Page 36 of Rules for Heiresses
She wanted to lick him.Devourhim.
In a mindless haze, she leaned down to press a kiss to his shoulder, and Courtland twisted in the same motion, capturing her parted lips with his. She gasped. He groaned. The kiss was not gentle. Teeth scraped against teeth. His mouth widened on hers, his tongue delving deep, taking control and claiming her with every demanding stroke. Undeterred by his ferocity, she leaned in, wanting more and giving him no quarter, her pent-up desires as greedy as his.
Courtland’s hand reached up to cup her nape, holding her in place as he drank from her lips, drawing moan after ragged moan from the depths of her. With a smothered rumble of his own, he yanked her into his lap without breaking their carnal connection. Ravenna gasped into his mouth. Oh, good gracious, he was fully aroused, his stiffened length prodding through the layers of her riding habit to tempt the hot, simmering space between her thighs.
Her core ached, her nipples puckered beneath her bodice, and she hadn’t even yet put her hands on him.Touch him, yes! Greedy palms traced down the carved planes of his chest, the ridges of his tight pectoral muscles as impressive as the ones on his back. Crisp hair tickled her fingers. If he ever released her lips, she’d feast on that sight as well…see if her nightly fevered imaginings matched up with the reality.
“How I want you,” he muttered against her mouth.
Want.It was such an ineffective word to describe the sheer need barreling through her body with the force of a torrent, but Ravenna nodded, unable to do anything else. Courtland’s eyes glowed like pools of midnight. She’d never seen them so full of reflective light, so full of melting desire. If he wanted to strip the dress off of her, she’d agree to that, too.
“Then take me,” she said. “I’m yours.”
“Mine.”
Ravenna blinked. Was the whispered word a question? A rhetorical one? His eyes ravaged hers, so many emotions barreling through them: need, confusion, worry, sadness, and finally, the creeping arrival of the grim, implacable resolve she was used to.
“Don’t, Courtland, please,” she whispered. “Be with me.”
“Fuck, this is impossible!” The cry was bitterly furious as one hand fisted in her hair and the other in her skirts. His forehead pressed against hers, his heady male scent surrounding her. “I can’t. Wecan’t.”
“Why? I’m here…willingly. I want this, too.”
“This is lust, Ravenna,” he replied through his teeth. “That’s all this is, and we both know that.”
She blinked her confusion. “So what?”
“It’s a fool’s cause. The sooner we accept that, the better off we will be.”
The blunt words were shocking, but nothing could hurt as much as when he lifted her off of him in one swift move and stood, reaching for his discarded shirt. She watched in silence as he put himself to rights, covering up that beautiful body of his…hiding himself from the world—fromher—once more.
“Why would you say that? Surely, we can make the best of this, even if it means we seek comfort in each other? We’ve married for better or for worse.”
“We might be husband and wife for now, but I am not the man for you, Ravenna.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Getting more deeply involved with me will muddle things for both of us. It will ruin things for you and the future you deserve. I won’t take that from you.”
Ravenna blinked, trying to understand. Was he talking about his birth? She shook her head. “You know I don’t care about any of that, and besides, that’s my decision to make.”
His eyes were bleaker than she’d ever seen them. “You should care. Blood makes a man.”
“Blood is a bodily fluid that keeps us alive. It has little to do with who we are and what we make of ourselves.”
“Said like a woman who has lived a charmed life.”
The words were soft but gutting, and her breath hissed out on a pained exhale. “I might not walk in your shoes, Courtland, but please stop treating me as if I’m incapable of learning. As if I have no hope of empathizing.”
“You don’t. How could you?”
His eyes widened as she whirled away from the desk. “I can try. And before you ask me why, it’s because I care about you! I always have. This is aboutyouandme. I think you’re afraid, Courtland.” She ignored the beat of the muscle in his cheek and the layers of hardness in his eyes. “You’re keeping me at a distance because you’re terrified to let anyone in. You’re terrified to let someone get close to you, and you know it.”
“Have a care, Ravenna.”
She frowned at him. “Who hurt you so badly?”
“I am warning you, that is enough. Cease this.”
“Why, Courtland?” Ravenna exhaled, her chest aching with a heart-wrenching need to comfort him. Whatever he felt about not deserving her didn’t come from others, it came fromhim. From some place deep down inside that no one could breach, not even her. “Nothing you can say will push me away.”
“Sure about that?”
