Page 62 of A Deal with the Devil

“Sit still, firecracker.” His voice was rough now, threaded through with want and need. She was already gasping a little by the time she turned her head so she could claim his mouth, or him hers. It didn’t matter. It was enough that their tongues tangled, their breaths mingled. He made her feel as if she were floating, but also anchored so thoroughly and deeply to him that she could do anything. Ask for anything. Feel everything.

He drew her skirt up, fingers moving up her inner thigh until he cupped her quim in one big hand. “You’re wet for me,” he groaned as if she had offered him everything he had ever wanted. He lounged like a king, pinning her in place. Taking in order to give. Commanding her body better than she ever had.

It made her wild.

She rubbed against him, mindlessly seeking friction. He was stealing her breath with his breath, with his touch, stroking her bud, before the invasion of two fingers rubbing against her inner walls, stretching her just so. She gasped and he retreated, returned, sliding through her wet heat. She clutched his arm, frantic to get closer.

He winced. Barely, but it was enough to stop her. She froze. “Your arm.”

“To the devil with my arm.”

“Was that a pun?”

“No, a desperate attempt to keep you focused.”

“I am focused,” she said, reluctantly slipping off his lap. Her heart was still tumbling, pulse flinging through her from her throat to her quim. Her body tingled with the abrupt distance from him, her arousal disoriented, still seeking, searching. “You’re injured.”

“I’m fine.” He met her gaze, eyes glittering, mouth quirking. “Come here, firecracker.”

She took a step back, and even though she felt quite desperate, she was smiling. There was something new between them, something that was not all teeth. “You really are the Devil.”

“Let me prove it to you.”

“Even the Devil needs a rest,” she returned crisply, easing behind the table. It felt prudent to put something between them. The fanged desire still sparking though her was deeply unimpressed with her choice.

She didn’t much like it either.

“Kitty,” he murmured in a way that nearly had her moaning aloud. She swayed toward him.

“You’ll bleed on my floor,” she said, gripping the edge of the table hard enough to bite into her flesh. To clear her head. To stop her from reaching for him.

“I’ll clean it up.”

“I can’t exactly picture you holding a mop.”

“I’ll have Wulf clean it up,” he amended instantly.

She grinned. She couldn’t help it. Under the persona of hard, vengeful earl, there was a likeable man who did not take himself as seriously as the world thought he did. It was deeply appealing. She nearly told him she thought he was amiable just to see the expression on his face.

Instead, she forced herself back into the moment. An earl and a shopkeeper, a pretend betrothal to help her save her sister from a real one. Missing wives. Attacks on the street.

“Do we think it was Lord Portsmouth who sent the man with the knife?” she asked. “And was he sent for you? Or me? But why would he bother wanting to kill me?”

“If he was trying to kill you, he won’t see the dawn.” The glint in Devil’s eyes was glacial. The kind of fury that was so cold it nevertheless burned down entire cities.

Kitty blinked. “Oh my.”

So much for amiable. Unfortunately, this was equally attractive.

Misreading her, Devil reached for his shirt. Travesty. He should never wear a shirt. “If you wanted a different kind of help, you should have stolen from a milksop.”

“I am not very keen on being murdered, actually,” she said crisply. “So I am fairly certain I stole from exactly the right person.”

He blinked back at her. “You’re really not afraid of me, are you?”

She tilted her head. What a contradiction this man was: powerful yet oddly vulnerable, as though he was not used to being seen. Stoic and curious, cold and hot. Oh, she was in trouble. “Do you want me to be?”

“No,” he replied quietly. “Not you.”