he held her firmly to his lap, preventing further movement. He was intentionally withholding that greater pleasure.
In protest, she squeezed her inner muscles around him and was pleased to hear him groan against her throat.
“Tell me you don’t need this,” he growled.
Katherine wrapped her arms around his head, holding him to her as she gently rocked her hips, created a subtle deep friction. “I do,” she gasped. “But I want more.”
“There is no more.”
She grasped a fistful of his hair and forced his head back until he met her gaze. The look in his eyes was dangerous. More dangerous than she’d ever seen before. But she wasn’t the least bit daunted.
She was empowered.
“You’re a shameless scoundrel and a brute. But you’re not a liar.” She touched his lips with her fingertips. “What are you afraid of?”
A dark shadow passed over his gaze. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she challenged, sliding her hand around to cup his nape.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her thighs. Every muscle in his body tensed. His pulse thrummed and his brow grew heavy.
“Don’t love me, duchess.” His voice was raw. Stripped bare.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said before drawing his mouth to hers.
She thrust her tongue past his teeth, rubbing it along his with sultry promise. With an arch of her low spine, she pressed her breasts to his chest. And she held him. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her thighs cradling his hips, and his cock throbbing deep inside her, she held him.
A moan rolled thick and heavy from his body. His arms doubled around her waist, and in bringing her closer into his embrace, their bodies shifted, allowing a delicious slide of his flesh within hers. Slick, hot, and wonderful.
“You’ll regret this,” he grunted. Grabbing fistfuls of her nightgown, he pulled it roughly up over head before covering her breasts with his heavy palms. “You’ll come to hate me. Everyone does.”
Katherine reached back to brace herself on the hard surface of his thighs as she arched deep, throwing her head back. He immediately took one breast with his mouth, swirling his tongue over the beaded tip.
“Never,” she gasped. “I could never hate you, Mason. I—”
His animalistic growl and the sharp edge of his teeth on her soft flesh stopped her from uttering the phrase that rose so easily to her lips. Before she could try to repeat the sentiment, he looped his arm around her waist and lifted her from his lap, pulling himself from her sheath. Then he thrust upward again. The move stole her breath and her thoughts.
After that, she took over the punishing rhythm, rising and falling along his hot length with relentless focus as he suckled her breasts and scored his blunt nails over her belly and hips and thighs. The pleasure and beautiful tension built inside her, but an anxious fear threatened to steal it away.
Because she hadn’t accomplished what she’d come here for. She hadn’t convinced him—
He hooked his hands over her shoulders from behind, pulling her closer so he could seal his open mouth to the side of her throat, pulling her sensitive skin against the edge of his teeth.
Her body quivered from head to toe.
But she didn’t get to tell him—
He cupped her rear with one hand, urging her to a faster, shorter rhythm. Sliding one long finger into the crevice between her buttocks, he added a gentle pressure against that sensitive little spot of puckered flesh.
The odd, unexpected sensation, combined with the delicious ache he nurtured within her, sent her over the edge. Her body squeezed tight in an intense pulse of pleasure. She gasped with surprise at how suddenly it came upon her. Before she lost her mind completely, she grasped his broad face in her hands, and while locking her gaze with his gut-punching stare, she claimed his lips with hers.
Her climax was long and consuming, rolling through her in deep, undulating waves and sparks. But she refused to release that connection with him. If she couldn’t say what she felt in words, she’d tell him in any way she could.
It only took a moment before his own climax hit him. His thighs tensed and his knees lifted, trapping her even tighter to his body as his arms shook around her and his cock pulsed with the release of his seed.
Chapter Thirty-two
She’d fucking killed him.
His body. His heart. His soul. All utterly destroyed. Obliterated.
So, instead of trying to exist on his own, he held her close and tried to soak