Page 37 of In the Prince's Bed
“No,” he snapped. “I’ve heeded your ‘please, Alec’ too many times already today. So before you trot off to Sydney, I’m getting what I came for.” Giving her no more time to protest, he kissed her.
He’d expected some resistance, but what she did was worse. She stood still, not fighting him but not responding, either. It was like kissing a statue.
Temper flaring, he jerked back to glower at her. “Kiss me back, blast you.”
Her expression was eerily composed after the heated confusion she’d shown when their hands were caressing. “You didn’t mention anything about my having to kiss you back. You wanted a kiss, that’s all. And now you’ve had it.”
“I said a reward. And this is no reward.”
Though her blush acknowledged the truth of that, she wriggled free of his hold and headed for the door. “It’s all the reward you’re getting from me.”
He reached her just as she laid her hand on the door-knob. Catching her by the arm, he dragged her as far from the door’s inset window as the small room allowed. Then he lifted her onto a nearby table, ignoring her shriek of protest as he trapped her between the hands he braced against its surface.
“I let you talk me into sitting through two hours of damned awful poetry, so by God, you’ll give me my rightful reward if I have to keep you here all day.”
Challenge shone in her face. “Kiss me again if you wish, but I can’t help my response. I don’t feel that way about you.”
“The hell you don’t,” he bit out, then grabbed her by the shoulders and covered her mouth once more with his.
The anger that rode him made him kiss her too hard, too fiercely, so this time she did fight him, fisting her hands against his chest and nipping his lip like some wild thing.
As her resistance registered in the midst of his anger, he fought to bring his volatile emotions under control. He forced himself to be more gentle, to kiss her with the consideration she deserved. She wasn’t going to accuse him later of assaulting her when he had merely wanted her to fulfill her promise.
He rubbed his lips over hers, measuring their softness. He tugged playfully at her lower lip with his teeth. And the longer he worshiped her mouth with his, relishing the tender lips and drinking in her hot little breaths, the more she yielded, until soon she was kissing him back.
Only then did he deepen the kiss. Exulting in her response, he delved over and over into the sweet heat of her silken mouth. She flattened her hands on his chest, then clung to him, her fingers grabbing fistfuls of coat as she strained higher against his mouth.
By God, she was soft everywhere—not just her lips, but her hands and her waist and her hips…He would never get enough of this heady enjoyment, never be able to drink his fill of her delicious mouth.
Only when she stiffened and tore her lips from his did he realize he was cupping her breast. Her achingly soft breast. The one he wanted to take in his mouth and suck—
“Touching me isn’t…part of your reward,” she gasped.
But she didn’t push his hand away or slap him, which told him plenty. “I know.” He branded her neck with kisses, his hand still kneading her breast.
“You shouldn’t…do it.”
“Why not? Because you don’t feel ‘that way’ about me?” he growled against her ear. He rubbed his thumb over the tip of her breast, fiercely pleased when her nipple hardened.
“Please…Alec…”
The breathy little sigh fired his need to greater heights. “Tell me again how you hate having my hands on you, my mouth on yours—”
“You don’t play fair,” she grumbled.
“The man who plays fair loses, sweetheart, and I hate losing.” He pressed an openmouthed kiss to her blush-warmed cheek. “Tell me you hate this.” He caught her earlobe in his teeth, her delicate little earlobe he could nibble on all day. “And this.” He kneaded her breast. “And this.”
“I hate…I…don’t want…”
“Tell me what youdowant.”So I can drive that blasted Lovelace from your mind once and for all.
But Katherine’s mind was miles away from Sydney. Alec’s hand, that hot, questing hand that had driven her mad during the reading, was all she could think of, caressing her breast, fondling it, searing her with this wild excitement.
She should protest the outrage. She should push him away.
But no wonder all those ladies in the Rhetorick looked rapturous when men touched them so intimately. It was the most deliciously naughty feeling. Only think what it would be like if he touched her bare flesh…
As if he’d read her thoughts, Alec began to unbutton the bodice of her riding habit.
