Too Wicked to Tame (The Derrings #2)(72)

“Make a hell of a lot more sense that you and him.”

She smiled tightly, wanting desperately to fling his words back at him. There is no you and me.

Instead, she settled for, “We don’t suit.”

“No?”

The tiny hairs on her nape tingled and she knew she had provoked him too far.

The air in the tiny room changed subtly, thickened, grew electric. He snatched both her wrists and pulled them above her head.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked as he pressed the hard length of his body against her.

His unsmiling face looked down at her, watching her intently as he lowered his head. His head inched toward hers, but she dodged his mouth.



His eyes narrowed, lips thinning into a grim line. Releasing her wrists, he spun her about and crushed her into the wall. He grasped her hips in rough hands, pulling them out slightly from the wall. A shocked gasp escaped her as he nudged her thighs apart through her gown.

“What are you—” her voice froze, trapped in her throat as his hands came around to clasp her breasts. A hard bulge prodded at her backside through the volume of her skirts.

His fingers rolled, tweaked and squeezed her nipples into rock-hard points. Desire pooled low in her belly. A keening moan escaped her. She turned her face and rested one cheek against the wall, unable to move, unable to resist the seductive assault.

His hands dropped. She moaned in disappointment.

Then she felt him hike her skirts to her waist. He shoved down her undergarments. Cool air caressed her. His hand traveled over her thighs, her backside. A hissing cry escaped her when he bent and nipped at her exposed buttocks. His hand slid between her legs, fingers probing, pushing deep inside her.

She came out of her skin, sobbing as his hand plundered her. Then the hand disappeared. An anguished whimper ripped from her throat, swallowed by the music pulsing around them. She bit her bottom lip, waiting, desperate for what was to come, what she had thought she would never have again. Her body burned, ached, trembling like a leaf.

Hard hands fell on her hips, fingers digging into her softness, lifting her to accept the hot length of him sliding inside her. He penetrated her deeply and a scream welled up in her throat.

His hands shifted, angling her for deeper invasion, anchoring her for his thrusts. She clawed the wall, fighting for a handhold. Her knees felt like water. If not for his hands on her hips, she would have slid to the floor in a shuddering, boneless pile.

Cries tore from her mouth at his every plunge. He lifted her higher, the heels of her slippers coming off the floor. His own breath came hard and fast in her ear as he ground into her bottom.

One of his hands slid from her hip, kneading and squeezing her bottom possessively before sliding around, dipping, finding that plea sure spot between her quivering thighs that begged to be touched, stroked, set afire. She gasped as his fingers worked their magic, moving in fast little circles until she broke, shattered, convulsed between the wall and the man at her back that had become her entire world.

A few more powerful thrusts and he stilled, buried to the hilt. He pulsed within her, spilling his seed deep within her.

A mixed sense of elation and horror grabbed hold of her heart, squeezing tightly. The night at the lodge he had always withdrawn, always held himself in check. Not so now.



She lifted her cheek from the wall and gazed at her hands splayed flat before her. Moonlight washed the walls, tingeing the flesh of her hands blue.

Strong fingers brushed the back of her neck. “Portia—”

“No,” she choked, loathing for herself—for him—burning a bilious trail up her throat as she squeezed between him and the wall. Her hands shook as she bent and set her undergarments to rights. “Don’t say a word.”

Straightening, she risked a glance at his face and her heart constricted at the almost tender look on his face. If his words matched the look on his face, she was doomed.

Her unsteady hand touched her hair as she moved toward the door.

His hand clamped down on her arm. “Surely now you can see—”

“I see nothing save two people who haven’t a shred of sense or dignity.” She inhaled a great gulp of air. “Who just copulated like beasts in a closet.”

The tender looked fled, a hard mask taking its place.

“Marry me and you won’t have to worry about that. We’ll be husband and wife.” He scoured her with a dark look, one full of lust and promise. The smoldering fire in her belly flared to life, betraying her. “You can have this every night without threat to your sense of dignity.” He uttered the word as if it were a jest, something that did not exist. And perhaps for her it did not. When it came to him she had displayed very little dignity. It was as if she lost the ability to think when he entered the room.

Marry me and you won’t have to worry about that. We’ll be husband and wife. No, but she would have to worry about much more. Her heart, her pride, her self-control—her future with a man who held the ability to wound her like the sharpest of blades. She would have to be daft to bind herself to him.

“You once told me that I didn’t belong at Moreton Hall,” she said dully. “Well, you don’t belong here. Go home, Lord Moreton. I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding a bride more suited—”

“Oh, we suit,” he inserted, his voice as dangerous as a whip cutting air. His gaze trailed over her, insulting in it thoroughness, as if he stripped off her gown and stared upon her nakedness. “In the most fundamental way. Except you’re too pigheaded to see it.”