Page 47 of Carnal Wagers

Another slap hit. My cheek flared with dangerous warmth. A string of French burst out of her. She raised her hand again. This time, I caught her wrist mid-strike.

“Stop hitting me, woman.”

“Oh, good. You are back to your pleasant self.”

I wrenched her closer, forcing her to her knees before me. Nose to nose, close enough to taste her strawberry-tinged breath, I bared my teeth.

“This isn’t a game.”

Spittle flew between us, but she didn’t cower. Instead, her delicate hand tightened into a fist around my torn shirt, and my cock jerked at the power shift between us.

“You’d be dead without me,” she accused. “Be grateful. You’re a menace to yourself. What kind of person takes on seven armed men by themselves?”

“What kind of a woman jumps into a fray they don’t know?”

“This one.” She tried to pull away, but I wasn’t having it.

At the junction between her neck and shoulder, her pulse quivered, right where my teeth ached to bite down and taste the light sheen of her skin. Would it taste sweet like her perfume or tangy like her anger and self-righteousness?

Those types of lust-ridden thoughts were better ground to dust, but god help me, they wouldn’t leave me alone.

“Why?” I growled.

“Isn’t it obvious? They overpowered you. They would have killed you.”

“Never would’ve made it that easy for them.”

She scoffed. “Unbelievable.”

“Are you not going to thank me?”

“For what?”

One look at the bloody pulp at our feet stoked my rage once more. He almost clipped her.

She caged a chuckle behind closed lips. “You’re crazy if you expect me to thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

“I could have handled him.”

“Sure, you could’ve.”

Again, she tugged to get free, but I wasn’t letting her go. Not when I had this little stalker finally at my mercy. The flames of the fight still crackled in my ears, and its fire thrummed through my veins, not yet ready to burn out and die a slow death back into ennui. I was the live wire she zapped herself onto, and there was no decreasing my voltage. Not yet.

I jerked her onto my lap as my aching hand buried itself in her hair and captured her by the nape. Her thighs locked over mine, and her core wedged against my hardening groin. My shaft throbbed with need, shoving against my zipper.

A storm of emotions morphed her face as quickly as a hurricane. Anger, worry, confusion, so many more. It was difficult to keep track of.

“Tell me no.”

She wiggled in my lap as an answer, and the taut line of restraint between us snapped.

My mouth crushed down on hers. There was no softness. It wasn’t a gentle fusion of two people testing affection. This was craving and need. A scrimmage for dominance. A conduit for release. All that lingering anger and adrenaline crashed into it. Teeth clashed. Mouths devoured each other. Tongues battled. It was the collision of two storms, and lightning crackled between us. She yanked at my hair and nipped my lips. I squeezed her ass and hauled her against me. She dug her nails into my back, my open wounds zinging with pain. I thrust my clothed, rigid cock up the juncture between her legs and swallowed down her groans.

For the first time in years, I fell into the intimacy of another person, abstinence be damned. With her in my arms, working my erection through our clothes with every pump of her hips, everything else ceased to exist. There was nothing beyond her mouth and body. No dead. No injured. No gore. No drowning. Nothing but the taste of her surrender. Nothing but the feel of our tongues advancing and retreating for territory.

In the back of my mind, a warning pulsed. It raged from the other side of my haze. It screamed there was a reason I didn’t do this.