Surrender to Me (The Derrings #4)(35)

A man I hardly know. Is that all she considered him? A stranger?

She held his gaze. So proper. So cold. Her eyes dark and fathomless as the night sea, pretending nothing existed between them.

His eyes dropped to her bodice, to the rise and fall of her breasts beneath—the slight mounds that would fit his hands perfectly, that he had craved to taste and explore for long enough now. But no more.

He would have passion and heat from her.

And he would have it now. This very night.

He climbed onto the soft mattress, his knees on either side of her hips.

She blinked several times, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips as she tried to pull herself back with her elbows.

“What are you doing?” her voice trembled on the air.

He squeezed his thighs around her, trapping her beneath him and stopping her from scrambling free.

“I’m going to have you, my little Duchess,” he growled, grabbing her by the back of the neck and hauling her up off the bed, flush against him.

Panic widened her eyes. “You’ll force me?” she sneered.

“There will be no force involved.” He smiled, flexing his fingers along the soft skin of her nape, relishing the crush of her breasts against his chest. “Before we’re through, you will have loved and begged for every moment of it.”

“Arrogant pig,” she hissed. But despite her words, twin flames gleamed at the centers of her eyes and her hips shifted, nudging his hardness, seeking him out even as her words denied him. “We both know that this won’t be—”

His lips crushed hers, intent on silencing her, punishing her, destroying her infuriating attempt at indifference.

Until his lips met hers. Until he tasted their softness, felt their fullness. And quite simply, he was lost. His lips gentled, tongue sweeping inside her mouth, consumed with a need that had nothing to do with punishment…and everything to do with desire.

Chapter 13
His mouth tasted of man and heat and heather-kissed winds. Hunger surged inside her, dark and dangerous, ravenous as a beast released to prowl the woods. It had been so long since she felt the warmth of another. Perhaps never.

Astrid clenched her hands and shoved them between their bodies, trying to wedge the two of them apart, resisting the overwhelming temptation to flatten her palms against his hard chest and feel him, savor the hard press of muscles surrounding her.

She willed her lips to still, willed her body not to respond to the magic of his mouth on hers, coaxing forth feelings and emotions long denied. New feelings. Terrifying, exciting feelings she had been so careful to stifle. Freed from a dark well, they spiraled through her like warmed wine, dizzying, exhilarating, emboldening her as nothing before. A strange, intoxicating elixir she could not resist.

His hands slid into her hair, scattering the remaining pins. Her scalp tingled beneath his hands. Her fingers trembled between them, yearning to unfold, to caress and explore his pulsing warmth.

With a strangled sob, she let all her resistance slide away and parted her mouth, meeting the slick glide of his tongue with her own.

Opening her hands, she clenched fistfuls of his vest and returned his kiss with wild fervor, pulling him down over her, sinking back into the soft bed.

He growled low in his throat, dragging his mouth over her jaw and down her throat. Astrid opened her eyes and shut them again, afraid that she would wake from this dream.

His fingers moved to the tiny buttons at the front of her gown. His hands fumbled, shaking over the small buttons.

“Damn buttons,” he muttered, his voice strangely hoarse.

She set to work on his clothing, shoving the vest off his shoulders and pulling the shirt over his head.

His hands trembled over each button as she leaned up and rained kisses over his jaw, neck, and chest, skimming her palms over his hard chest, scraping her nails through the short crisp hair, stopping to trace the small dusky circles of his nipples.

He moaned. Because he reached the end of her buttons and could now shove her dress to her waist or because of her hands and mouth on his chest she could not be certain. Nor did she care. He made quick work of stripping her free of her dress, the feverish movements of his hands exciting her only more. Her undergarments followed, the cambric a flash of white on the air, doves flying over their heads.

Naked beside him, not a moment of shame or hesitation seized her. It was as if she were someone else entirely, someone unafraid, someone willing to trust, to give herself over to another. To him.

His hand roved her thighs, callused fingers and palms rasping her tender flesh. His blue eyes shone darkly in the firelight as he stared down at her.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and she believed it, believed she was, believed he meant it. Not too thin, not too pale, not too strange with her liquid-dark eyes and fair hair. Not herself at all.

Propping herself up on her elbows, her hands reached for him. He watched her, eyes burning, his large body unmoving, still as stone as she unfastened his breeches and shoved them down his narrow hips.

Head cocked to the side, she studied that part of him for a long moment, biting her lower lip as an unfamiliar heat swirled through her, pooling low in her stomach. Her belly contracted and she fidgeted restlessly in attempt to ease the throbbing ache between her legs. Her hand reached out and touched him with a single finger, something she had never done before, never wanted to do.

A tremor rushed over him as she wrapped her fingers around the hard length of him, luxuriating in the feel of him, silk on steel in her hand. Encouraged by the sound of his rough approving growl, she stroked him, her fingers gliding over his length, her breath increasing, matching the harsh sound of his.