damned torrent had been ripped open, and he couldn’t stem its tide.
“Do you want me to tell you how many men I’ve killed?”
“S-stop.” Her lower lip trembled, and he cursed the vicious ache in his chest that he’d revealed himself exactly as he was to her. And it only fueled his fury with her for making him feel emotion. With himself for feeling anything.
His chest heaved, rising and falling fast and hard from the emotion whipping through him. “I’m no kindhearted gent, carving up wood statues that you think are adorable. I’m a monster carving that wood up to try and distract myself from the memories of my evil. You’d do well to steer clear of me. I’m no good. I’m certainly not the type of man you should be around.” And grabbing her shoulders, he claimed her mouth hard and showed her exactly what manner of man he was.
Chapter 15
Lila knew what fear was.
More importantly, she’d learned the art of it: what it felt like as peril danced in the air, there to devour the unsuspecting. Not so very long ago, she’d been the unsuspecting one.
Not any longer.
As such, every lesson learned on the fields of Manchester left her with but one word for this moment: flee. Run from the volatility of Hugh Savage’s embrace.
For this kiss? This was nothing like the one that had come the day before.
And she knew only one thing of any certainty in this moment: there’d never be anything like it ever again.
Yesterday’s embrace had been born of pure passion.
This, Hugh’s mouth on hers, devouring as it did, was one of pure savagery. The rawest and realest and most primal of emotions, and she knew she should be horrified. She knew from the emotion shaking his voice that he sought to horrify her. But God help her, she knew only that she wanted more of him and this wild display of desire.
Lila gripped his shirtfront, curling her fingers into the harsh linen, a fabric no gentleman would wear, and preferring the feel of it for its realness. It was as real as the man who bent her body to his, like he couldn’t get enough of her. Like he sought to devour her.
And she wished to be devoured by him.
Because with him, in his arms, there were no monsters. There was no pain. There were no memories but the new ones she made with him.
Pressing herself into him, she went on tiptoe and met the angry slash of his hard lips on hers.
An animalistic growl—his? Hers? Both of theirs—filtered around the bare room; it melded with their harsh breathing and created an erotic echo that only fueled her desire.
Hugh filled his hands with her buttocks, molding his palms to that flesh and bringing her close so she could feel the hard, heated length of him even through the fabric of their trousers, like steel against her, and then he began to roll his hips. Undulating so that his shaft rocked slowly against her belly.
She moaned and gave silent thanks for the absence of skirts that allowed her to feel almost everything.
She’d been correct. Men did want to keep ladies trapped in their skirts. This was why women were made to suffer the miseries of chemises and voluminous skirts. To protect their virtue.
Or perhaps it was to punish them because of all the pleasures that those garments interceded with.
“Hugh.” She moaned his name, a plea for more.
And he used that parting to his advantage, his tongue delving inside, branding that pink flesh as his own. And he needn’t have worried, because it was all his. She was all his. In this moment.
Mayhap, forever.
Terror tugged at her mind, and she forced it back, refusing to surrender to anything but simply feeling.
Her legs weakened under her, and with a primitive growl, Hugh drew her more tightly to him.
He deepened the kiss. Teasing with his tongue. Taunting her with the promise of more, and tormenting her for it.
He trailed his hands down the curve of her hips, like one memorizing each curve and line of her, and then bringing his palms up between them, he cupped her breasts.
The air exploded from her lips on an eternal hiss of pure desire.
“I’m no gentleman,” he rasped between kisses. “I’m not honorable, and I’m certainly not respectable. You won’t ever get anything good from me, Lila March, because there’s nothing good to give.” And then making himself out as the absolute liar he was, he drew her shirt off, exposing her