Those fingers shoved into his jacket, tugging it over one shoulder in a one-handed attempt to sweep it away from him.
Her left arm remained folded in front of her as if she wore her sling, and that fact drew his head up to break the kiss.
“Help me, dammit,” she panted, tugging restlessly as she lifted on her toes to reclaim his mouth.
“No,” he groaned.
“I can’t bloody do it myself.” Her expression was a lament of lust and frustration.
As he already held her jaw in his palms, he tilted her face up, urging her to look at him. “Your wound, Nora. We can’t.”
This close, her disappearing irises were the color of ripe black cherries, gleaming with striations of amber and ringed with honey. Her pupils dilated so large and round they almost swallowed everything else with a well of black, fathomless need.
“Undress,” she ordered breathlessly. “Now.”
Even as he complied, shucking his jacket and discarding it on the table, he contended, “I’ll hurt you—”
“I don’t care.” She yanked her claws down the front of his shirt, sending more than a few of his buttons clattering against the floor and rolling in chaotic directions.
“That is because you do not understand.” He caught her wrist, his thumb pressing into the pulse leaping against the thin and tender skin. He could feel the blood rushing through her veins, the electric currents leaping and arcing between them. “I’m still… furious. With him. With you. What is between us is not…it isn’t gentle. This isn’t—”
She yanked her wrist from his grasp before stepping in to stretch her body against his, like a cat demanding affection. Her hand lowered to shape against the cock pulsing beneath his trousers, stealing any available oxygen from his lungs.
“Be as angry as you want to be, Titus,” she murmured against his ear. “Unleash it. I can bear your fury, but not your distance. I can take all of you.”
With her husky permission, the rest of his control crumbled.
Her mouth was already waiting when he descended upon her with all the mercy of a wild, ravenous beast. Her body jerked as he yanked at the ties of her corset and drew it off, flinging it into the ether. He no longer knew where they were or what time it was or why they should not be doing this.
Only his body existed, and hers. They could have been Adam and Eve, every other living soul something they’d dreamed, a fabrication of their loneliness. Of their undeniable need for each other.
His lust became a ravenous, gnawing creature, hungry only to taste her. Every place she was pale and soft. Every place she was peach and delicate.
This fire between them could only be doused by a flood.
And he would make certain she was good and wet.
You’ll forget them, he silently vowed. Any other man who has had you. You’ll forget them all.
He’d always been grateful to those few women who’d been tenacious enough to entice him to enjoy the attentions they generously offered and passion they freely shared. But they’d already faded from his memory now that Nora had returned to his embrace.
His shirt only made it down to his elbows before she pushed him backward with surprising strength. He controlled his fall to the chaise, and gripped her ass as she sank with him, splitting her legs over his lap.
His hands rucked up her skirts, wading through petticoats until he found the smooth shape of her thigh, right above her knee.
This was how they would do this, the only way to protect her shoulder from discomfort or pressing up against a surface.
His body reacted with a surge of urgency and anticipation. He knew how much this woman loved to ride.
How damned good she was at it.
Beneath her thin summer chemise, the dusky tips of her breasts swayed in front of him, pebbled with arousal and need. He kissed one, then the other, breathing a hot swath through the fabric and thrilling in the delighted sounds that elicited from her throat.
Meanwhile, his hands charted a wicked path up her thighs, stopping to tease at her garters, at the little ribbons of her drawers, plucking the one that would bare her to his touch.
They each gasped in a breath as his fingers stroked through the soft intimate hair. The heated ruffles of feminine flesh were liquid silk, molten in primitive forges.
He familiarized himself with the shape of her, marveling at the differences in their textures here. Where he was velvet skin over stone and steel, she