While the Duke Was Sleeping (The Rogue Files #1)(34)

She gasped and he took full advantage. His tongue slid inside her mouth.

Warm. Slick. Wet.

Astonished, she stood frozen, motionless, letting him have his way with her mouth. Plunder at will. Appropriate for a man with pirate’s eyes.

His thumb nudged under her chin, forcing her head back and that only deepened the kiss. Made it wetter. Hotter. Better.

Heaven save her. She was getting squirmy all over. That had never happened before either. What was happening? What was she doing? What was she letting him do?

She hated him. And yet she had this mad impulse to fling her arms around his shoulders. Wrap her legs around him. Outrageous.

Not at all how she should feel.

Certainly not with him. She hated him. He hated her.

Didn’t he?

Of course, he did . . . no matter what his mouth was doing to her. No matter how his gloved thumb grazed the side of her neck. They had done nothing but quarrel from the start. Ever since she saw him battering her poor duke. Rightly so. He was a brute. Rude and insulting.

And yet it was a strange thing to reconcile hatred when his mouth was moving so expertly over hers. Men did not kiss women they did not like.

Immediately a voice rose up inside her to contradict.

Well . . . some men did kiss women for whom they felt nothing. She wasn’t so na?ve that she didn’t know men weren’t above using women. Especially women they felt were somehow less. Indeed, it was those very men that Poppy guarded Bryony against. It was her duty to make certain no man looked at Bryony as a meaningless vessel and decided she was a female who didn’t matter.

She pulled up hard. Did Struan Mackenzie think she was that sort of woman? That she did not matter? The notion made her sick. She brought her hands up between them. She pressed both palms flat against his chest—a definite distraction that chest. It was muscled and hard. She didn’t know gentlemen could feel so very . . . solid. Shaking off the thought, she gave him a hearty shove. The kind of shove she imagined would succeed in budging him. And it did.

His lips lifted from hers with a strange puff of sound that resembled words. In his gravelly brogue, she translated it to mean, “What did you do that for?” She couldn’t be certain. Just the sound of that voice stroked something deep inside her. His voice seduced. It wasn’t fair.

His pirate’s eyes fixed on her, mesmerizing. All at once she wasn’t pushing so hard at his chest anymore. Her hands relaxed, palms softening against him.

His head dipped toward her, moving slowly, his intent clear as his eyes drifted over her face. She had all the time to move, to protest, but his sinful eyes mesmerized her. His mouth touched hers again, soft at first and then more firmly.

She forced herself to remain utterly still as he nudged her lips apart. Not an easy feat. Her lips yearned to react and all her lady parts hummed and throbbed in the most delicious yet painful manner. Strange how one could feel both pain and pleasure.

“Come, Poppy,” he murmured against her mouth, his tongue gliding along her bottom lip and igniting a tremor through her. “Kiss me back.”

She gave the barest shake of her head and he chuckled, the sound dark and rich. “So stubborn. You know you want to,” he coaxed. “I can feel your heart pounding.”

Oh, he was ruthless, but she would resist him.

He pulled her bottom lip between his teeth, and her core clenched in response.

She would. She must.

Suddenly he bent his knees, crouching his great height so that their faces were on level. He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground as though she weighed nothing at all. She squeaked, her hands flying to his shoulders.

“What are you—”

“Lock your legs around me.”

With their faces level, she stared wide-eyed at him.

She opened her mouth to refuse, but that brogue of his filled the space between them, hard with command, yet husky with something that spoke to all the tender and aching places inside her. “Do it, kitten.”

She obeyed, hopping up slightly until her legs locked around his hips. He brought his big hands to each of her thighs, fingers digging through her skirts and adjusting her so that her sex met directly with the stiff bulge of his manhood. Even through the fabric of her skirts she could feel him and she had to stop herself from rocking into the beckoning ridge.

It was like she was outside herself. A voyeur looking down at this woman she didn’t know who followed the lead of a man much too masculine, whose brutal beauty and hypnotic voice robbed her of all sense.

He withheld his mouth from hers. Waiting. Waiting for her.

His warm breath gusted her cheek. His mouth was so close. Tantalizingly close. She caught a whiff of the heady scent of him again. Her gaze darted from his lips to his eyes, so dark and compelling. They pulled her in, muddied her thoughts. She leaned in slightly, forgetting everything, wanting that mouth even though everything about this was wrong. She couldn’t think.

He rocked his hips and a bolt of lust shot through her body.

Desire licked through her. Her breathing hitched. She leaned forward slightly, tasting him with her tongue, the barest, swiping stroke, and his eyes went black with heat. He closed the fraction of space between them, his chest grazing the front of her chest. Her breasts grew heavy and tight, aching.

Sweet heavens, he was going to kiss her again. Yes, yes, please.

He pulled back slightly and growled against her lips. “Kiss me, Poppy.”