Page 53 of Bound to the Heartless Duke
Lily whimpered as his hands slid around her thighs, lifting her off the floor in one effortless motion. Instinctively, her legs wrapped around his waist, her skirts bunched between them as he pinned her to the wall, every inch of his stronger body flush against her.
Pressed against him, she felt the heat of his chest. His shirt was unbuttoned and pushed aside, and her palms slid up to touch his warm skin. She moaned softly as her fingers traced the ridges of his abdomen.
“Tell me to stop,” he muttered against her lips, his voice raw. “Say the word, Lily, and I will.”
But she didn’t.
Instead, her hands continued tracing the muscles of his back as her lips moved against his, trying to mirror the intensity of his caresses..
He responded hungrily, his mouth moving to her neck. He kissed just beneath her ear, then along her throat, and lower still. Her head tipped back, helpless against the tremors wracking her body. It left her breathless how his touch on her skin filled her with heat that threatened to consume her. His teeth nipped her at a spot on her neck that had her gasping, alternataing with his tongue to cool the sting.
He slowed down for a moment, breathing hard against her skin.“This is madness,” he whispered.
She blinked, her breath catching.
And in that instant of hesitation, the barest second of clarity, she knew he was right.
Itwasmadness.
Because this wasn’t just an attraction. It wasn’t just relief or loneliness or proximity.
It was him.
And he was everything she shouldn’t want.
With a shaky exhale, she pulled back slightly, enough to catch her breath.
Magnus paused, too. His grip on her loosened, but he didn’t release her. His gaze was searching, stormy, as if waiting for her to retreat, to regret it all. To call it a mistake, like she did the previous time.
But she didn’t.
Her fingers curled against his bare chest, and she rested her forehead against his.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
His thumb stroked her hip. “Neither do I.”
Silence lingered between them, save for the rise and fall of their chests. Heavy and heated.
His voice dropped again, softer this time. “Say something, Lily.”
She shook her head, her eyes closed. “If I say anything, it’ll make it real.”
A long pause. “Maybe it already is.”
She opened her eyes. His mesmerizing ones were still on her, bare, vulnerable in a way that did something to her soul.
“I don’t want to be yours,” she breathed. “And I don’t want you to be mine.”
Lie. She knew all of it was a lie.
“But you are,” he murmured.
He kissed her again. Only this time, it was slower, gentler, yearning.
She didn’t kiss him back, just allowed her whole being to absorb his kiss.
Lily was about to close her eyes and fall deeper into the kiss when a voice sounded down the hall.
