Moonwitch

The target of Kyle’s scowl, Selena fought the urge to cringe. His shirt was open at the neck, and she could see the corded muscles of his throat and the pulse that was beating furiously there. “Please… you’re frightening me.”

“Oh, famous. Cry foul. Plead feminine frailty.”

“Well, I can’t fight you! You’re much stronger than I.”

“It isn’t fair, is it? But then neither is it fair to force me into marriage.”

“I said you weren’t obliged to marry me.”

Kyle clenched his teeth in frustration. They were back to an impasse. Yet there had to be something he could do to convince her. Impatiently, he released her chin and shifted his grip to her arm, his fingers unintentionally brushing her breast. He was instantly aware of the contact. And so was she, he could tell by the furious blush that rose suddenly to her cheeks.

Selena attempted to ignore the effect of his unintentional caress. “Would you kindly,” she uttered icily, clenching her own teeth, “remove your hands from my person?”

It was a supremely proper response, just the kind he would expect from a woman of her reserved manner and social standing. She would make the perfect wife for a cold-blooded aristocrat, Kyle thought nastily. She’d obviously been raised to be prim, restrained, ladylike. From the cradle, well-bred ladies like her were taught to hold the physical side of marriage in aversion. Perhaps, though, he could use her reticence to his own advantage.

“You don’t want me to touch you, do you?” he demanded, deliberately running his fingers along the side of her breast, watching with grim satisfaction as Selena flinched. “Surely you know that as my wife, you would have to accept my attentions.” He bent closer, his face dark and threatening. “Shall I show you how I would assert my husbandly rights?”

He lowered his mouth and assaulted her lips with a controlled expertise that left her gasping. His tongue plundered her tender recesses, thrusting deeply, shocking her with its arousing warmth. When Kyle finally raised his head, Selena’s breasts were heaving in outrage and something else. Something very much like desire.

“You didn’t enjoy my lovemaking last night, did you, Miss Markham?” Kyle goaded, his callused palm gliding down her throat to lie against the rapidly beating pulse at its base.

Still reeling from his devastating kiss, Selena hardly understood the question. His lovemaking? No, after his initial passionate advances, she hadn’t enjoyed it at all. The act of consummation had been painful and rather undignified. If given the choice, she could happily live without it.

But that seemed to be precisely his point; she wouldn’t be given the choice. He bent again to let his lips hover over hers.

“You will have to get used to this if you’re my wife,” he warned, his breath warm and dangerous against her mouth. “You’ll have to be available to me whenever I want you.”

Suiting action to words, he pressed his tall, wickedly muscular body against her slim one. A blaze of excitement and tension leaped through Selena, her reaction a purely primitive response, woman to man…His body was hard and taut with sinew. She could feel its heat and vibrancy through her nightdress.

Helplessly, Selena stared up at him, two bright spots of color staining her cheeks.

His eyes smoldering, Kyle stared back at her. “Consider it, Moonwitch,” he prodded, his fingers threading through the pale tresses that spilled over her shoulders. “As my wife, you’ll be at my beck and call. I could take you anytime I please, anywhere I please.”

If he was trying to destroy her resistance, he was succeeding. His voice had suddenly grown husky with sensuality, gliding through her like a hot knife through butter. As if he might follow his voice, he fitted their bodies together from chest to thigh. Feeling the male part of him vital and pulsing against the juncture of her thighs, Selena tensed with a mingling of dread and wanton longing.

Her rigidity only encouraged Kyle to pursue his course of persuasion. Again he bent his head, although this time he didn’t kiss her. Instead his tongue flicked out to touch the corner of her mouth, sending a flame flickering through her to gather in the deep recesses of her body, between her thighs. As his lips trailed down the sensitive skin of her throat, Selena let her eyelids flutter closed.

“I would do this to you, for instance…” His large hand moved down her throat to cup the soft fullness of her breast, his thumb brushing her nipple, stroking until it stood rigidly erect. Selena was scarcely aware that the sharp gasp came from her own throat. “And this…” Kyle murmured. His other arm went around her, his fingers cupping her buttocks to bring her hips even closer to his. “I would take my pleasure of you at my leisure, whenever I wanted.”

A shudder shook her body.

“I would waken all the passion in that lovely, untutored body of yours—” Kyle broke off suddenly, realizing his mistake. He could feel his body throbbing at the image his own words were arousing.

Mentally flaying his thoughts into obedience, he made a fierce effort to control himself. “I would make you moan for me, Moonwitch,” he rasped against her silken throat. “I would make you scream with pleasure.”

Selena believed him; the fire streaking through her loins was so fierce it made her tremble. Of their own volition, her hands crept to his powerful shoulders, and she let her head fall back, giving him full access to her throat.

But he only bent further, his lips seeking her left breast, his mouth closing over the taut nipple, hot and moist even through the layers of muslin. Powerless, wanting, Selena arched her body upward against Kyle’s mouth.

Kyle groaned in response. This wasn’t working. He was driving himself insane. He could feel sweat break out on his palms as he lost the battle for control.

Selena sensed his struggle. Through the heated dimness that had enveloped her mind, she heard him groan softly. His hoarse whisper dredged from his throat “Devil take it, I can’t keep my hands off you.”

With an abruptness that left her swaying, Kyle tore himself away. He stood there at arm’s length, staring at Selena in the gasping silence as if seeing her for the first time, as if she were an apparition, his expression one of dismay, a look halfway between pain and pleasure.

She was glad for the support of the wall behind her back. Otherwise she might have fallen, her legs felt so warm and weak. Unsteadily, she fixed her gaze on his mouth, not comprehending why he had broken off their embrace.

Kyle hardly knew