When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,161

Adeline cried out softly. He slipped his other hand between them, finding her swollen bud where their bodies were joined. He stroked it lightly with his thumb.

“Yes,” she hissed. “Right there. Just like that.”

King closed his eyes and fought for control against the storm of sensations gripping him as he stroked and worshipped his goddess.

“Look at me,” Adeline said breathlessly.

He opened his eyes. Her silver gaze was lust-filled and hooded, her lips kiss-swollen and parted, her skin damp and flushed. She was achingly, unbearably beautiful, and in this moment, she was all his. With deliberate movements, King shifted the angle of his hips and thrust twice more.

“Joshua,” she whispered as every muscle in her body convulsed.

Her fingers curled into his scalp, and small, sensual sounds escaped her lips. He kept thrusting, watching the rapture on her face as pleasure consumed her until he could no longer fight his own release roaring down on him.

He grasped her hips and pulled out of her, his throbbing erection sliding against her abdomen. He reached for his cock, but she beat him to it, fisting him in her palm and stroking him from crown to base.

Her name tore from his lips as he came, intense pleasure such as he’d never known wiping his mind of everything save the feel of this woman. His hips still moved relentlessly, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t pull away from her touch, couldn’t pull away from her.

Eventually his movements slowed, and Adeline collapsed against him, both of them breathing hard. Neither said anything for a long time, the air cooling their skin. But his pulse hadn’t slowed. If anything, his heart was thundering even faster against his ribs, an unnamed ache gripping his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs. Bits and pieces of the last minutes floated back to him in a haze. The feel of Adeline’s body, the sound of her voice, the words she had spoken.

Ribbons of unease wound through him.

Jesus, what had he done?

Chapter 14

“You called me Joshua.”

He had tensed, the muscles in his legs beneath her like steel, his entire body stiff.

“Yes.” She lifted her head, but he didn’t meet her eye. “That is your name.”

He twisted and snatched his shirt from the floor. He wiped his seed from her skin before he tossed the garment to the side.

“It’s not.” He still hadn’t met her gaze, and she could feel him retreating from her as surely as if he were running for the door. “Joshua Westerleigh is dead.”

“Joshua Westerleigh did not die. He simply survived the best way he knew how, and I, of all people, will never judge you for that. But he is not a prisoner anymore. Not of his name, not of his life.”

“You’re wrong.”

Adeline slid from his lap with a sigh. Her body was still humming with the aftereffects of the last minutes, but a familiar frustration was beginning to creep through her. She retrieved her robe and drew it over her shoulders.

“I am what I am now,” he continued, his voice rough and wooden. “I can’t be who you want me to be. Who you think I am. I can’t just…change.”

“Change?” Adeline said, trying not to let anger color her words but failing. “I don’t ever want you to change from who you are—”

“I am a criminal. A thief. A killer.”

“Yes. All of those things. But you are also a friend. A lover. A protector.”

“A protector?” He stood and fetched his trousers, yanking them on in angry motions.

“Yes. Of Elliot. Of your duke. Of me.”

“And yet I was unable to protect the one person who needed it the most,” he sneered. “I will never go back to being…helpless. Powerless. Vulnerable.”

“And is that what I make you? Vulnerable?” She pulled her robe around her more tightly.

“No.” King stared at her before bracing his palms against the edge of the piano. “You make me—” He stopped and stared down at his hands, as if suddenly comprehending what he had been about to say and not liking the answer.

“Afraid,” she said quietly.

He recoiled. “I’ve already told you I’m not afraid of anything.”

“And you lied. You’re afraid to trust. You’re afraid to need.”

“Fine words from a woman who once said that need leads to downfall.”

“I said in the wrong hands, need can lead to downfall. But needing and trusting someone who—” Loves you, she almost said before she caught herself. She pressed her fingers to her lips, fighting the ache blossoming inside her heart. “Needing someone who cares about you,” she amended,