A ragged, growling groan slid from his throat as he finally gripped her waist hard in his hands. “Don’t you dare.”
The power in his hold—the physical command and pure possession in his tone—made her melt in a flood of liquid heat. A moan escaped her lips and her thighs tensed as she resisted the urge to roll her hips. It took a moment to catch her breath, but as soon as she did, she looked fiercely into his eyes. “Do you know why I came to you?”
For a long moment, he just looked into her eyes. Then his hands tightened on her body. He lifted her from his legs to draw her more firmly over his groin as he answered gruffly, “Because you’re brave and beautiful and far more than a man like me deserves.”
Fighting the urge to sigh at the feel of his body hardening beneath her, she slid her fingers into the silky hair at his nape and shook her head. “It’s because I’m stubborn and proud and I couldn’t allow you to believe for even a minute more what you said in the carriage last night might be true.”
His remained shadowed while the corner of his mouth curled with wicked amusement and he rocked her along the ridge of his cock. “So you don’t want me to fuck you?”
Katherine grasped his shoulders at the explosion of sensation through her body. She understood his response for what it was—a deflection from the emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge.
Nearly breathless already, she forced her gaze to his. “I want you to admit it’s more than that,” she murmured thickly. “That what is happening between us goes deeper.”
“Deeper?” he growled as he tilted his head to moisten her neck with his tongue before clamping his mouth hard over the bend of muscle that led to her shoulder. When she elicited a whimper, he released her flesh to soothe it with the hot sweep of his tongue. Releasing her waist, he reached beneath her nightgown. Grasping her bare arse in one hand, he somehow freed his cock from his breeches with the other. Within a few short breaths, his broad tip was poised at her slick, aching entrance. “I’m going to be so deep inside you, luv, you’ll be seeing stars.”
Then he grasped her hips and brought her down along his length in one hot thrust.
Katherine moaned at the stretching, filling, consuming pressure of his thick length fully buried. Though nearly mindless from the pure beauty of having him inside her, she was aware that he held her firmly to his lap, preventing further movement. He was intentionally withholding that greater pleasure.
In protest, she squeezed her inner muscles around him and was pleased to hear him groan against her throat.
“Tell me you don’t need this,” he growled.
Katherine wrapped her arms around his head, holding him to her as she gently rocked her hips, created a subtle deep friction. “I do,” she gasped. “But I want more.”
“There is no more.”
She grasped a fistful of his hair and forced his head back until he met her gaze. The look in his eyes was dangerous. More dangerous than she’d ever seen before. But she wasn’t the least bit daunted.
She was empowered.
“You’re a shameless scoundrel and a brute. But you’re not a liar.” She touched his lips with her fingertips. “What are you afraid of?”
A dark shadow passed over his gaze. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she challenged, sliding her hand around to cup his nape.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her thighs. Every muscle in his body tensed. His pulse thrummed and his brow grew heavy.
“Don’t love me, duchess.” His voice was raw. Stripped bare.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said before drawing his mouth to hers.
She thrust her tongue past his teeth, rubbing it along his with sultry promise. With an arch of her low spine, she pressed her breasts to his chest. And she held him. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her thighs cradling his hips, and his cock throbbing deep inside her, she held him.
A moan rolled thick and heavy from his body. His arms doubled around her waist, and in bringing her closer into his embrace, their bodies shifted, allowing a delicious slide of his flesh within hers. Slick, hot, and wonderful.
“You’ll regret this,” he grunted. Grabbing fistfuls of her nightgown, he pulled it roughly up over head before covering her breasts with his heavy palms. “You’ll come to hate me. Everyone does.”
Katherine reached back to brace herself on the hard surface of his thighs as she arched deep, throwing her head back. He immediately took one breast with his mouth, swirling his tongue over the beaded tip.
“Never,” she gasped. “I could never hate you, Mason. I—”
His animalistic growl and the sharp edge of his teeth on her soft flesh stopped her from uttering the phrase that rose so easily to her lips. Before she could try to repeat the sentiment, he looped his arm around her waist and lifted her from his lap, pulling himself from her sheath. Then he thrust upward again. The move stole her breath and her thoughts.
After that, she took over the punishing rhythm, rising and falling along his hot length with relentless focus as he suckled her breasts and scored his blunt nails over her belly and hips and thighs. The pleasure and beautiful tension built inside her, but an anxious fear threatened to steal it away.
Because she hadn’t accomplished what she’d come here for. She hadn’t convinced him—
He hooked his hands over her shoulders from behind, pulling her closer so he could seal his open mouth to the side of her throat, pulling her sensitive skin against the edge of his teeth.
Her body quivered from head to toe.
But she didn’t get to tell him—
He cupped her rear with one hand, urging her to a faster, shorter rhythm. Sliding one long
