Love Is a Rogue (Wallflowers vs. Rogues #1) - Lenora Bell Page 0,62
power, and hold on tight.
He pulled her into his lap, settling her against his hard body. He unbuckled the leather tool belt and it fell to the floor with a clattering sound.
He removed her spectacles and set them safely on a shelf. His hands moved to the back of her head, fumbling with hairpins, and then she felt the soft sweep of her hair falling around her shoulders.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this.” He drew a shaky breath, his fingers massaging the back of her neck. “In Cornwall, your hair was like a beacon in that library window, a warmth I wanted to seek, a fire to guide my way.”
“I watched you from the library window all summer,” she whispered.
“I know. I saw you watching. It made me work harder and faster.”
He flexed his arm and she ran her fingers over the curve of his muscle, experiencing a thrill at the breadth of him, the sheer strength and controlled ferocity. “I saw you lifting those enormous beams, and I thought about how you could lift me so easily. Lift me into your arms.”
He rose from the chair with her in his arms, carrying her to a bookshelf and pressing her up against the books. There was nowhere for her hands to rest except on his shoulders.
He wrapped her legs around his waist, and she curled around him like a rose climbing up a stone wall.
His body was solid where hers was soft, and she wanted his strength for her own.
His hands cupped her bottom, holding her up, anchoring her against his hard length. She felt weightless. She shook her hair out and it fell down her back. His lips sought her neck, nibbling and teasing the sensitive flesh behind her ears.
Chipping away at her control.
“Kiss me,” she commanded.
He brought his lips to hers, a questing kiss, tender and restrained.
A contrast to the iron grip of his hands holding her immobile, the crush of his body against hers.
“Kiss me harder. I’m not fragile,” she said.
He growled deep in his throat, and it was a sound of desire and frustration. His kiss turned rougher. The stubble along his jaw scratched her face. He parted her lips with his tongue and kissed her possessively.
His fingers played over her collarbone, before sliding lower, flirting with the top of her breasts.
His hands had calluses not only on the tips of his fingers but in the middle of his palms.
Large, capable hands, toughened by work and weather. She’d seen what those hands could accomplish, what his body could do, the way he attacked life with certainty and skill.
His teeth nipped at her lips, tasting her, and she mimicked the movement, sucking his lower lip between her teeth. His tongue teased her lips open, delving inside her, filling her and making her hungry for more.
He sank to his knees, bringing her with him, laying her down on the exposed floorboards.
“Beatrice,” he moaned into her hair. “You’ll be the death of me.”
Ford attempted to rein himself in but the contrasts were too dramatic—the softness of her skin, the satin of her lips, and the roughness of the wooden floor.
Beatrice with her brilliant red hair spread around her, spilling over that borrowed shirt the color of parchment, like the pages of a book he’d yet to open. A story he’d give his life to read.
No trespassing! This was the exact circumstance he’d sworn never to enact. This was history repeating itself. The carpenter and the lady.
This was wrong.
This was right.
He could kiss her forever on the floor, in the dust, cushioning her head with his arm.
Filling his hands, his mind, his mouth.
There was no right or wrong. There was only kissing. Only Beatrice.
“Ford,” she breathed, her voice throaty.
He liked the way she said his name, from one side of her mouth, saying it in a way that was different from any other person who’d ever said it before.
“Ford . . . you’re . . . it’s . . .”
“I know. It’s so good, Beatrice.” He kissed her hungrily. “So good.”
“No. Ford.” She broke away. “You’re . . . pressing on me and I think . . . there may be a nail sticking up from the floor.”
He rolled off her immediately. “I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?”
She laughed ruefully as he helped her rise to a seated position. “Not hurt. It was only . . . slightly uncomfortable.”
“I shouldn’t have laid you on the floor like that. It was wrong of me.”