Page 31 of Tempting Little Thief

“I can swing my own sword with ease.”

His head bobs the slightest bit, as if he figured as much, as if he knows I’m not some docile duchess who needs direction but can think for and handle myself without question. I can, but who the hell is he to assume he knows more about me than the sound of my moans?

Lifting my shoulder in an idle shrug, I continue, “But there’s something about a man willing to put hisswordto use when I’m in need of a distraction.”

I watch his face, waiting for a reaction, but he gives none. Not even a slight tic of the jaw.

Why I expected it, I’ll never know.

Annoyed with myself, I jerk my head from his grip, focusing forward, but he isn’t deterred. He simply presses closer.

Leaning in, he nips at my jaw from his position behind me, following it down to the curve of my neck, playing the strings he somehow knows are my favorite. His teeth graze gently, and then he sucks the skin there, his tongue slick, warm.Rough.

Heat explodes in my core, spreading by the second.

His finger presses firmly into my waist, and he murmurs, “Bad day?”

His heated breath wafting over the wet kiss he left behind has my body betraying my calm bravado, and I quake in his arms.

“Nothing a steaming bath won’t fix.”

He hums against me, and my ass presses into him without permission. The groan the move earns draws goose bumps to the surface of my skin. “Who is he to you?”

I almost laugh at his ping-ponging thoughts, but his mere presence is distracting.

“He’s mine.”

The vibration from his low rumble along my back has my muscles coiling, and then I’m shuffled forward toward the dark corner of the room, the corner he shadowed himself in the day he found me here.

His head lifts, mouth aligned with my ear. “Careful choice of words.”

“Was it, though?” Damianoismine.

He’s my housemate back at Greyson Manor. My peer. My occasional lover.

My open-ended offer of more.

So yes, Dom is mine in various ways … minus the one he’s referring to.

He presses me flat against the wall, the buckle of his belt digging into the swell of my ass.

My lips part and I don’t have to look to know his tongue flicks along his own.

“Rocklin Revenaw,” he purrs my name for the first time, and it sounds naughty leaving his lips. Like a dirty secret he’ll keep for himself.

He continues, his fingers finding the skin of my thighs, “Five-eleven, earthy-green eyes, and a natural blonde. Nineteen, third-year and adviser at Greyson Elite Academy, a school for young scholars. A stepping-stone to greatness, offering an education more coveted than any Ivy League in the nation.”

“Memorized the brochure?” My words come out breathy.

A pleased grin meets the skin of my neck and I let my head fall back, wantingmore, but he’s in no hurry, slowly tapping his fingers on the inside of my leg in a rolling-like motion, pinkie to pointer, and again, each time the point of contact a little higher than the last.

“I did. Among other things.” His hands continue upward, taking this wretched dress with them as they glide up and up until his thumbs tangle with the turquoise string of my underwear. “Can he call you his?”

I say nothing, and his movements halt.

Suddenly, and I do meansudden,no part of him is touching me. His hands fly from me so fast I nearly lose balance, and in absolutely no hurry, I face him in all his degenerate glory.

Same black jacket.

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