Page 68 of Noble Scoundrel

Singular and confusing.

Because in the moment before he’d started explaining how she could strike at his elbows or jab his throat to loosen his grip, she actually felt a strange rush of sexual exhilaration.

Up until that moment, she’d had no trouble focusing on the task at hand.

After that moment, however...

“Come on, duchess,” he said with a cocky wave of his hand. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up?”

She nearly growled but held it back, stepping toward him before turning in place to give him her back. But the second he stepped up behind her to wrap his great arms around her shoulders, crossing them over her breasts...she lost all rational thought.

Her senses became instantly overwhelmed by the strength of him standing so solid behind her, the heat of him surrounding her, the thud of his heartbeat, the stir of his breath. The raw, masculine sound he made when her buttocks bumped against his groin as she shifted her stance.

She also had to combat the tingle of her own skin—so sensitive and hot. The weakness in her knees. The tightness in her chest making it difficult to draw a full breath. The swirl in her belly and the insistent awakening pulse between her legs.

“Whenever you’re ready, luv,” he murmured huskily against her temple.

That did it. His use of the endearment sent a wave of sensual longing through her body. She sagged in surrender, which only allowed for more contact between their bodies. “I can’t.”

“You just need more practice. You’ve almost got it.”

“No,” she nearly shouted, tugging fiercely at his wrists to release his grip. “I need a moment.”

He let her go but didn’t back away from her. “D’you expect your enemy to give you a chance to think or rest?”

The derision in his voice had her whipping to face him, anger heating her face even more. “I’m not an idiot. I just need a second.”

“I should’ve known this’d be too much for you.”

“The training is not too much for me, you arrogant beast,” she said with a two-handed shove against his chest that didn’t budge him an inch. Putting all she had into her next shove, she pressed her palms to his solid chest as she nearly shouted, “You are too much for me.”

She realized what she’d admitted as his eyes flashed with understanding and his mouth widened into an infuriating grin. Releasing a raw sound of utter frustration and more than a hint of embarrassment, she spun around, intending to walk out of there as quickly as her tired legs could move.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Hale replied as he snaked an arm around her middle, drawing her back against him.

Her senses were instantly consumed by him—the solid warmth of his muscles, the smell of his skin, earthy and masculine, and his heavy voice in her ear and in her blood. It was exactly what she’d been trying to escape. Sparks tingled along her sensitized nerves and another wave of heat flooded her intimate flesh.

All of it magnified by a hundred.

Spinning in place before he could react, she tucked her foot behind his calf while shoving hard into his midsection. If he hadn’t already been a bit off-balance in his lunge to grab her, the desperate move never would have worked. As it was, it worked too well, instantly sending him toward the floor.

The only problem was that he still had a hold of her.

He landed on his back with a hard oomph while Katherine ended up sprawled atop him. As soon as he caught his breath, he started laughing.

“You’re unbelievable,” Katherine muttered as she tried to push herself away from him to rise back to her feet. Her attempts only caused him to tighten his arm around her back as he brought his other hand to the back of her thigh, probably to guide her shifting knee away from his groin. Though she realized his intention was nothing more than self-preservation, it didn’t stop the way his warm, heavy palm resting close to the curve of her rear had her insides twisting in an alarming way.

Lifting his head from the floor, he met her wide-eyed gaze with an appreciative smile. “Well done.”

She immediately closed her eyes and tried harder to break his hold.

“Hold on,” he muttered before he lifted his hand to palm the back of head at the same time that he rolled them both over. In the span of a breath, she found herself laid out beneath his heavy male body.

Every thought left her in a rush.

She went painfully still.

Hale loomed over her, larger than life. He was propped up on his elbows, with one of his hands beneath her head and the other tucked into the small of her back. Though his shoulders were lifted, his hard belly was flush to hers and one of his thighs pressed between her legs. His hair had loosened from its queue and fell in tousled flaxen waves around his face—his handsome, harsh-angled face. The green of his eyes was more intense than she’d ever seen, and his mouth was shaped into that infuriatingly wicked, self-satisfied grin.

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