Her pulse could not marshal a defense at this blunt statement. This was not a man who admitted such things lightly. Violet understood that about him already, perhaps better than she should. And her body answered with shameless eagerness.“That sounds remarkably like ayouproblem.” If only her body agreed with her mouth.
He released an incredulous breath against her throat. “You provoke a man, then mock him for admitting it?”
“I provoke you no more than you wish to be.”
His eyes narrowed on her, hips grinding deeper, the cot creaking beneath them. Blazes, whatwasthat feeling? The sudden, unreasoned urge to seek more left no room for caution. Violet drew a breath and failed to steady it. What caught her was her body’s response. The way her hips sought more. Had she gone too far? Should she go even farther? Just who was provoking who here?
Rogue.
Violet lifted her knees and hooked her legs around him, pulling him closer with a decisive press that left no room for misunderstanding. No accident in it. No hesitation either.Shehad made a choice—not stumbled into one, not been maneuvered into one—but chosen, with full knowledge of what she was choosing.
And there.
Whatever his eyes had been asking, she answered.
He groaned, rolling his hips against her. That sensation returned. The one where she wanted to feel just how far it could go. That same hunger stirred—the rash desire to learn just how far this could be taken. Bold took on a different meaning, and time distorted from there. Only motion and heat persisted. The merciless press of him through layers of cloth. The way his body seemed to move of its own accord now, driven by primal need. His breath broke against her throat, uneven, almost tortured.
His wound. . .
“Drake.”
He caught her mouth with his, harder than before, deeper. A kiss that was meant to steal the thought straight from her head.And lord, the man knew how to do just that. She arched into him, greedily returning the kiss and her body greedily accepting the maddening friction between her legs. His mouth left hers, his lips dragging down to trail a fire caused by his stubble down her neckline. That roughness sent a shiver through her. Like touching a beast and discovering the edge of its strength beneath the fur.
His hips took on a different rhythm, slower this time, absorbing the want of him even through layers of cloth. It was not enough. It was entirely too much. He was everywhere. Touching everywhere. A tiger that had caught his prey, only his prey wanted to be eaten. Something inside her melted, unbidden, unstoppable, and impossible to express.
“Something is happening,” she murmured, her whole body restless with strangeness.
A curse tore from him. His forehead dropped briefly to her shoulder, as though bracing himself there. “I know,” he muttered. “Just hold on to me.”
She did. Arms sliding around him, pressing close, deciding if she didn’t do as he advised, she might scatter to nothing and cease to exist. His mouth found the hollow of her throat, his mouth closing over her collarbone, and sparks of pleasure unleashed within her, flooding her whole body, even the tips of her toes.
What does that make you for kissing me back?
Liberated.
At the same time, a voice bellowed through the building.
*
Drake cursed, headlifting to the door that led upstairs. And then cursed some more. Violet, the little spitfire, had gone completelystill beneath him as the chill of that blasted boom wrecked the rapture of his release. A plague on the devil’s soul. He’d spilled in his breeches.
Bloody hell.
Was he a wet whelp?
So much for his deuced discipline.
Drake Fury. King of the underworld. A man who had stared down loaded pistols without blinking, who had walked into rooms full of enemies and left them trembling. A man who prided himself on iron control in every conceivable circumstance.
But undone. By a woman.
He almost laughed. He would have, had it not been so damnably humiliating. He’d built his entire reputation on mastery—of his temper, his enemies, his desires. And she had dismantled it so bloody effortlessly his head still spun.
“Have they found us?” Violet asked softly.
His gaze lowered to hers. “Yes.”
Her eyes flew wide. “What do we do then? Should we lock ourselves in the cell?”
