Chapter Thirteen
What does that make you for kissing me back?
The question landed with unnerving accuracy.
Had Violet not thought the same thing? About him?
About lingering? Had he sensed the argument she waged with herself?
Not unlikely. Which begged the question, was everything with this man a test?
Very possibly. But it was also a test he seemed to be failing himself.
He certainly loathed that she’d witnessed him at his weakest. Heh.
His pride might even be more bruised than his body!
But blazes.
Everywhere his body touched hers burned, muddling her head. Not enough for her to lose her senses, but enough for her to rise to his challenge.
He didn’t knead or grind into her again.
Even his hand on her neck had gone still.
He simply waited. A tiger crouched. The most dangerous moment, and yet she sensed no threat.
And she ought to feel threatened. Every sensible instinct she possessed said so.
And yet what she felt was the opposite—a pull so contrary to reason that she couldn’t even be properly appalled by herself.
Well, she was somewhat appalled. It simply didn’t help. What did that make her for kissing him back? For wanting to kiss him again, appalled or not?
Daring.
A woman who could match his audacity.
“I dare many things, Drake.”
His mouth curved, grim and dangerous. “Oh? And what are all the things you dare to do?”
She shifted over his body, easing her lower body more directly over his and pressing into him.
He groaned, whether from pain or desire, she couldn’t tell, but the sound sent a wicked spark of satisfaction unfurling through her all the same.
Was this power?
Even the scent of blood that clung to him, instead of repulsing her, it urged her closer, pressing deeper into him. Almost like danger had left a calling card, and she was eager to accept the caller. She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “I dare presume you are at my mercy.”
He cursed, his fingers tightening briefly at her nape. “The devil, woman.”
“What?” Her lips brushed the line of his jaw. “Is this not what you wanted?”
“Would you believe me,” he said roughly, “if I said I don’t know?”
Violet’s lips parted. Of all the things she had expected from this man—commands, taunts, arrogance—she had not expected this speck of honesty offered without a single deflection. It disarmed her more thoroughly than anything else he’d done since they met.
“Believe,” she said softly. One thing they did appear to feel the same about. Perhaps several, given their position. This man beneath her . . . She was under no illusions as to the risk he posed. She simply found herself unwilling to withdraw.
His eyes flashed, and he flipped her suddenly, crowding her against the cot and pressing his hardness into the juncture of her thighs. “Then believe when I say you should have locked me inside this dungeon when you had a chance.”
“Why?” Violet asked breathlessly. “What will you do? Ravish me?”
“Is that what you want?” His nose found her hair, and he inhaled deeply, causing shivers to erupt all over her skin.
“Are you even up to the task?” she countered, unsure where this boldness came from. All she knew was she didn’t want him to win.
His tongue traced the column of her throat from the collarbone to the tip of her chin. “I have you pinned to me and you’re not afraid.”
She probably shouldn’t taunt that she suspected him to be a non-threatening beast when it came to her.
Not only would it serve as an irrevocable taunt, but it would also be an error to underestimate his heart.
He’d already shown he could take what he wanted without cruelty.
But also with extreme cruelty, she imagined.
If for one second, this man thought she meant him or his family harm, he would not hesitate to ruin this new life of hers.
Violet was determined for that not to happen. She was also determined not to cower or back down from him. She refused to be afraid. If she was not afraid, no man could rule her. “Should I be? You did give me ample warning.”
“You didn’t heed it.” His eyes darkened. “Tell me why.”
She arched into him as a challenge. “Tell me why you warned me away.”
“Because you tempt the worst instincts I keep leashed when you look at me that way.”
Her pulse could not marshal a defense at this blunt statement.
This was not a man who admitted such things lightly.
Violet understood that about him already, perhaps better than she should.
And her body answered with shameless eagerness.
“That sounds remarkably like a you problem.” If only her body agreed with her mouth.
He released an incredulous breath against her throat. “You provoke a man, then mock him for admitting it?”
“I provoke you no more than you wish to be.”
His eyes narrowed on her, hips grinding deeper, the cot creaking beneath them.
Blazes, what was that feeling? The sudden, unreasoned urge to seek more left no room for caution.
Violet drew a breath and failed to steady it.
What caught her was her body’s response.
The way her hips sought more. Had she gone too far?
Should she go even farther? Just who was provoking who here?
Rogue.
Violet lifted her knees and hooked her legs around him, pulling him closer with a decisive press that left no room for misunderstanding.
No accident in it. No hesitation either.
She had made a choice—not stumbled into one, not been maneuvered into one—but chosen, with full knowledge of what she was choosing.
And there.
Whatever his eyes had been asking, she answered.
He groaned, rolling his hips against her.
That sensation returned. The one where she wanted to feel just how far it could go.
That same hunger stirred—the rash desire to learn just how far this could be taken.
Bold took on a different meaning, and time distorted from there.
Only motion and heat persisted. The merciless press of him through layers of cloth.
The way his body seemed to move of its own accord now, driven by primal need.
His breath broke against her throat, uneven, almost tortured.
His wound . . .
“Drake.”
He caught her mouth with his, harder than before, deeper.
A kiss that was meant to steal the thought straight from her head.
And lord, the man knew how to do just that.
She arched into him, greedily returning the kiss and her body greedily accepting the maddening friction between her legs.
His mouth left hers, his lips dragging down to trail a fire caused by his stubble down her neckline.
That roughness sent a shiver through her.
Like touching a beast and discovering the edge of its strength beneath the fur.
His hips took on a different rhythm, slower this time, absorbing the want of him even through layers of cloth.
It was not enough. It was entirely too much.
He was everywhere. Touching everywhere. A tiger that had caught his prey, only his prey wanted to be eaten.
Something inside her melted, unbidden, unstoppable, and impossible to express.
“Something is happening,” she murmured, her whole body restless with strangeness.
A curse tore from him. His forehead dropped briefly to her shoulder, as though bracing himself there. “I know,” he muttered. “Just hold on to me.”
She did. Arms sliding around him, pressing close, deciding if she didn’t do as he advised, she might scatter to nothing and cease to exist. His mouth found the hollow of her throat, his mouth closing over her collarbone, and sparks of pleasure unleashed within her, flooding her whole body, even the tips of her toes.
What does that make you for kissing me back?
Liberated.
At the same time, a voice bellowed through the building.
*
Drake cursed, head lifting to the door that led upstairs. And then cursed some more. Violet, the little spitfire, had gone completely still beneath him as the chill of that blasted boom wrecked the rapture of his release. A plague on the devil’s soul. He’d spilled in his breeches.
Bloody hell.
Was he a wet whelp?
So much for his deuced discipline.
Drake Fury. King of the underworld. A man who had stared down loaded pistols without blinking, who had walked into rooms full of enemies and left them trembling. A man who prided himself on iron control in every conceivable circumstance.
But undone. By a woman.
He almost laughed. He would have, had it not been so damnably humiliating. He’d built his entire reputation on mastery—of his temper, his enemies, his desires. And she had dismantled it so bloody effortlessly his head still spun.
“Have they found us?” Violet asked softly.
His gaze lowered to hers. “Yes.”
Her eyes flew wide. “What do we do then? Should we lock ourselves in the cell?”
Drake arched a brow. “Not the worst idea.”
“Drake!” she hissed. “This is serious!”
She was right about that part. “I know.” He pushed up onto his knees, allowing her to scramble from beneath him, propping herself against the wall, flinching when pain flared from his wound, reaching in all directions. “Christ, this has never happened to me before.”
“What? Being found by the enemy? I find that hard to believe.”
No. The seed in his trousers. The only time that had ever happened was in his sleep, when he had no command at all. He only prayed the proof would not leave a mark in the form of a wet spot to damn him.
The boards above groaned under several boots.
Damn it. “No one knows about the dungeon. If we ignore them, they’ll go away.”
“That’s your plan? Ignore them and they’ll go away? Has that ever worked? Don’t you have pistols down here or something?”
“No need. It’s just my brothers.”
She blinked. “Your brothers? How do you know?”