no notion that her thrashing only rubbed her breasts against his chest and ground her curves into his straining prick. She had no idea her breathlessness and open berry-red lips called to him. Even her anger excited him. Her hatred made him want her. He had not been prepared for the depths of his own depravity.
But there was a reason he was known as Sin.
Part of him reveled in the depraved.
And this physical battle between them? It was the stuff depravity was made of.
“Oh, marry me, you will,” he promised her.
And then he gave in to temptation, to wickedness. He pressed his mouth over hers. He would not call it a kiss, because it was not that; it was less and yet so much more. It was a claiming. It was also possession. He would never raise his hand to a woman, regardless of what she had done to him, but he wanted to dominate Lady Calliope Manning. He wanted her weak. On her knees.
He would settle for her mouth. He kissed her viciously, with bruising force. And it startled him, how much he liked it. How suddenly ravenous he was for her, this woman he loathed, this capricious chit who had brought about his ruin with her wild imagination and poison pen.
There was something between them. Something more than hatred. More than lust. He kissed her, and he forgot why they were here, what she had done, how he had taken her from London, her subsequent attack with the worthless piece of pottery. For a moment, he forgot all the reasons. Forgot everything but the woman beneath him. She smelled sweet and exotic at once, like lavender and tuberose. He inhaled her scent, her breaths, her fear.
Her lips moved against his. She was breaking, giving in. Kissing him back. He lost himself. Lost reason. Had to taste her. He slid his tongue into her mouth. She made a mewling sound, her tongue moving against his.
And then, the spawn of Satan bit him. His tongue, specifically. Hard enough for him to rear his head back, severing the connection. With enough force to draw blood. For the second time that day, the copper flavor of his own blood was in his mouth.
“Vicious princess,” he ground out, staring down at her.
“I will never marry you,” she returned, all fire.
He smiled. He was enjoying this far more than he had anticipated. Enough of these games, however. He had no intention of consummating their union until she was officially his countess. And before that could happen, he would have to lay out the plain facts for her.
But first, he was hungry. Not just for her beneath him, but for his dinner.
“I will enjoy proving you wrong,” he told her, and then he moved quickly, rising to his feet and hauling her along with him. “Do not try anything so foolish again, Lady Calliope. I would hate to have to cut your pretty flesh, but I will if you make me. It is only fair, since you have drawn first blood.”
He did not want to bind her wrists again. When he had cut her bindings and she had made a sound of undeniable pain, guilt had eaten at him. He was good with knots, but he was not accustomed to binding another for longer than what bed sport required. And despite the fact that he despised this woman and what she had done to him, he had no wish to cause her physical pain.
He withdrew his blade as a reminder, and then he tugged her along with him. “Come. It is time for us to have dinner and to talk.”
Callie did not want to have dinner with the beastly Earl of Sinclair.
Nor did she have any inclination to speak with him.
And yet, she found herself seated opposite him at a scarred old table in the kitchens of the ruins where he had taken her. She had watched in amazement as he had filled plates with cold chicken, hunks of bread, and cheese. Simple fare, and yet, somehow, she had not expected a heartless murderer to care enough to make certain her stomach was not empty.
And as she watched him fussing over the meager meal he had somehow acquired in the brief pause in their travels earlier in the day, when he had left her in the carriage, her lips stung. They stung with the reminder of those awful kisses. Who could have anticipated his hated lips would have felt so very right upon hers?