Dancing With Danger (Goode Girls #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,55
don’t deserve it.”
Mercy didn’t realize what was welling inside of her until her hand flung out and struck him on the cheek.
God, that was satisfying.
The pain.
The blank look of shock on the beautiful bastard’s face.
Heat swirled inside her. A conflagration of rage fed by helplessness and...and something else. Something so profound and breathtaking it threatened to turn her to ash.
She wanted to scream at the idea of his loss. His death. This vital, tender, brilliant villain. This man who would dismantle his father’s tainted legacy for the love of his brother.
Who would give his life.
She slapped him again. Harder this time. Apparently unable to control herself at the tragic thought of his demise.
His head flinched ever so slightly to the side, but he said nothing. Did nothing. Took her fury on the chin while those bleak, abysmal, exquisite eyes threatened to destroy her with the agony she read in their depths.
She pulled her hand back once more, the sting from her previous strike having yet to fade. Words tumbled into her throat, but she couldn’t seem to speak them. Not to the face of the man who was the specter of every wicked dream she’d dared to remember.
The answer to every question she’d not known to ask.
The only reason she’d consider abandoning her vow to remain alone.
That thought stole her breath as she stared at him in mute wonder.
He’d the body of a man, and the soul of a beast. An animal’s primitive instinct. And it summoned something so ancient and powerful from the deepest parts of her. Something needful and violent, carnal and famished. He teased and tantalized her. Amused and antagonized her.
And the entire time he was planning his own death.
She had meant to slap him again, she really had. To strike the very idea out of his head.
It was impossible to discern who lunged first.
His muscles twitched, hers responded, or the other way around, it wasn’t relevant in the end.
When their bodies crashed together like waves finding their own shore, all that mattered was that their lips finally met. Savored. Punished. Pleaded.
Devoured. Consumed.
Her fingers bracketed the rough skin of his jaw, a lovely tactile dichotomy to the smoothness of his lips.
Like silk and sand.
The kiss did not douse the flames of fury within her, merely fed them, fanned them, sent the heat licking its way over her flesh until it landed deep inside her womb.
Her snarl of demand somehow escaped as a whimper of need.
She was dimly aware of a sense of weightlessness and a rush of air before she found herself pinned on her back to a mattress.
Above her, Raphael’s teeth bared and his eyes glinted with a dangerous hunger. He caught her wrists and effortlessly held them in one large hand, securing them above her head.
He descended on her then, a low growl erupting from him as he dragged his mouth everywhere. Her jaw, her neck, the angle of her clavicle before returning to her lips to start a different trail.
Vibrations of heat and hunger shook her to her very bones as a terrific heaviness gathered in her loins. She found herself astonished that a kiss might convey more than words. She felt the unrequited need, the loveless lifetime of desolation.
He was not gentle as he’d been the night before. The tender, skillful lover had been replaced by this savage, cruel beast. He used his teeth, nipping at tender skin and then smoothing it over with the hot velvet of his tongue.
Even though he was heavy enough to crush her, some fervency rose within her, telling her she’d never get close enough. Not matter how deep he went.
She opened her legs, intent upon locking her ankles around his back, clinging to him like the pathetic barnacle he’d made of her. She pressed up against him, grinding at the turgid barrel of his erection through the damnable barrier of their clothing.
His brutal sound was her only warning before she found herself shoved face down on the mattress. Rough hands pulled her hips up and back, and the whisper of fabric foreshadowed the crisp air hitting the warm skin of her upper thighs as he shoved her skirts above her back.
Her drawers gave nothing but a sigh of protest as he ripped them, and the raw sound he made as his fingers found the backs of her garters released a flood of desire from the very core of her.
He split her with his finger, testing the flesh already slick and eager.
Willing.
Her fingers twisted in the rough wool