Wicked Temptation (Regency Sinners 6)(5)

She looked at him coldly. “I do not believe that to be any of your business.”

Titus’s jaw tightened. “And if I were to state a wish to make it my business?”

Her brows rose. “Then I should again inform you, more strongly this time, that my movements are none of your concern.”

Titus attempted to stifle the same frustration he had felt yesterday when she’d treated him so coldly. This time, he failed utterly. “Damn it, Prudence—”

“I do not recall ever giving you permission to use such familiarity when addressing me,” she stated coldly.

His teeth clenched. “And I recall I once had permission to call you Pru and your sister Cilla.”

Her jaw tightened. “Then that permission was given to you by Cilla, not me. As my sister is no longer here to say one way or the other, I am withdrawing that familiarity in regard to myself.”

“A withdrawal I refuse to acknowledge,” Titus snapped. “For God’s sake, Pru.” He ran an agitated hand through the dark thickness of his hair. “Should we not be drawn closer together by our mutual loss, rather than be at odds with each other?”

Pru rose abruptly to her feet. “I acknowledge your loss, my lord, and I am deeply sorry for Lord Worthington’s death. He was a charming and handsome gentleman,” she added stiffly. “But that does not make me feel in the least closer to you.”

Titus had never felt as impotent in his life as he did at this moment. Nothing he said or did seemed to pierce that icy shell Pru had gathered about herself.

He took the two strides required to ensure he now stood only inches away from her. “Then perhaps this will!” There was no hesitation or forethought of any kind as Titus took her stiff body into his arms before his lips came down possessively on hers.

To say Pru was surprised by Romney’s kiss would be to severely understate the situation. She was deeply shocked. So much so, she did not have the strength nor will to resist as he deepened that kiss and his mouth began to hungrily devour hers.

His lips were warm and open against her own, claiming, possessing, demanding her response even as his arms crushed her slender curves against his much harder ones.

It was as if something that had been cold and dead inside Pru began to melt under that determined onslaught. It stripped her of the protective wall she had built about her emotions in order for her to be able to deal with the worst of the pain of losing her beloved sister.

Without that defense, all those emotions hit Pru at once. Horror. Shock. Pain. Loss.

Followed by a rapidly increasing warmth. Desire. Pleasure. Arousal.

Her arms moved tentatively up Romney’s chest to his shoulders, her fingers becoming entangled in the dark hair at his nape as she pressed herself against him and returned the heat of those kisses.

His body was so comfortingly solid, grounding Pru, rather than the sensation of simply floating through life she had felt this past six weeks. The kiss brought her painfully back to life as it revived all her senses but sight, because her lids had closed the moment Romney started to kiss her.

The taste and feel of his heated lips against hers.

The touch of the silky thickness of his hair slipping through her fingers.

His insidious aroma of sandalwood and lemons, with an earthy maleness that was uniquely his own.

She could hear the way they were both now groaning low in their throats, those needy sounds adding to the intimacy and arousal.

She trembled as she felt the lengthy hardness of Romney’s aroused cock pressing against her abdomen.

Pru wanted to be closer still, to drown in this overload of sensations and emotions, to continue to feel after so many weeks of knowing nothing but numbness.

A sob caught in her throat as one of Romney’s hands cupped beneath her breast. The nipple instantly swelled, becoming completely engorged as the soft pad of his thumb stroked that sensitive tip to nerve-tingling pleasure.

His hand stilled at the sound of her sob, and he broke the kiss to look down at her with concern. “Did I hurt you?”

Hurt her?

Romney had brought her alive again. His kiss. His touch. His male musk. The hard strength of his body pressed so intimately against her own.

But alive to what, Pru questioned bleakly?

The pleasure and arousal abruptly faded, and she was consumed with the gut-wrenching knowledge that her twin truly was gone from her side forever.

And a return of the conviction this man was somehow involved in her having suffered this terrible loss.

Pru attempted to pull out of Romney’s arms, her fists pummeling against the hardness of his chest when he refused to release her. “Let me go!” She glared at him fiercely. “I said, let me go, you bastard!”

Titus instantly removed his arms and dropped them back to his sides. But he made no effort to stop Pru as she continued to pummel his chest with her clenched fists, instinctively knowing she needed to inflict this physical pain on someone, on him, in order to lessen her own emotional one.

“Stop me, damn it,” she cried several seconds later.

“Not if it makes you feel better.”

“Nothing makes me feel better,” she choked. “Nothing!” She collapsed weakly against his chest.

Titus carefully put him arms about her but remained ready, at the slightest show of aversion on Pru’s part, to remove them again.

Thankfully, there was no such reaction, giving him leave to continue to hold her in the gentle comfort of his arms. Her head rested just below his jaw, the silkiness of her hair smelling of spring flowers. Her soft curves molded perfectly against his own: generous breasts and the warm curve of her hips and thighs.