At some point, he had released her from his hold. At some point, her long, graceful fingers found purchase in his jacket front.
Hartwell kept up his siege of her mouth.
Since that stupid auction, she had driven him bloody mad. She had teased him. Laughed at him. With him. Duped him. Then made a fool of him.
And yet, the greatest grievance being every little moment of camaraderie that had come that day, before the Byron mess.
“You are a witch,” he rasped, backing her up, until she collided against a crystal case.
Curling his large palm around her fragile nape, he kept her in place while he ravaged her mouth. He didn’t kiss her like the lady she was. He kissed her like he owned her. Hart needed only this from the impertinent chit. To show her who held the power. Who was in control.
She clawed her way inside his jacket and dug her fingers into his lawn shirt. The bite of her nails pushed him further towards insanity.
Parting her mouth, he buried his sinner’s tongue inside her innocent mouth and kissed her the way he had wanted to since that bloody auction that made rivals of them. She kissed with the same boldness he’d tormented himself thinking about during dinner.
Then there had been last night. Him seated down that bloody table while she turned her heart-shaped lips for every other man present and jeered at Hart with her taunting eyes.
“All the fun you’re having baiting me. Taunting me. Tempting me.”
She moaned. “I-I tempt you?”
“You like that do you, you impertinent minx,” he jeered, at himself as much as her.
“Yes.” Fleur packed several syllables into that plaintive groan.
Hart let his hands do their own exploration; he learned the generous curve of hips he’d conceived as narrower, the natural arch of her back. This is what he needed. She was like any fine feast. After he had a taste, he could quench his craving.
He moved his journey elsewhere. Angling Fleur’s head right, his fingers becoming twisted in the corkscrew curls he’d previously mocked, but now luxuriated in, he threaded his fingers through the silky strands.
The fringe of her lashes that she had batted flirtatiously at other men now lay like a golden curtain, weighted down with passion.
And Hart, like all men since the beginning of time, triumphed over her complete surrender.
She had leveraged every insult there was at Hart, but in the end, his wasn’t a one-sided passion. She didn’t simply yield—she curved her body eagerly against him, seized his mouth like it was hers to take.
Theirs was a shared madness.
If purging was the point, savoring every drop of her was the key.
Hart kissed and licked the place where her swan-like neck met the hollow of her shoulder. Licked and nipped a path along her collarbone, and with his mouth, he charted a path to remembrance to mark what was rare, familiar.
Then, he made a fatal error; he buried his face in the deep crevice between her breasts.
Not that it was a mistake because it was any less than he wanted.
No, as Hart filled his palms with the surprisingly heavy weight of her flesh, the Devil taunted him.
Do you think you’ll be content with only this, you stupid man? How could you be when you haven’t explored all of her satin-soft skin? Have a peek at her nipples.
Hart didn’t even put up a fight for morality and danced all too happily down the path of sin.
The hands he used to drag her neckline down shook. Then shook even more as he had his first look at the massive curve of her breasts and the enormous, swollen tips that crowned them. All of him shook; his legs, his arms, the very thumbs and forefingers he swept over the dusky peaks.
Pleasure bolted through him.
And Fleur. God help him, Fleur combed her fingers through his hair. She moaned incoherently, something that resembled four names rolled together into one. “William Henry Edward Charles.”
Fleur clasped his head, anchoring him while he worshipped her; she curved her body into his, but then his muscles were growing useless and making his legs useless. The hoyden was saucy even in passion. His pulse thundered in his ears. He knew she would be. Had thought it. Dreamed it. Imagined it.
