Page 337 of From Rakes to Riches

He stilled then, his grip on the flesh of her hip bruising as the only sound in the night was the rasp of his panting breaths.

“Damn you,” he finally snarled. “Damn you for...”

For what?

She never had the chance to ask.

He drove inside her with one searing, merciless thrust. Penetrating not just her body, but searing her very soul.

There was a momentary sharp pain as flesh still tender from the previous night struggled to contain him once again.

Biting her lip, Mercy forced herself not to gasp, because she wanted this. Needed it. Craved the violence of this storm between them. She threw her head back and pressed her body toward him. Taking him impossibly deeper. Until the bones of his hips met the soft flesh of her ass.

With a low, appreciative sound, he set a rhythm as relentless as he was. His cock parting her, filling her, injecting her with currents of lightning-quick pleasure as he drove so deep, she thought at times he caressed her womb.

She could feel his heartbeat inside of her as her intimate muscles gripped and goaded him with lugubrious tension, unwilling to release him each time he withdrew.

He gripped her dress, holding it like the reins of a horse as he drove deep and hard, bucking her forward with the force of his thrusts. He held her captive as he undid her completely.

Mercy said his name. Then she screamed it.

Bending over her, his hand reached around and covered her mouth.

She could taste her own slick desire on his skin, and she bit into the rough pads of his fingers as he crippled her with release. Relentless spasms uncoiled within her, thundering through her veins with such astounding force she couldn’t help but bear down against the overwhelming bliss.

An inhuman sound tore from him, then another, as his impressive muscles locked into a jerking tempo.

His cock swelled impossibly larger inside of her the moment before a rushing jet of warmth bathed her womb, heightening her own climax until stars danced in her periphery, threatening to steal her consciousness.

And why not? He was a consummate thief, after all.

She’d never offered him her heart.

But he’d taken it all the same.

15

Damn her.

Damn her for making him feel more alive than he ever had, on the night he was supposed to die. For teaching him what hope felt like. For making him wonder what a future might be.

Damn her for changing everything. His plans. His mind.

His heart.

What was happening? He’d been a man of absolute resolve and relentless, one-minded orientation untilthiswhirlwind of a woman touched down in his life.

She challenged everything he’d known to be true.

It was more impossible between them now than it had ever been. His machinations were a runaway train charging down a steep mountain.

Chased by an avalanche.

There was no stopping it.

Time was of the essence, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to bloody withdraw from the velvet warmth of her body, even long after the earth-shattering climax had passed.

How could he leave the world she inhabited? It’d somehow become impossible. Unthinkable.

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