Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2)(85)

She gasped her pleasure as he settled her over his thighs, and he leaned back, one hand in her hair, just far enough to meet her eyes as she stared down from above him. A furrow crossed her brow as she resisted giving him her weight. “I’m too—”

“You’re fucking perfect,” he said, leaning up to steal her lips and prove it.

After a long moment, he released her lips and she pulled back to look at him, her hair askew and her mouth kiss-stung, and the uncertainty that had been in her gaze entirely gone—replaced by excitement. And delight. She smiled a tiny, demure smile, her dimple flashing as she worried the plump flesh of her bottom lip.

Christ, she was beautiful.

He shook his head. “No.”

Doubt flashed. “No?”

He spread one hand over her round bottom and pulled her closer, seating her more firmly as he fisted his other hand in her hair and pulled her down to him. “That lip is not yours tonight, love. It’s mine.”

He leaned up to capture it, nipped her before running his tongue over it in one long lick. Her hands came to his shoulders and she gave herself over to the caress. Whit responded with a deep growl, stroking deep, sucking slow, loving the taste of her, sweet and tart and better than any candy he’d ever had.

How would he give her up?

Ignoring the thought, he focused on her, on her fingers tangling in his hair, holding him still as she gave in to the kiss. She writhed against him and he reveled in her unbridled desire—tightening his fingers around her hips as she rocked against him where he was already hard and made harder by the sweet sounds in her throat, the soft slide of her thighs against his, the heat of her against his cock.

He’d never give this up.

He grunted and grabbed her, stilling her, sitting her up so he could take her in, watch her above him like a goddess. Unable to stop himself, he thrust his hips into hers, watching as her lids lowered and she sucked in a breath.

He spread her coat wide, shucking it off her, reveling in the way her body moved as she helped him, twisting and stretching, revealing the curves she’d been teasing him with all night. No. Not all of them. He slid one hand from her curving hip up her side, until he felt the ridges of fabric beneath her shirtsleeves.

Like lightning, he fisted his hand in the fabric at her back, pulling it from the waist of her trousers. “Hattie . . .”

Her eyes went wide as he repeated the motion in front, tugging, revealing bare torso. She immediately caught the hem of the shirt and tugged it down. “No.”

The word stung. “No?”

She shook her head. “It’s very—bright.”

He smiled. “I know.”

She shook her head, her gaze flickering to the doorway to the next room. “Do you not have a bed somewhere? Somewhere dark?”

He did. But that wasn’t what she was saying. “Hattie. Let me see.”

She closed her eyes. “I’d rather you not.”

He leaned back against the loveseat, refusing to remove his hands from her, letting his fingers slide over her thighs and play at the tops of her leather boots. “Shall I tell you what I wish to do?”

Her eyes flew open and he almost laughed—he had her attention. His curious girl wouldn’t be able to resist his telling her precisely what he wished to do to her. In full detail. “I wish to remove this shirt that is too plain for you,” he said softly, his fingers sliding back up to the lawn hem, not stopping until they were underneath the fabric, on her warm skin.

He teased along the soft strip just above her trousers, and whispered, “I need to remove it, you see, because I can’t taste you until I have.” Her lips fell open on a little intake of air. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me tasting you?”

“I . . .” She hesitated.

“I’d like to run my tongue over you here,” he said, his hand splaying wide over the soft curve of her stomach, his cock growing harder with every new inch of her. Had anything ever felt as good as the silk of her skin? The curve of her body?

He sat up, burying his nose in the curve of her neck as he wrapped his arms around her. “Let me,” he whispered at her ear before capturing the lobe between his teeth. “Let me taste you.”

She exhaled her “yes,” as though it was the only word she could find.

He pressed a wet kiss just beneath her ear and released her, his hands returning to the hem of her shirt and pulling it over her head, sending it sailing across the room, forgotten before it hit the ground, because he was too focused on what he’d discovered.

The vision of those bindings, the way they disappeared her beautiful breasts—they made him want to do damage. He set a finger to the uppermost edge of the bandages, where her skin was straining white against the binds. “You know, my lady, when you spoke of undergarments, I did not expect—”

She gave a little breathless laugh, and he was grateful for it . . . for the way it pulled her from whatever doubt she had been having. “I don’t imagine you did.”

“Mmm,” he grunted before leaning forward and tracing the pale line just above the too-tight bandages with his tongue.

“Oh, my,” she whispered, her hands coming to his head, threading into his hair. “That feels—”

It was nothing compared to what he was going to make her feel. He found the end of the linen and untucked it, pulling it free before beginning the work of unbinding her.