He kept towing her along. “Because you’re shortly going to need every last bit of it.”
She frowned harder, tried to peer around and see his face. His jaw was set; the planes she could see resembled chiseled granite. She pulled back, dug in her heels. “Why? And anyway, you can’t simply drag me off like this, like some”—with her free hand, she gestured wildly—“prehistoric caveman.”
He halted, turned, met her gaze, then yanked, sending her tumbling into his chest—into his arms.
They locked around her; looking down, he met her wide eyes. “I can. I have.”
He kissed her; what he’d left unsaid echoed through her brain. And now I’m going to ravish you.
The kiss stated that clearly; it was a storming that left her senses reeling and her wits disengaged.
That cindered every possible protest she might have made.
Her lips parted beneath his, gave before the devastating onslaught. He took her mouth, filled it and her with a heat that was already molten; hot as lava, he sent it flowing down her veins. His hands firmed on her back, holding her so she was acutely aware of his strength, and her relative weakness, then he molded her to him, making no secret of his desire, or his intent.
She clung to him, kissed him back, suddenly wanting as much as he, aware to her curling toes that this—this—was what she needed. This was the right answer—the answer she’d always longed for—to her question. He wanted her, desired her beyond doubt. If only…
As if he sensed her need, her real, impossible-to-state wish, he broke from the kiss, bent, and swept her into his arms.
He strode the last steps to the back door, juggled her and opened it, then strode through. His heels rang on the tiles as he made for the front hall, then he swung around and climbed the main stairs two at a time.
Clinging to his shoulders, she waited to be set down, but he didn’t so much as pause. Glancing at his face, she found it set, his expression resolute and uncompromising. He paused before the door at the end of the corridor; with a quick twist of his wrist, he sent it swinging, and carried her through.
He heeled the door closed; the sharp snap as it shut echoed through the room.
It was a large, airy chamber; that was all she managed to gather as he swiftly carried her across it. To the large bed.
Again, she waited to be set down—again, he surprised her. Effortlessly, he raised her, and tossed her onto the coverlet.
She gasped—gasped again as he joined her, as his weight landing beside her made her bounce—and roll toward him. He helped her along, one large hand wrapping about her hip and pulling her flush against him. With his other hand he f
ramed her face, held her still as his head came down and he covered her lips with his.
Fire. It poured from him into her, and ignited her starving senses. His lips moved on hers; he pressed her into the bed, and his tongue filled her mouth. No languor this time, just a burning, driving need that had her reaching for him, pulling him down to her, sinking her fingers into his shoulders, then spreading them, grasping his clothes, wanting—needing—to feel his body under her hungry hands.
He knew, understood. He drew back enough to shrug off his jacket; still trapped in the kiss, eyes closed, she searched and found the buttons of his waistcoat, frantically undid them. Then she pushed the halves wide and slid her hands over the fine linen of his shirt—over the hard ridged muscles beneath, up over the heavy planes of his chest.
Her touch—the heat of it, the flagrant greedy hunger of her fingers—distracted Michael. Eyes closed, sunk in savoring the wonders of her mouth, he paused…
She froze. Stopped. Suddenly hesitant.
He tore his mouth from hers. Groaned, “For God’s sake, don’t stop.” Then he plunged back into the rich honeyed pleasures of her mouth—and felt her hands attack him again.
Felt her need of him in a flagrantly animalistic way.
Then she found the hem of his shirt where it had come loose from his breeches, and slipped her hands—first one, then the other—beneath.
Touched him. Spread her greedy little fingers wide and tactilely devoured him. He could barely believe the heat, the intensity of the desire she sent raging through him with each evocative touch.
Each evocative claiming.
For it was that. He wasn’t sure she knew it, but he did. In the distant corner of his brain that still functioned, he knew, even as he groaned and urged her on, that he was surrendering—giving himself to her—that he would give whatever she needed to sate her.
Her hunger ran deep—deeper than he’d realized. He sensed it, sensed her response, her powerful yearning, through their kiss. They both held to the kiss avidly, their anchor, their most assured means of communication in a world suddenly full of heated longing that had reduced, drawn in to the limits of their tightly focused senses.
Riding the urgency of her unfurling desire, he mentally groaned and held his own back, let her take the first bite, at least enough to slake the edge from her appetite.
He managed to shrug out of his waistcoat; hands between them, he undid his cravat, then flung it away. Blindly groped, caught enough of his shirt to wrestle it up, then broke from the kiss to drag it off over his head.