Mastered by Love (Bastion Club 8)

Knew it beyond question.

She read as much in the subtle shift of his features, in the suddenly intent—ruthlessly intent—look that flared in his eyes.

She panicked. The instant her feet touched earth, she forced in a breath, opened her lips—

He bent his head and kissed her.

Not gently.

Hard. Ravenously. Her lips had been parted; his tongue filled her mouth with no by-your-leave.

He marched in and laid claim. His lips commanded, demanded—rapaciously seized her wits. Captured her senses.

Desire rolled over her in a hot wave.

His, she realized on a mental gasp, not just hers.

The realization utterly dumbfounded her; since when had he desired her?

Yet the ability to think, to reason, to do anything other than feel and respond had flown.

She didn’t at first realize she was kissing him back; once she did, she tried to stop—but couldn’t. Couldn’t drag her senses from their fascination, from their greedy excitement; this was better than she’d dreamed. Regardless of all wisdom, she wasn’t able to disengage, not from him, not from this.

He made it harder yet when he angled his head, slanted his lips over hers, and deepened the kiss—not by degrees, but in one bold, senses-shattering leap.

Her hands had fallen to his shoulders; they gripped, clung as their mouths melded—as he relentlessly pressed his advantage, rolled over her defenses and drew her with him into the scorching, shatteringly intimate exchange. She couldn’t comprehend how his rapacious kisses, his hard hungry lips, his bold thrusting tongue, caught her, trapped her, then delivered her up, captive to her own need to respond. It wasn’t his will making her kiss him so damningly eagerly, as if despite all good sense, she couldn’t get enough of his thinly veiled possession.

She’d always known he would be an aggressive lover; what she hadn’t known, would never have guessed, was that she would respond so flagrantly, so invitingly—that she would welcome that aggression, seize it as her due and demand more.

Yet that was precisely what she was doing—and she couldn’t stop.

Her experience with men was limited, but not nonexistent, yet this…was something entirely beyond her ken.

No other man had made her heart thud, made her blood sing, sent it racing through her body.

With his lips on hers, with just a kiss, he’d transformed her into a greedy wanton—and some part of her soul sang.

Royce knew. Sensed her response in every fiber of his being. He wanted more—of her, of her luscious mouth, of her blatantly inviting lips. Yet beyond his own hunger lay the wonder of hers, a temptation like no other, one every primitive instinct he possessed had fixed upon, unswervingly fastened on as the most direct and certain route to appeasing his own, already tumultuous needs.

Sunk in her mouth, he wasn’t thinking. Only feelings registered—the spike of disbelief when he’d realized what she’d been hiding—that she did indeed respond to him vibrantly, instinctively, most importantly helplessly—that despite his experience, his skills, she’d pulled the wool thickly and completely over his eyes…and a wave of hard anger that the agonies he’d suffered over the past weeks while subduing his lust for her hadn’t been necessary. That if he’d given in and kissed her, she’d have yielded.

As she was now.

She was helplessly in thrall to the desire, the passion, that had erupted between them, more powerful, more driven from having been denied.

Relief swam through him; he would no longer need to suppress his lust for her. Expectation flared at the prospect of giving it full rein. Of indulging it to the hilt. With her. In her.

In the instant before he’d kissed her, he’d looked into her face, into her gorgeous autumn-rich eyes—and had seen them widen. Not only with the realization that he’d learned what she’d been hiding, not just with apprehension over what he might do, but with sensual shock. That was what had sent her eyes flaring, all rich browns and welcoming golds; more than experienced enough to recognize it, he’d instantly taken advantage.

He’d seen her lips part, start to form some word; he hadn’t been interested in listening. And now—now that she was trapped in the web of their desires—he was intent on only one thing. On possessing what he’d wanted to seize for the last too many days.

On possessing her.

She was clinging to his shoulders, as deeply ensnared in their kiss as he. Her knees had weakened; his hands locked about her waist, he held her upright.

He didn’t even need to think to steer her back, shouldering her horse aside as he guided her back until her spine met the bole of the nearest useful tree.

She instinctively braced against it. He wedged his right knee between her thighs, the hard muscle of his thigh riding against hers, holding her in place as he released his grip about her waist, easing back from the kiss as, hard palms to the velvet of her habit, he skated his hands, slow and deliberate, up, over her ribs, and closed them possessively about her breasts.