The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(60)

He cupped her bottom, bringing her more fully against the throbbing column of his manhood. He needed her closer, needed to feel her against him, needed the intimate pressure, the delicious friction of bodies grinding together. He rocked against her, nearly coming out of his skin when she moved against him.

She was pressing against him so intently, her sweet feminine mound rubbing against his cock, he didn’t know how much longer he could take it. It felt so good. A tantalizing hint of what it would be like to be inside her. Thrusting in and out. Circling. Pounding. Finding that perfect rhythm. He could tell from the way she moved that they would be incredible together. That it would be like nothing else he’d ever experienced.

He sank against her, his c**k wedged at her cleft. Perfect. Right there. He gave a little thrust. Jesus! Sweat beaded on his forehead from the exertion of restraint. He felt as if he were going to explode. Heat pulled in his groin, gathered at the base of his spine, tightening his bu**ocks.

He wanted to come. Wanted to scream out her name as he plunged deep inside her and possess every inch of her, claiming her in the most intimate of ways.

He was going faster now, any pretense at control long gone. His body was on fire. He heard the quickening of her breath and knew she felt it, too. The urgency, the need, that had descended over them both. There was nothing to come between them. No husband to stop her. She was free. She was his.

His lips trailed over the tender, sensitive skin of her throat. He nuzzled her with his nose, licked her with his tongue, devoured her with his mouth.

His hands slid up her tiny waist to cup her br**sts. A bolt of pure lust shot through him, as the soft mounds of flesh spilled over his palms. He felt her ni**les pressing against him like two hard pebbles. He couldn’t stop himself. They were too incredible. Too lush. Too ripe to the touch. He needed to squeeze, to caress, to lift the perfect round globes of flesh in his hands and rub the taut bead of her ni**les between his thumbs.

The soft sigh of pleasure that slipped from between her parted lips drove him wild. He had to taste her. To put his mouth on bare skin. Nothing could have denied him from putting his lips around those firm, succulent ni**les and sucking. From circling them with his tongue and nibbling them with his teeth.

He was going to have her. Knowledge pounded through him. Finally, after two years of wanting her, she would be his.

He slid his mouth lower, moving toward the open neck of her shirt. Easing the fabric aside with his chin, he feasted his eyes on the pale, creamy white skin—

He stilled. Everything inside came to an abrupt stop—his breath, his racing heart, his surging passion.

His half-slitted gaze slowly came into focus.

Straightening, he pushed aside the fabric, tearing the neck opening of her shirt a little to get a better look. But there was no mistaking it. Dark, mottled bruises marred the creamy perfection of ivory skin around the inner curve of her right breast.

Fingerprints.

His heart started to beat again. Louder. Harder. Passion had been replaced by another primal urge—this one to kill.

She must have realized what had gotten his attention, because she pulled away with a gasp and gripped the open ends of her shirt back together to try to cover herself.

But he was having none of it. He grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at him. “Who did this to you?” His voice held the cold edge of one of the most feared and dangerous men in the Highlands. “Who hurt you?”

Bella was in another world. Transported to a place of feeling and sensation that she’d never been to before. The heat of his kiss. The pressure of his hands. The feel of his body against her. It was too much.

It felt too good.

She’d been alone for so long, and her body responded. She wasn’t strong enough to fight. Imprisonment had taken more from her than she wanted to admit. She was weak. Needy. And he was strength.

But she knew it wasn’t just the imprisonment that caused her to react with such need and hunger. It was Lachlan. He alone had the power to turn her into a mindless wanton.

She’d never responded to a man the way she did him. She hadn’t understood it then, and she didn’t understand it now.

The difference was she no longer cared.

So she gave over to the sensations. Let them consume her. Let him take her where he would. She hadn’t felt anything for so long, and he made her feel alive again.

He’d flamed the passion, kissed her and touched her until she thought she had glimpsed a piece of paradise, only to bring her harshly back to earth. Who hurt you?

She gathered up the torn edges of her shirt, wishing her tattered pride was as easily managed.

“It’s nothing,” she said, trying to turn away. “It’s none of your concern.”

But he wouldn’t let her. He grabbed her by the arm and turned her back to him. “I’m making it my concern.”

The flatness of his tone didn’t fool her. He was furious. Peeking up from under her lashes, she glimpsed the terrifying, slitted, green-eyed gaze of a mercenary. He looked every bit as mean and merciless as she remembered. The latent dangerousness that surrounded him was still there.

She hadn’t realized Simon had left marks. He’d come to her chamber well before dawn this morning. Her imminent departure had forced all subtlety from his exhausted repertoire of attempts to coerce her into his bed. He’d promised to keep them from forcing her to take the veil if she would let him have her. When she refused, his “request” had become physical. He’d squeezed and twisted her br**sts with his brutish hands, put his foul mouth on hers until she couldn’t breathe, and attempted to wedge himself between her legs.