The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,18

holding the rough swipes of his hands, his mouth, tight to her.

A gasp—guttural and raw—left her lips and her hands dropped from his head, clawing at his back, at his lawn shirt until it was up and over his head.

Her fingers across his skin, dancing, scratching as she demanded more from him. Every breath. Every motion. Not satisfied, her hands moved to the front of him, dipping down and unbuttoning the fall front of his trousers. Setting his rock-hard member free and she set her right hand around it. A stroking vise both holding him back and dragging him with.

He pulled up from her breast only to see those damned lips again, now swollen and bruised and parted, waiting. He moved forward, crushing her in a kiss, his weight going atop hers as his left hand found the bottom edges of her skirts. Her shin. Thigh. The length of her leg silk under his palm.

He reached the heat of her. Hot, wet for him and he couldn’t control his own arm, his fingers dipping into her folds, parting her, finding the sweet, hard spot that made her breath catch and gasp his name. Gasp for more. Grind her body against his.

She’d always wanted this, wanted him—no modesty or restraint.

Her hips arched into him, into his manipulations as her teeth latched onto his lip. A moment of torture and she pulled back, her hands moving to his shoulders, holding him in place, holding him to his onslaught. His name wisped from her lips, her voice so desperate and breathless he could do nothing but burrow into her further, his fingers invading her, drawing her to a frenzied pitch.

Hell, he didn’t want to give her this—give her the satisfaction—but damned if he was strong enough to stop it.

She screamed, her body curling forward as she reached her peak and he watched her face, her eyes closed. She’d landed in another time, another place. And he knew exactly where she was.

She was eighteen again, and they were together in the alcove just inside the back gardens of his family’s townhouse—they hadn’t even made it into the empty house, his need for her was too staggering.

For all that he hated her, she was beautiful. He’d solidly managed to ignore that fact for the last seven years. To think of her as nothing but a witch. A hag.

But she was beautiful.

Especially when her body was rolling through shock after shock of an orgasm.

The waves still hitting her, her body shuddering, her amber eyes cracked open and she leaned forward, grabbing his member again, stroking it. Wrapping her hands around him and squeezing until pain was mixed with unholy pleasure and then she would soften.

It took an embarrassingly short amount of time for him to come, his body betraying everything he wanted to think and do to this woman.

Yet his arms went around her, dragging her on top of him as he stretched out on the settee.

Her body still quivered in intervals that he felt through his own bones.

Dammit to Hades, but he was a weak man.

At least when it came to Laney.

Her breathing into his chest evened and just when he thought she’d fallen asleep, her lips moved against his bare chest.

“I like your house, Wes.” Her head shifted and her nose nuzzled into his skin. “I wanted to tell you before I fell asleep. Before tomorrow when you will hate me again.”

“You haven’t forgotten?”

“No.”

A sardonic grin came to his face. Laney had always been pragmatic. She knew exactly what tomorrow would bring. “Good. I have much in store for you.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Three long seconds of silence and he had to ask her the question before she fell asleep. Not that her opinion mattered in the slightest to him, but curiosity was a wicked tickle in his brain. “Why do you like the house?”

“The same reason as you.” Her voice murmured into his chest. “The square. It has a row of lilacs. They are blooming late. I could smell them as the coach pulled along the street.”

“So?”

“They made me happy—for just the moment the scent of them was in my nose. Lilacs were always my favorite.” She shifted her head on his chest to look at him, her sleepy eyes half open. “You don’t remember how I used to make you reach the highest blooms for me because they smelled the best? The acrobatics you would go through? And how you would bend the branches to hold the last of the blooms down—even though