The Recruit (Highland Guard #6)(91)

She stiffened, pulling her arm away as if his touch scalded. “I don’t.”

Heat was pounding through his bones. “Then stop acting as if you want more.”

She lifted her chin. “I wasn’t aware I had a choice.”

He heard her challenge but was too angry to take it up—or make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. All he could do was stare at her, seething, his jaw clenching as tightly as his fist. “What the hell do you want, Mary?”

Their eyes held. He felt something tighten, almost as if a winch was drawing them together. He thought she felt it too, but then she looked stiffly away. “Nothing more than you promised,” she said. “Of course, your ‘duties’ will not be required for some time.”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? I warned you I would not be kept from my wife’s bed.”

“Have you forgotten? Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It is a sin to copulate during Lent.”

Kenneth saw red. He knew what she was doing. He knew it wasn’t piety but merely an excuse to keep him from her bed. Hell, the church considered it a sin to enjoy pleasure or passion in the marital bed at all!

But he was too damned angry to care. If that was the way she wanted it, he would do this her way. God knows, he hadn’t been able to win her heart in her bed; perhaps it would grow fonder in his absence.

But he wasn’t going to let her win without a fight. Not without leaving her something to think about. He would give her exactly what she wanted, damn it. If she thought he was nothing more than a stud for hire, that was exactly what she would get. “As you wish.”

He took her in his arms and flipped her around, pushing her gently against the wall.

“What are you d-doing? I thought you said—”

He buried his face in her hair and neck, ravishing the soft skin with all the fury of the emotions surging through his blood. “It isn’t Lent yet.”

Mary saw the anger flashing in his eyes and knew she’d pushed her hot-tempered husband too far. She should have known better than to try to provoke him, but she’d half hoped—perhaps more than half—that he might give her the answer she wanted to hear. That he might make promises she had no right to expect from him.

Would she ever learn?

Heat washed over her as he took her in his arms, molding her back to his chest and hips. His mouth and jaw tore across the soft skin of her neck. The pain and hurt that had been simmering so close to the surface erupted into a different emotion. Into lust, need, and a desperate attempt to hold on to him.

He was kissing her with a punishing hunger and a frenzy he’d never shown before, and she responded with a desperation of her own. She melted against him in complete surrender, letting him take whatever he wanted. He was gripping her br**sts, cupping and squeezing as his mouth devoured every sensitive inch of her neck and shoulder.

Carefully, he planted her hands on the wall in front of her. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

There was an edge to his voice she’d never heard before. But she was so hot, her skin on fire. He tipped her hips back to meet the bulge of his erection, moving it against her suggestively.

Images of the stable returned.

She knew what he was going to do. And for a moment, she thought about stopping him. But whether it was shock or lust, she was powerless to escape the sensual web he’d spun around them both.

She moaned, pressing her hips back against him and arching her back to give him even more access to her neck.

He groaned and swore, one hand caressing her breast as the other fumbled with his breeches. She could feel the cold air hitting her legs and backside as he tossed up her skirts.

She was already wet when his fingers slipped inside her. “Should I give it to you, Mary?” That edge to his voice should have alerted her, but she was too lost in the haze of lust to exercise caution.

He nudged the blunt head of his erection between her legs, teasing her with long strokes over her dampness. He was so big and thick between her thighs, the wicked sensations he was arousing drove her to the very peak of need.

She could hear her own frantic moans in her ears, feel her body begging him to ease the restlessness he’d built inside her.

He held her hips, positioning himself at her entry. “You want to come, don’t you?”

The crude words made her shiver, touching the dark, wanton part of her that responded to the wickedness. Not with revulsion but with desire. This was wrong. She knew it was wrong. But she was too far gone. He’d stoked the fires too hot. And there was something about this fierce, aggressive side of him that made her feel reckless. That tricked her emotions, making her think that this mattered. That if he was this out of control he must care.

She could feel the hot, steely flesh against her, the thick club nudging at her entry. Her legs were shaking, her body throbbing with need. She rocked back against him, wanting him inside her so badly she could weep.

He circled himself against her, and she rocked her hips back to meet him.

But he wouldn’t give her what she wanted. He was teasing her. Dragging it out. Forcing her to face the depths of her desire for him.

“Tell me,” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes!” she cried. “Please, yes.”

He held her hips steady and drove inside, possessing her in one hard stroke that shook her to her core. He slid her hips back against him, leaning her against the wall until she was at the perfect angle, and then he thrust again, sinking into her even deeper.