Page 43 of The Steel Rogue

This time he picked her up as his mouth crashed onto hers. Picked her up and wrapped her legs about his waist. Even through her skirts and his trousers, she could feel he was already hard and pulsating for her. The thickness of him sliding between her legs, teasing her folds through the clothing and sending wicked shocks deep into her core.

Her legs tightened around him and he kept one hand under her backside as he shifted off the tight-fitting jacket of her habit and then tugged upward at her fine muslin shirt. Down to her chemise and stays, the room spun around her and he set her backside on the edge of the desk, his lips moving ravenous from her mouth to taste her neck.

He worked loose her short stays, yanking them off and then tugging down on her chemise to set her breasts free.

A growl manifested from deep in his chest, the sound sending tremors into the air between them. “Your beauty shouldn’t exist on this earth, Tor. It’s not fair to the men who will never see this.”

She chuckled as his head dropped in front of her, taking her left breast fully into his mouth, sucking, teasing the nipple until it peaked, pulsated under the attention. The sensation a lightning storm funneling to her core, her legs drew him closer, begging his thick shaft to press hard into her folds.

“Minx.” He pulled up, a grin on his face she’d never seen before. So easy, as if the entire world had just lifted from his shoulders.

“I am what I am.”

He laughed and he pulled back from her legs about his body, setting her feet to the floor as his hands dove down to the top band of her skirt, freeing the buttons. In one quick yank her chemise and skirt disappeared, tossed to the floor. He swept her up, re-wrapping her legs about him, her thighs settling into the indentations of muscles right above his hips. “I want exactly who you are—hell—I’ve wanted this for too damn long, Tor.”

As he kissed her, his fingers went behind him to her boots and he untied them before she knew what he was doing. One boot tugged off, then the next, and his fingers were on the ties of her stockings along her thighs.

She jerked back, grabbing his upper arms. “I leave those on. I always have.”

His left eyebrow lifted. “You leave them on during sex? You’re not naked?”

Heat pinpricked its way up her neck. “No, my husband, he insisted I cover them—for that matter, I would keep my night rail on as well.”

“Was he naked?”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to disparage Apton, but she wasn’t about to lie on the matter, either.

He leaned forward, his forehead touching hers as his right hand lifted, his fingertips drifting along her breasts, swirling along her nipples. “I want you naked, Tor. All of you. There is no part of your body that you need to hide from me, because I want every bit of you. I know the scars. I’ve seen them. And they’re part of you, so I want them as much as I want this breast.” He dipped his head, setting the lightest kiss on her right nipple. “And this one.” He shifted to her left.

His dark grey eyes lifted to her. “Just give me permission.”

Her breath stolen—stolen so fully and completely by the rumble in his voice, the sincerity in his eyes—she could do nothing but nod.

Before she could reconsider permission, he stripped off one of her stockings with the lightest touch, then the other.

And she was naked. Fully and wholly naked before a man for the first time in her life.

“I’m far from a virgin, but I am a virgin to being naked with a man,” she said, awe in her voice at the feel of nothing but air and Roe’s hands drifting across her body.

He chuckled, the smoothest low sound that rang in her ears, searing onto her soul. Roe was always serious, cynical, but in this moment, he was light and free and she wanted to be there with him.

Her right hand clutching tight to the back of his neck for balance, she slipped her left hand along the side of his waist, her thumb cutting inward across the lines of muscles over his abdomen. So hard, every inch of him. As if he’d been forged from steel long ago and had never changed. Scars, cuts, bruises—but they could never change the impenetrable shape of his muscles. Of his strength against the world.

Roe stepped to the desk, setting her backside more fully onto the edge. Whether it could hold her weight or not, she didn’t care, for her legs were clamped so solidly around him.

His trousers. His trousers had to go.

She leaned back slightly, easing the grip of her thighs about him and her fingers went down to the front fall of his trousers, working free the buttons. Diving under the waistband, her palms slid along his skin, curling down his backside as she prodded the fabric to fall.

Downward the dark cloth went, and he was naked in front of her, his member tall and straining and demanding her body react.

It sent sparks flaming to something deep within her—a fire that had always been there, but had never dared to light.

Inside. She needed him inside of her. Salvation to the dying. Air to the drowning.

Her fingers dipped between them, tormenting the smooth skin along his member before she grabbed it fully, stroking.

A rumble deep in his chest—a gutted blasphemy or oath—and his mouth met hers, raw and hungry. His left hand dragged down from her breast, slipping into her folds and he found the crux of her. Swirling, his fingers plied her until her back arched, her body wrenching against his touch.

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