Page 89 of Seducing the Knave

“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” she murmured in soft command.

I’m thinking of keeping ye.

As soon as the words slid through his mind, panic flared in his chest and twisted sharply through his stomach.

He didn’t keep women. And he sure as hell couldn’t start with this one.

Elle was a fucking dream destined to disappear in a breath of mist the second she found a way back to her old life. She had no place amongst the grit and grime of his world, where threats lurked in every dank alley and violence was as common as gin.

And he had no right to want her there.

Refusing to reveal even a hint of his wayward thoughts, Max curled his lips into a self-deprecating smirk. “Nothing worth sharing, luv.”

“Why?” she pressed, her tone almost sharp. “Why won’t you share anything of yourself with me?”

He narrowed his gaze and dropped a heavy hand onto her hip, giving it a hard squeeze. “I’d say I just gave ye plenty of meself,” he muttered in a low growl.

Disappointment flared in her eyes as she sat up, the long fall of her hair draping across his belly. “Is this all there is then?” she asked with a pointed glance around at the rumpled sheets.

Max curled his lips in a deliberate smirk. “Ye seemed to enjoy this well enough, princess.”

For a moment, it looked like she was about to lose her temper, but then she forced a deep breath. Shaking her mass of tousled curls back from her face, she squared her shoulders and looked down at him with every ounce of that haughty pride he fucking adored.

“You’re going to open up to me someday,” she said confidently.

Though her words triggered a swift rush of denial, he forced a laugh. “’S that so?”

“It is,” she insisted as she slowly leaned over him, the heavy globes of her breasts pressing warm and full to his chest. Holding his gaze, she brushed her lips back and forth across his. “Because you enjoy this as much as I do. And if you want me here,” she noted with a glance at the bed, “you’ll have to let me in here.”

She shifted to press her palm over his heart.

The truth in her words caused something bright and terrifying to flare in his blood, but he covered his reaction by diverting her attention in the only way he knew how. Wrapping his arms around her, he rolled her onto her back and settled between her thighs.

As his cock surged to life at the contact with her sultry heat, he met her melting blue gaze with a hard stare of retribution. “I’ll have ye any way I want ye, princess,” he growled as he slid his swollen cockhead along her sex.

Her eyes flashed and her lips parted to dispute him—but he silenced her by pressing slowly into her. With a heavy moan, she arched her back in a luscious curve then reached down to grasp hard to his buttocks as he began a punishing rhythm.

If he couldn’t have her forever, he’d take her now. In every way possible.

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