Page 23 of The Duke and the Temporary Bride

“Not there,” he growled. “Here.” He slapped the space beside him.

“Here is fine.”

He groaned and rubbed his eyes again. “Do not make me ask you again.”

Clearly, he was not used to being turned down or denied. And while Selina knew that she should have just apologized and done as he asked, she had always been stubborn, and the thought of provoking his anger a little excited her more than it should have.

“S-So now you wish to control me. Two days of ignoring me and you chose this moment to—woah!”

Suddenly, Benedict’s large arm shot out and wrapped around her, lifted her into the air, and then planted her on his lap like a child who had misbehaved.

Typically, the moment she was on his lap, with his arm around her waist, her hand pressing against his chest to steady herself, their eyes meeting as the shock gave way to the realization of what had just happened and what it might mean, they both seemed to understand what a terrible mistake that was.

Not that either cared. Not immediately, anyhow.

“I—” His voice trembled, and a growl rumbled in his chest, making Selina’s inner thighs tingle. He looked up at her, his eyes flicking from her lips to her neck hungrily.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice now hushed.

With one arm around his back and the other resting on his naked chest, she could feel his heart racing.

“This… this marriage,” he began, barely able to concentrate, for his eyes were now on her lips. His hand, now on her waist, gripped her supple curves in a way that made her quiver. “It is…”

“Is it what?” She shifted slightly, her buttocks pressing against his crotch, making him stiffen.

She couldfeelhis manhood beneath her. It elicited an excitement in her that she had never known. A sense of control and power that she had over this beast of a man. It was stupid to think. It was wrong too. But she rocked her hips slightly, she felt him stiffen, and he groaned in a way that spoke of pleasure.

Selina had come in here to find a middle ground, and it seemed that she had found one.

Still looking down at him, she cocked an eyebrow as if to dare him. He hesitated… he tried to resist… he sucked air through his teeth, and she rocked her hips again.

Benedict roared as if he was unleashing the beast within, and his hand suddenly grabbed her by the back of the head and pulled her face down to his.

Predictably, she did not fight him.

Their lips met in an explosion of passion that had been building since even before they got married. The fury. The anger. The storm that brewed whenever they spoke. It roared fire and brimstone as their lips collided, as their mouths opened, as their tongues explored one another in ways that they had both spent hours thinking about.

Benedict kept one hand on the back of Selina’s head as the other squeezed her waist. She yelped and pulled back, her eyes flashing with the thrill, before taking his mouth once more. She nibbled on his bottom lip. Her hand, those claws, dug into his chest. It was ravenous and wild, unhinged in a way that only the truly depraved can ever understand.

And it might not have stopped either. For a few moments there, Selina did not want it to. She imagined him picking her up, tossing her on the bed, and taking her as was his right.

It was not the perfect marriage. It was not built on love and romance. But as the two kissed, she began to wonder if maybe that wasn’t so bad? If they could not love one another, then why could this passion not be their savior? Why nothaveone another like two animals in heat in the wild, in lieu of love?

Selina moaned as she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him hard, fully expecting him to give in and?—

“No!” Benedict tore his lips away and then, without thinking, lifted her off his lap and tossed her on the bed.

“Woah!” she yelped.

“I am sorry,” he apologized, stumbling back. “I should not have—that was—forgive me.”

She turned around on the bed, doing what she could not to look upset or broken. Truly, she was more shocked than anything, and as she observed her husband, she began to see him differently than she had since they first met.

Perhaps she was wrong about him? Perhaps he was not an animal, after all?

“Two months,” Benedict sputtered. “That is what I ask of you.”

“Excuse me?”

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