Page 21 of The Billionaire's Bargain
The moment her body collided with his, the protest died on her tongue. Desire—unwanted, uncontrollable and greedy—swamped her. Her fingers curled into his sweater in an instinctive attempt to hold on to the only solid thing in a world that had constricted then yawned endlessly wide, leaving her dangling over a crumbling edge.
“Isobel.” Her name, uttered in that sin-on-the-rocks voice, rumbled through her, and she shook her head, refusing to acknowledge it—or the eruption of electrical pulses that raced up and down her spine. “Look at me.”
His long fingers slid up her back, over her nape and tunneled into her hair. She groaned, unable to trap the betraying sound. Not when his hand tangled in the strands, tugging her head backward, sending tiny prickles along her scalp. She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, locking down on another embarrassing sound of pleasure.
“No,” he growled, pressing his thumb to the center of her abused lip and freeing it. With a low, carnal hum, he rubbed a caress over the flesh. “Don’t hold back from me. Let me hear what I do to you.”
Oh, God. If she could ease her grip on his shirt, she’d clap her palms over her ears to block out his words. She hadn’t forgotten how his voice had aided and abetted his touch in unraveling every one of her inhibitions the night of the blackout. It was a velvet weapon, one that slipped beneath her skin, her steel-encased guards, to wreak sensual havoc.
“Look at me, sweetheart,” he ordered again. This time she complied, lifting her lashes to meet his golden gaze. “Good,” he murmured, giving her bottom lip one last sweep with his fingers before burying them in her hair so both hands cupped her head. “Keep those fairy eyes on me.”
Fairy eyes.
The description, so unlike him and so reminiscent of the man in the dark hallway weeks ago, swept over her like a soft spring rain. And then she ceased to think.
Because he proceeded to devastate her.
If their first kiss in the dark weeks ago started as a gentle exploration, this one was fierce. His mouth claimed and conquered, his tongue demanding an entrance she willingly surrendered. Wild and raw, he devoured her like a starving man intent on satisfying a bottomless craving. Again and again, he sucked, lapped, dueled, demanding she enter into carnal battle with him.
Submit to him. Take him. Dominate him.
With a needy whimper that should probably have mortified her, she fisted his shirt harder and rose on her toes, granting him even more access and commanding more of him. Angling her head, she opened her mouth wider, savoring his unique flavor, getting drunk on it.
But it wasn’t enough. Never enough.
“Jesus Christ,” he swore against her lips, nipping the lower curve, then pressing stinging kisses along her jaw and down her throat.
Kisses that echoed in her breasts, sensitizing them, tightening the tips. Kisses that eddied and swirled low in her belly. Kisses that had her thighs squeezing to contain the ache between her legs. Already a nagging emptiness stretched wide in her sex, begging to be filled by his fingers, his cock. Didn’t matter. Just as long as some part of him was inside her, branding her.
The thought snuck under the desire, and once it infiltrated, she couldn’t eject it. Instead it rebounded against her skull, loud and aggressive.Branding me. Branding me.
And Darius would do it; he would imprint himself into her skin, her body until she couldn’t erase him from her thoughts...her heart. Until he slowly took over, and she ceased to exist except for the sole purpose of pleasing him...of loving him.
No.No, damn it.
Never again would she allow that to happen.
With a muted cry, she shoved her palms against his chest, lunging out of his embrace, away from his kiss, his touch.
Their harsh, jagged breaths reverberated in the kitchen. His broad chest rose and fell, his piercing gaze narrowed on her like that of a bird of prey’s, waiting for her to make the slightest move so he could swoop in and capture her.
Even as her brain yelled at her to get the hell out of there, her body urged her to let herself be caught and devoured.
“No,” she whispered, but not to him, to her traitorous libido.
“Then you better go,” Darius ground out as if she’d spoken to him.“Now.”
Not waiting for another warning, she whipped around, raced down the hall and bounded up the stairs. Once she closed the bedroom door behind her, she stumbled across the floor and sank to the mattress.
Oh, God, what had she done?
The no-sex rule had been hers. And yet the first time he’d touched her, she’d burned faster than kindling in a campfire.
Desire and passion were the gateways to losing reason, control and, eventually, independence.
Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
She’d heard the quote many times throughout her life. But never had it been so true as this moment.
