn’t spent years believing she’d betrayed him, only to learn that wasn’t the case and he was the one at fault. Only to learn that she wasn’t yet ready to forgive him. To welcome him back into her arms, into her body. Into her heart and soul.

The warrior in him had needs, needs his more civilized self held in check. But tonight she needed distraction—tonight she needed something more than his civilized self could, or would, offer.

So he’d dropped the shields he’d learned to employ, and let the genie of his warrior self free.

Now he had to feed it.

She had to appease it.

To be what he needed, give all he needed.

Surrender as needed.

Everything.

He backed her, steered her, not toward the bed but away from it. To the window, uncurtained, where moonlight spilled in. He halted when they stood within the silvery shaft, hauled her even tighter against him, angled his head and deepened the kiss, until she was gasping. Mentally reeling. Too overwhelmed to deny him.

Lifting his

head, grasping her waist, he turned her. Set her to face the window, then stepped close behind. Slid his hands around her and filled them with her breasts, closed his hands and felt her sway.

He took a moment to savor her struggle to breathe, to sense the thudding of her heart. Then he bent his head and set his lips to the sensitive hollow beneath her ear.

She shuddered, leaned back against him. He kneaded her breasts, already firm and swollen, already peaked, straining beneath her bodice. He listened to her gasps, orchestrated, sensed when the line where pleasure became pain was approaching.