The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(81)

He backed her against the thick support beam with a slam that shook the tent, pinning her with his body. He wedged her legs between his, letting her feel the proof of his words. “This isn’t about love, Rosalin. It’s about lust.” He circled his hips, grinding himself against her crudely but bloody effectively. A bolt of lust surged to the heavy, throbbing tip.

She gasped, but not with shock—with something else that made every inch of his already hot and pulsing skin tighten and flame even hotter.

God, she wanted it. Wanted him.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stretched against him—into him—and lifted her mouth to his, even as he bent to take her lips in a ravenous kiss.

He groaned at the contact. Felt his body roar with pleasure as she opened her mouth to him. He sank in his tongue with no pretense, no caution, stroking her hard into his mouth, and pressing his body into hers as he let her feel the force of his desire pounding between them.

And she was kissing him back. Kissing him back in a way that made his head buzz and his blood pound. Kissing him back in a way that made him want to slow—linger—over every sweet caress. Take his time and show her…

Love, he heard her voice taunting him.

Damn it, no! He tore away with a growl. Lifting one of her legs to wrap it around his hip, he nudged himself into position. “Can you feel what I want to do to you, Rosalin?” He moved again, circling his hips hard and trying not to think about how good it felt. How the heavy tip of his erection was poised at her cleft. How the pressure was coiling at the base of his spine. How only a few layers of fabric separated him from making her his.

Not mine, damn it.

He stared into her eyes. “I want to f**k you so badly I can’t see straight, but that’s all I want. What we have is lust—do not confuse it with anything else.”

Rosalin knew what he was doing, but it didn’t lessen the sting. His crude words in the face of her declaration of love hurt—hurt a lot.

She almost believed him.

“Is that right?” She looked into his eyes and saw the heat—not just of lust but of something else. A slow-burning emotion that he would not name, but which she knew was there. She could feel it in every stroke of his body, in every sweep of his tongue, in every achingly tender touch and caress. He cared for her. “Then show me.” She tightened the leg wrapped around his waist and brought them closer, returning the intimate circling. “Show me that’s all you want. That this is only about…what did you call it, fu—?”

He cut her off with a hard squeeze, his voice low and dangerous. “Don’t say it.”

She quirked a brow. “Why? Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?” Very slowly she enunciated the forbidden word.

His face darkened thunderously as he pressed into her harder. The fullness, the weight of him, made her stomach do a funny little flip and her pulse quicken. She remembered how he felt in her hand and wanted to feel him…inside her. Not just to prove a point. She wanted the connection. The closeness. The intimacy of joining her body with his.

“Damn you, you don’t know what you are saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying. If all you want is my body, take it. I’m giving myself to you. Without conditions attached. Walk away when it’s all over.”

His eyes narrowed as if this were some kind of trick, but she could see the flames of desire snapping wildly. “You don’t know what the bloody hell you are talking about. Your brother would kill me.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about. I feel this…lust, too. My brother has nothing to do with it. Besides, since when did the Devil’s Enforcer start worrying about an Englishman’s ire?”

Tension snapped between them like wildfire. She could feel the fierce pounding of his heart and the taut flex of barely restrained muscle as her hands skimmed the hard bulges of his chest and arms. She would never tire of touching him. Of feeling the hard, unyielding strength sizzling under her palms. For even beneath the leather and linen, the heat radiated.

“Show me, Robbie.” He was holding himself so still, Rosalin knew she had him at the breaking point. “Or perhaps it wouldn’t be so easy to walk away after all? You know what I think? I think you care about me. Your gentle touch doesn’t lie.”

Rosalin should have known that Robbie Boyd was not a man to back down from a challenge. He would fight to the bitter end. With his hands. And sweet heaven, what hands!

“Gentle?” he laughed mirthlessly. “What I feel for you is far from gentle. It’s rough and primitive and wicked—very, very wicked.”

Rosalin gasped as he reached for the edge of her skirt and lifted it. A moment later his hand was between her legs, cupping her possessively. Heat flooded her as one finger slipped inside. She cried out at the unexpected flood of pleasure, as warmth and dampness pooled to his touch.

Then he did something that did shock her. Something very wicked indeed. He spun her around, clasping her hands over her head to rest on the wooden pole. Flipping up her skirts, he wedged himself between her legs from behind and slid his right hand around to dip his fingers between her legs again.

A thought flashed in her head. Was it possible…

A hot blush flooded her cheeks. His hips were moving against hers in a way that left no doubt as to what was possible.

The pressure—the friction—was incredible. She strained against his hand, against the thick bulge sliding against her, and against the fierce sensation building inside her.