Page 77 of My Rogue, My Ruin
“On the contrary,” he said, his lips skating over the delicate curve of her ear, and making butterflies take flight in her chest. “I believe our engagement ball was last night.”
His hands stayed where they were, gripping the edge of the desk. She turned away from his mouth and glanced at them; his knuckles were white from holding the desk so tightly.
“That does not make this right,” she said.
“Tell me you don’t want me to touch you again.” She straightened her head, and his mouth was at her ear once more, teasing her with its warmth. “Tell me you find me repulsive.”
Oddly enough, it didn’t sound like an arrogant challenge. It was almost as if he did want her to tell him those things. She stole another glance down at his hand at her side. It continued to grip the desk like it was his lifeline.
“Tell me, Briannon,” he whispered. “Tell me to leave, and I will.”
She turned her face up to his and, for the first time, saw the crusade he was waging inside of himself. Hedidwant her to tell him to leave. It would be the sane thing to do. The wise thing. All she had to do was open her mouth and repeat his command.Leave.One word, that was all it would take. He would sweep out of her study and back to Hadley Gardens, and she would be safe from ruination. She would be safe fromhim.
She closed her eyes in sublime rapture, her voice a tortured whisper. “I don’t want you to leave.”
A low groan built in the bottom of his throat. The tension blossomed between them, raw and powerful…and incredibly fragile. It held Brynn captive. “Then say yes,” he said. “Tell me I may touch you.”
Brynn arched toward him in a semi-trance, her eyes sweeping open. She swallowed hard, and her mouth shaped the words he was begging her to say. “Yes. Touch me.”
The words were wanton and vulgar, and yet she could not feel ashamed of them. They were honest. She wanted his hands on her again. She’d wanted it every moment of this last week. And right now, she could hardly say no, not with him looking at her the way he was, plying her with his heavy-lidded eyes and his tantalizingly close body. Brynn was acutely aware of how attractive he was—the smooth wings of his eyebrows, the sensual curve of his mouth, the sharp planes of his cheekbones. His eyes glittered with restrained passion. She licked suddenly dry lips.
The desk shook as he continued to grasp it. “Where? Tell me where to touch you.”
She blushed at his bidding. To know where she wanted his hands was one thing, but to tell him where he could put them…she couldn’t do it.
“I don’t know,” she managed to say.
He lowered his mouth to hers, but continued to speak, his lips brushing against hers in featherlight nudges. “If you cannot be more specific, I have my own ideas in mind.”
Finally, his hands came off the desk, but they still did not caress her—at least not her body. His fingers trailed down the linen of her dress, bunching the fabric so that the hem was starting to rise above her ankles.
Then her calves.
Then her knees.
Brynn gasped as his hot fingers slipped underneath her skirt and skimmed her thigh. She wore a pair of thin cotton bloomers, but she could still feel the heat of his palm as it rounded to the back of her thigh—and hiked her leg up so that her foot left the floor. She gasped, shock and desire filling her in frantic beats.
Desire won out as Archer stepped closer, tucking himself flush against her body. He brought her raised leg around his hip and hinged it there, her skirt tossed up around her knee. She felt him—allof him—and it stole away any shred of decency she had left.
He stared boldly into her eyes, daring her to look away or to blush at the bulging ridge of his desire pressing so intimately into the soft, yielding parts of her. But Brynn held his gaze, her breath coming in small, shallow huffs, her body feeling as if it were melting at the point where their bodies intersected. God help her, she wanted more.
A hint of a smile curved his perfect lips, so close to hers; all Brynn had to do was move forward an inch in order to claim them.
So she did.
Her bold but tentative kiss surprised him. She felt the squeeze of his hand on her thigh in response, and then heard another low groan in his throat, felt it reverberate through her. His tongue pushed past her closed lips with less tenderness this time. He stroked inside, while his hand… Brynn inhaled sharply when she realized where his hand, buried under her skirts, was traveling.
His fingers reached the waistband of her bloomers and tugged, pulling the undergarment lower around her hips.
“Archer—” she gasped.
“I told you I had my own ideas,” he replied before capturing her lips again.
His flattened hand scooped underneath the waistband of her bloomers and slid along her bare skin, curving around her buttock until he had it firmly in his palm. He kneaded her flesh, his fingertips stroking lower and inward, closer to the heart of her.
Brynn could not bring herself to twist away from his mouth in order to stop him. She was lost to the trembling sensations pulsing in the pit of her stomach. His lips were on hers, plying her with slow, sensual kisses, and with every push and pull of their mouths and tongues, the further away the rest of the room, the rest of the house and world became.
It was only she and Archer, his hands and mouth possessing her utterly. But as his hand swept over the top of her thigh and tugged her bloomers a little lower, she stiffened. She parted her lashes to see if the door remained shut, a small voice in her head begging her to see reason and sense. The door wasn’t locked. Anyone could walk in.
