Page 43 of Marrying the Enemy

“That look.” A rusty chuckle rattled from his chest, then his expression sobered. He cupped her face in two hands as though she was precious and worth gazing upon. “Every time we’ve come together, I’ve leapt on you like you were my last meal. I would have been so much more careful if I’d known.”

“It’s okay.” Her voice rasped from the bottom of her throat, cheeks stinging as she laid bare the truth. “I liked it.”

“I know you did,” he said throatily, making her want to pinch him. “I like that you match my appetite so closely, but let me have this.” He dropped a soft, soft kiss on her lips. A quest and a promise, one that made all the small defenses she managed to keep up against him shift and waver on their foundations.

I don’t know you, she wanted to say, but she was learning that he was capable of gentleness. He was almost tender in the way he reverently framed her face and brushed his lips across hers again and again, coaxing her to open for him. To cling and encourage and invite. To deepen the kiss by degrees until his kiss was all that she knew. All that she needed—to be held by him. Connected and suffused in these lovely, shimmering waves.

Her hands began to roam beneath his open shirt, exploring the warm planes and rough-smooth textures of his chest, his taut skin and the fine hairs and his pebbled nipples.

He sucked in a breath, abdomen contracting. He deepened their kiss, releasing her face to drag her into a more sensual embrace. The brush of his hot chest and crisp, open shirt against her mostly naked torso made her shiver.

Helplessness was stealing over her like the shadow of night. She would lose herself to him, she realized. When it came to enemies, he was the most insidious kind. He turned her against herself, weakening her from within.

She tried to take some measure of control by drifting her hands down to his belt.

He caught them and had them manacled behind her back before she’d realized how easily he could do it.

“I said slowly, Evie.”

A catch of alarm went through her, then her breasts felt the heat of his gaze. They swelled in her bra, hardening from only a look. Her nipples stung.

He watched his own finger slide under the navy blue strap, drawing it to fall off her shoulder.

Her breaths were uneven, her nervous system vibrating with excitement and anxiety as she tested the strength of his grip. Her movement shifted her against the ridge of his erection.

His gaze was molten gold as he flashed her a look.

She held his stare and pressed her hips harder into his.

“You’re the one who always breaks first,” he taunted as he ran his hand over her ribs and around to her spine, casual in his claiming of her exposed skin. Proprietary in the way he pushed his hand into the back of her cheekies and palmed a soft round globe.

“You like controlling me,” she accused.

“I like touching you,” he corrected and slid his hand around to the front of the midnight-blue lace that covered her mound. “I like seeing what my touch does to you. I like feeling it.”

She bit her lip, trying to keep her sob trapped in her throat, and closed her eyes as though she could hide from the fact that her folds were damp and swollen with yearning for the fingertip that delved and explored.

“Look at me,” he commanded quietly.

Her eyelids felt too heavy to lift, the exposure too raw. It hurt to let him see how much pleasure she derived from something so small as the light play of his touch against her most intimate flesh.

“Tell me when you’re close.” His voice had dropped into a low, hypnotic tone that centered her world on the glitter in his gaze and the lazy caress that drew her closer and closer to a dangerous precipice.

“Kiss me,” she begged in a whisper.

“Not yet. Keep looking at me.”

This was so flagrant! At least on the island, she’d had the dim light of the shadowy shack to hide behind. He was forcing her to let him see exactly how thoroughly he dismantled her with hardly any effort whatsoever. It was a show of dominance that was both disconcerting and a ferocious turn-on, making her squirm under the struggle.

Her heart was thundering, her skin burning. Her body grew taut with ever deepening arousal as he dipped and withdrew, caressed and circled and dipped again. She was caught in a slipstream of pleasure, arching ever tighter, breaths reduced to aching gasps of urgency.

“Please.” She licked her dry, panting lips, so close she wanted to scream. “Please, Dom.” She closed her eyes in bliss as the white-hot pleasure rose like the tide, about to consume her.

He withdrew his hand.

She snapped her eyes open to see the amused, gratified look on his face.

“You’re being cruel!” She struggled against his grip and he released her, only catching at her arms to steady her when she staggered drunkenly.

---