Dancing With Danger (Goode Girls #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,35

reached out, shocked when her hand encountered the warm flesh of his chest.

Shocked that she kept it there, searching for the beat of a heart she could never claim.

“I’m already where I want to be.” The earnestness of his expression unstitched her as he reached his own palm out, and pressed it to where her own heart hurled itself against the cage of her chest.

“What do you feel when I touch you?” His voice washed her in a pleasant glow, the question putting her at ease. “When you touch me?”

“Butterflies,” she answered honestly, placing her other hand over where wings made a riot in her belly.

He tilted his head, his hand moving lower, not to her breast quite yet, but almost. “Butterflies? Don’t they erupt when you are afraid?”

“I’m not afraid,” she lied.

“What are you?”

“Excited.”

“Excitement is often born of fear.”

But was fear also this delicious? She wondered.

Her silence seemed to consternate him. “Is that why you relented to my wicked proposition? Am I your one chance to dance with danger?” His hand stilled as he gazed at her. “Will you regret saying yes to me when this is over?”

“Certainly not.” Her eyes flew open and she drew back, an offended frown tugging at the corners of her lips. “I said yes because you’re the one man who makes me feel more alive by just walking into a room. I said yes because I was categorically certain I’d regret it if I refused this opportunity for pleasure.”

His eyes gleamed like those of a night-hunting predator beneath a moonless sky.

She’d the sense she’d just disconcerted him.

Oh dear, had she been too honest again?

This time, when his fingers dug into the back of her neck, it was to drag her forward and slant his lips over hers.

She melted into him like wax beneath a flame, surrendering and puddling in the fire he ignited.

Dragging his tongue against hers, he licked and tasted, his breath coming in rasping pants. Feral, guttural noises vibrated across her lips, into her mouth, and down to the very core of her.

His hands wandered, the skin rough and the movements gentle.

He seemed to understand her impatience. To craft it, mirror it, and then ignore it, drawing out some delicious distraction with a swirl of his tongue or a barely-there nip of his teeth.

She could kiss him forever, but it wasn’t enough. She desired him closer. Over her, beneath her. Beside her.

Inside her.

He wanted her, too, dammit, so why didn’t he just—?

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he was suddenly above her. Settling his weight between her parted thighs, he kept the sheet and his trousers between them.

His lean hips kicked forward, introducing her to the hard length of his arousal as he fed the fire of their kiss until it threatened to scorch her.

Mercy couldn’t tell if he’d uttered the ragged moan or she had.

Dangerous thoughts filtered through her consciousness as he caressed her in places she hadn’t expected. He drew knuckles across her jaw, and she imagined devotion in his touch. He feathered caresses across her clavicles and ghosted his palms down bare shoulders.

She might have found a pledge whispered on the pants of his breath.

Impossible.

Even in the darkness, she could sense the pace of his heart, hammering with a tempo as furious and drastic as her own.

He dragged his lips from hers after a moment, making a moist trail with his mouth up the line of her jaw.

It wasn’t his lust that amazed her, it was his tenderness. His lips quested across her hairline, temple, and down the nape of her neck. He took in deep drags of breath, as if he could lock the scent of her inside of him.

“Mine.” His head dipped low enough, the word caressed her throat, chased by lips that stopped to sample the tender skin and tease the sensitive nerves there.

Her entire being trembled in expectant anticipation of his touch, of the shivery whisper of his warm breath a moment before his lips followed.

“You are an incomparable beauty.” He said this like an accusation, before his mouth found her breast and began an erotic assault upon it that left her utterly defenseless. He deprived her of air, of thought, of any sort of reason as he held her immobile beneath him. Some of his tenderness seemed to abandon him now, as he licked and nipped at her with intensifying aggression.

Her body bloomed for it. She knew what making love entailed. The mechanics of the act, at least. But she’d been truly unprepared