Page 54 of Cocky August Rake

Let him want this. Let him want her.

Let him come to understand that The Domus was not only sin and silk and coin changing hands. It was comfort. A place for pleasure without cruelty.

Let him want it enough to question himself.

Let him want her enough.

His jaw moved against her intimately, and Rose shuddered, letting out a fluttery cry.

He stopped at once.

“Don’t,” she said quickly. “Don’t stop.”

“You like that?”

“Yes. The feel of your face. Your whiskers.”

She opened her eyes just enough to see him watching her closely.

“Again,” she said. “More.”

He obeyed, dragging the roughness of his cheek against her, then following it with his mouth. The scrape of his jaw. The heat of his mouth.

Her knees weakened, but he kept her upright.

“I have you,” he said again.

She hated how much she liked hearing that.

“There,” she whispered, guiding his hand higher, spreading her thighs wider. “Yes.”

There was no hiding how ready she was. No hiding the heat, the wetness, the unapologetic eagerness of her body. She had meant him to want her. She had not meant to show him quite so plainly that she wanted him too.

“Rose.” The broken sound of her name slipped beneath her ribs.

His fingers moved.

A slow stroke. Then another.

Too light.

She laughed once, breathless and uneven. “You are trying very hard not to be wicked.”

His gaze flashed up.

“I am trying very hard not to hurt you.”

Oh.

Rose’s fingers loosened in his hair.

“You will not hurt me if you listen.”

“I am listening.”

Yes.

He was.