Page 24 of Pride: The Rogue
His tender kiss resurrected the accelerated beat of her heart. Livian’s pulse raced not from fear, but the mesmerizing quality of that—
“Are you looking for comfort?” he murmured, his tone, so singularly fierce as to never be mistaken for silky, entranced Livian. “I can give you that.”
He already was, and Livian wanted nothing more than to be held—even if it was by this dark stranger.
Mr. Latimer’s voice broke through her mind’s confused musings.
“Or,” that slight emphasis placed a suggestiveness to his next question, “are you looking for company?” he whispered, trailing a path of kisses lower. “I can offer both, darlin’.”
Mr. Latimer traveled his questing lips along the curve of her cheek.
Livian stiffened. “Are you attempting toseduceme, Mr. Latimer?” The breathless quality of her rejoinder ruined any attempt at clear outrage.
“If you have to ask, I’m doing a poor job of it, sweetheart.” He touched his lips to the edge of her ear, and his warm breath fanned her skin. “I’m going to have to fix that…immediately.” A wicked promise hung on that last spoken word.
Slap him.
Run.
Knee him in the groin.
Everything Livian knew she should do, shecouldn’t.
Her belly fluttered in such a way she remained motionless in this warrior’s arms.
Then, he drew the shell of her ear deep into his mouth and suckled the sensitive flesh. Her body went hot all over, and her eyes slid closed. She’d never been kissed, not once. Now to have her first, in this way, with a stranger sucking and nipping at that flesh sent a sharp ache to that forbidden place between her legs.
She moaned softly.
His broad chest rumbled with amusement, and she felt that sonorous swell all the way through her being, as welcome and quixotic as his kiss.
“Imagine that,” he whispered. “It turns out I don’t mind your choosing my bed over Mr. Lovelace’s, after all, sweetheart.” Then, he glided his enormous palms under her buttocks and drew her against the hard ridge of his shaft.
Livian gasped.
“Aye, there’s more of that, I promise,” he tempted, taking Livian’s s shocked exhalation as the wanton eagerness of some tart.
“Mr. Latimer,” she began pertly, but again, her chastisement emerged solid as air. “You, sir—”
“Do you have a name?” He rubbed his enormous length in the same smooth circles against her belly. He moved his lips near hers. “That is, other than Mrs. Lovelace.”
“Other than Mrs. Lovelace?” she squawked. Livian immediately brought her palms against his chest and made to shove him away a second time this night, which had contained an eternity of experiences.
“Should I take that as a ‘no’?” he drawled huskily, with so much of his smug arrogance, the hypnotic hold he had over her broke.
Shrieking, Livian shoved Mr. Latimer away, and raced to the other side of the bed.
“Howdareyou?” she hissed between her teeth.
He eyed her with an infuriatingly crooked smile. “Is this where you feel you have to show some modesty and act all aghast?”
Livian saw red. “It is not an act,” she gritted out. “Howdareyou put your hands on me?”
His gaze darkened. “I felt you trembling, in my arms and heard those hungry little moans of yours, darlin’”
She gasped. “Why, I never—”
“Have a care, wench,” he said, warningly. “I’ve been patient,toopatient—”
