Her eyes widened. “What rot! How did you arrive atthatinconceivable conclusion?”
“Inconceivable?” he couldn’t help tease. “Did you not yourself say you acted before you could think? Your instincts were to protect me.” That part she could never deny.
“My body also moves before my brain catches up when I step around a puddle. That doesn’t mean I’m fond of the puddle.”
He stared at her. She stared back.
He arched a brow.
“My instincts,” she bit out, “took exception to your being attacked mid-dressing.”
Heh. “I see.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “Why does it feel that you don’t?”
Drake shifted uncomfortably, cursing his body for reacting in this damnable situation. He couldn’t help his gaze dropping to her lips again. He wanted to bite them. Scold her for risking her life for him. Punish her for placing her life in danger. Kiss her in appreciation. All he wanted, God help him, was to reach for her. To pull her close enough that her clever mouth could be occupied in a more pleasing way, that her thoughts could be scattered, that whatever secrets she guarded could be loosenedbeneath his hands. The temptation was sharp, immediate, and bloody ill-advised.
It also set his cock on fire.
Drake dragged in a slow breath, forcing his gaze away from her mouth. From the curve of her throat. From the heat of her nearness that made him forget, momentarily, every boundary he imposed on himself.
This was the line.
He knew it the way he knew how a fight turns. The precise moment when holding back became its own kind of losing. In this case, one step and there would be no pretending they could return to simply measured blows. Discipline had never failed him before, but tonight... tonight, for some bloody reason, was different than all other nights.
“You should step outside,” Drake said hoarsely.
Her brows knit. “Step outside?”
Drake did not bother with delicacy. “Lock me in the cell or I won’t be able to hold back.”
“You’re asking me to lock you in your own cell? Why?” She stared at him as though he’d suggested she sprout wings and fly. “What are you holding back from?”
“Possessing that pretty mouth of yours.”
She blinked at him, her surprise lasting only a heartbeat before she laughed. “And what, pray tell, could a man one breath from collapse possibly do to me?”
Drake’s hand shot out, snaking around her wrist too fast to evade. The question scraped tauntingly along his nerves. She had no notion what she was daring. He yanked her forward, the sudden movement drawing a sharp hiss from his own throat as a sting tore through his back, but he welcomed it all. Pain was honest. Perhaps the most honest thing in the world. She gasped as she stumbled against him, palms bracing against his chestas he hauled her fully onto the cot, the space between them vanishing in an instant.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, cheeks flushed.
“Showing you.”
“But your wound!”
“My wound, love, is not my concern at the moment.” The hurt he felt in his body had nothing to do with his injury and everything to do with her. Christ, he could feel her breath teasing his lips, too close to ignore, too tempting to deny. How the hell did this woman possess the power to threaten the discipline he’d accumulated all these years?
Drake released her wrist, his hand slipping to cup her neck, fingers curving into her skin, drawing her in for a kiss that seemed both a mistake and a necessity. One breath away from collapsing?
Not a chance.
Not while this tempting flame challenged him. His grip tightened, his other hand moving to her arse and pinning her to him so he could grind his cock into her. “Does this feel like a man one breath away from collapsing?”
Her eyes glowed at him. “You are mad.”
“I may very well be, but what does that make you for kissing me back?” Drake didn’t stop there, and by God, he should. But he taunted further, “How far do you dare go before your sensibilities collapse within each other?”
Just what did he want to be to Violet Sharpe?
