Page 317 of From Rakes to Riches

Not only because he didn’t have many nights left, but because even though he was a man who always claimed what he went after, he rarely went after what he truly wanted.

Somehow, this young, untried woman seemed to know what it was that heneeded. Intrinsically answering questions he hadn’t yet thought to ask.

Her fingers slid into his hair, both soothing him and setting the nerves there alight with sensation. He’d needed her touch, craved it, and yet a sense of guilt kept him from seeking it.

Tonight was his to give. To teach. To soothe and comfort. A woman’s first time took patience and skill and reserve that only a knave would abandon.

His ferocious and terrible instinct would have him pin her to the bed while he remained standing so he could press her knees by her head and watch himself fuck and fuck andfuckher until they collapsed with thirst and exhaustion.

He wanted to feed her from his hand and bathe her so he could bend her over and do it again. He wanted her to tie him up and ride his mouth. His cock.

He wanted her in every depraved way a man could take a woman.

And the simple ones too...

Mercy Goode was inherently a carnal woman, given to impish mischief and endless curiosity. She wouldn’t be content with basic, gentle lovemaking for long.

She’d want more.

And he’d be gone before long.

Holy Christ, she’d find someone else.

Possessive instinct surged, and suddenly she was in the circle of his arms, her lithe body clenched against his with such strength, he lifted her knees from the bed.

A turbulent rage rose beneath his lust, churning opaque emotions from where he’d forced them to lie dormant like the bed of sludge beneath a lake of ice.

Why now?

When decisions had been made, and his fate sealed. When he’d vowed to atone for all the wrong he’d never wanted to do...

The right woman barged into his life and turned his entire world upside down.

Made him question everything he thought he knew about himself.

Made him yearn for things that were patently impossible.

Made his blood froth and churn with torrents of need, and his heart trip and kick with boyish, frivolous emotions.

Like hope, for example.

Or whatever this odd amalgamation of impossible softness and desperate intensity could be called.

Was there a word for it?

For yearning more insatiable than lust? Hunger more excruciating than deprivation?

Pain more insidious than the shattering of bone?

The three languages he spoke fluently offered up nothing. Though, the feel of the naked woman molded to him might have addled his brain somewhat.

Her response to the imprisonment of his arms was unfettered and open and fearless, just like her.

Pressing herself to him, she scored his scalp with her nails, rolled her body in sinuous undulations, as if the entire ravenous intensification of their encounter had beenherbloody idea.

In fact, she tugged at him with surprising strength for such a delicate creature, pulling him back to the bed and nearly climbing him like a falling tree as he lay her back on the counterpane.

Her thighs fell open beneath his weight, her long legs locking around his waist.

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