Page 41 of Beloved Enemy
Not surprised, no.
She didn’t even gasp.
She’d wanted this, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that part of the reason she’d just thrown herself at him?
She whimpered again, with fantastic joy just now, and leaned into him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
While every inch of him was hard, his lips were soft. And yet, Reid Nicholson did not waste time with polite, permission-seeking reserve. His kiss was firmly insistent, the thrust of his tongue coming much sooner than her limited experience with first kisses suggested it might. Charlotte understood almost immediately that Reid was a very skilled kisser, the stroke of his tongue neither too quick nor too slow, the depth of his thrust neither too deep nor too shallow.
His kiss was perfect. And it went straight to her head, in the same way that a shot of tequila did, with heat and surprising potency. She clutched the wool of his breacan and tugged him closer at the same time she rose on her toes and kissed him back. Reid groaned and deepened the kiss, sliding his arms fully around her.
But while he devoured her, body and soul, she still had the presence of mind to wonder why he was kissing her. She wasn’t sure she’d noticed any evidence of such a desire. There hadn’t been any hints of this...had there? Were those lingering, sometimes brutal stares of his not only meant to figure her out—witch? Time-traveler? Liar?—but provoked by desire for her? Had he been, in those moments, thinking about kissing her? Or, trying to talk himself out of it?
She’d given some thought to her own desire for a kiss from Reid, and on more than one occasion had invented a list of reasons. Maybe she was kissing Reid—had wanted him to kiss her—as a way of escaping fear, maybe with some hope to diminish his dislike of her, or perhaps she was simply desperate to have someone hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. But in order for the last to be effective, she’d have to believe he cared for her, even a little bit. The kiss said he did, didn’t it? She refused to believe it was only a physicalthing, discounting her numerous, seriously unromantic reasons for wanting to be kissed by him.
Reid moved his hand around between them, covering her breast fully with his palm and fingers.
This, this changed everything, brought new concerns and questions. A kiss was fine, was safe despite the dizzying nature of it. But to go further, to fondle and touch, suggested a desire for more, and Charlotte wondered how far she’d let him go, how much she wanted from him. Or with him.
But then she couldn’t think, her senses battered and scattered by his touch, by the way he grazed his palm tantalizingly over the fabric covering her nipple, which had turned hard a minute ago, when first he kissed her.
When he trailed his lips down her jaw and throat, Charlotte threaded her fingers into his long hair and held him close. A soft mewl of delight escaped her lips when his thumb and forefinger kneaded the tight bud of her nipple. He supported her with one hand at her back and moved the other hand down over her hip and around to her butt, squeezing firmly, bringing her against him as his lips closed over the fabric of her dress and chemise, clamping onto the same nipple, pulling it between his teeth.
“Tell me to stop, Charlotte,” he warned, his voice raspy, “else I’ll keep going, taking what ye give.”
“Don’t stop,” she heard herself say, giving no thought to any other response. She wanted this, wanted him.
But Reid did not continue. As if the warning had rung sharply in his own ears, he paused and lifted his head. His nostrils flared and his chest rose and fell dramatically as did hers.
His eyes met hers, his gaze stark, a shadow of displeasure crossing his face.
Nooo, she whined internally, sensing a struggle within him. Charlotte tightened her fingers around his neck.
His gorgeous lips twisted in a discouraging fashion, and Reid clamped his iron fingers around her wrists, drawing her hands away from him.
“Dinna bewitch me,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “I will nae allow it.”
Bewitch?
“Ye are without honor then?” He fumed. “Ye would cuckhold the man who waits for ye in another time?”
Nonplussed, Charlotte staggered a step backward, dropping her hands when Reid released them. “The man who...” What man?” She had no one. She hadn’t dated in more than a year, and that man—Cal Grey, a friend of a friend—had been a waste of three months; initially, he’d been zealous in his pursuit, had showered her with time and attention and what had seemed genuine interest. After two months, after she’d slept with him, roles had been reversed, so that she felt like she was chasing him, and it had become clear that he’d gotten what he’d wanted. After a few weeks of sometimes one-sided, unfulfilled sex, he’d begun to distance himself. Admittedly, Charlotte hadn’t tried too hard to keep him or hold him—history had shown her she couldn’t make people like or love her—and when he eventually stopped texting and calling, she’d thrown in the proverbial towel without a backward glance.
“Ye said ye had someone waiting for ye,” Reid reminded her now, his tone laced with accusation.
“Oh!” She exclaimed slowly, recalling what she’d said in Kingswood’s hall yesterday. “Oh,thatman. Oh, no, no. I made him up,” she was quick to explain. “There is no man, no one waiting for me.”
“Ye’re nae...?”
Charlotte shook her head. “I’m single.” She stared at Reid, at his handsome savage face.But I don’t have to be. Maybe I don’t want to be, she thought dreamily.
Reid’s dark expression did not exactly jive with her suddenly hopeful thoughts.
“But I thought I was going home—Iwantto go home—and I didn’t want to...well, it doesn’t make sense to form attachments here in this time. So I thought to dissuade the...ah...” she let that trail off as his mien darkened, supposing that he might consider himself and what they’d been about to do anattachment. “And honestly, between you and me,” she said, trying to backtrack, so desperately wanting him to kiss her again, “I’m not interested in anyone... else.”
***
Reid glared at her, not entirely sure he believed her. His pulse still raced from the kiss, the taste of her lingering on his lips, making it difficult to focus. But the anger he felt was not just directed at her—it was also at himself. He’d lost control, given in to the allure of her, and now he felt the sting of it like a self-inflicted wound.
