Page 49 of Tempting Fate
This would be good as new in two weeks or less.
The entire time, he’d expected his arousal to abate. The pain should have deflated it, the tedium of the stitching and, yes, the sight of his own blood.
But nothing would, it seemed. He’d been in some state of arousal since they’d kissed. Even while killing her enemies. Even while hating and berating himself.
All his cock seemed to do was consistently pulse with increasingly incessant demand.
He looked at his torso in the mirror, etched with tattoos and bound with gauze, at the tiny plaster below his hairline.
God, he was such a fool. To have imagined a sexual response in her eyes? In what sort of dream did he exist?
He’d never had a woman so close to him before. Never felt the soft curves of a female body pressed against his. Never thought of the erotic cleft between breasts as a place for his cock to find pleasure.
A surge of agonizing lust weakened his knees.
Unable to stop himself, he released the placket of his trousers and licked his palm before gripping himself. Biting his lip against the pleasure/pain of flesh too long denied, he worked his hand over his cock.
Arching his neck, he leaned his hip against the counter, and closed his eyes.
The rough skin of his hand was a hollow solace, incomparable to her softness. The grip of his palm, the only pleasure familiar to him, was often quick and efficient.
Something to alleviate pressure.
This time, he caressed his own skin as he imagined she might do. Running from base to tip with long, slow strokes. He knew the images pouring down behind the backs of his eyelids were degrading to her innocent loveliness.
But now he knew the warmth of her touch, the curiosity of her tongue, the slick magic found in the depths of her delectable mouth. How would those perfect, Cupid’s-bow lips look stretched to wrap around the head of his…
The sharp jolt of a climax sliced through him, this one gathering from nowhere and striking like a blade in the dark.
His limbs locked, his hand quickening its pace as now, in his mind’s eye, those breasts were exposed. Pink-tipped and lovely.
He gasped and wrenched as pleasure pulled liquid warmth from his body, imagining anointing her flesh with it.
Of her accepting the slick leavings of his lust in her mouth, on her breasts.
Fuck. He was an animal for wishing such things upon her.
And yet, he’d return the favor. He would do anything for her. To her. He’d debase himself to a ridiculous degree if she asked him.
Or better yet, commanded him.
Christ. Nothing would please him more.
And nothing could be further from a possibility than making love to Felicity Goode.
Chapter 9
A week later
Felicity used the sound of the water pump to cover that of her tears.
She’d kept them at bay until Titus left after unwittingly dropping a fragmenting explosive into the middle of her already shattered nerves.
By habit, she searched for Gareth in the garden beyond the endless beads of rain sluicing down the glass enclosure on all sides. He’d made himself scarce the moment her brother-in-law had appeared in the courtyard to deliver his news in the glasshouse.
No doubt, her personal guard meant to give her some privacy with her family, but it appeared that he’d quite vanished.
Because he never shirked his duty, she knew he was nearby.
