He forced a short exhale through his nose. “If I kissed you right now, you’dmake it last.”
“You clearly wish to be slapped.”
They were toe-to-toe now, somehow having moved even closer as they traded verbal blows.
“Shall we test that theory?” he asked, his voice low and rumbly. He cupped the back of her neck. His hands were so big, wrapping round the sides of her throat, holding her gently as his gaze homed in on her lips like a sailor’s on the North Star.
She grasped the front of his shirt just above his waistcoat and yanked him closer, their lips almost touching now, their rapid breaths sizzling a dangerously lean space between their bodies. “I cannot wait to prove you wrong.”
His lips slanted across hers before she’d even finished speaking. No gentle, lake-rocking kiss, this. An enraged inferno fanned by wild winds.
She would pull away. Now.
She clutched the sodden mass of his shirt more tightly, tugged him closer until their chests touched. Hard to soft but hearts beating to the same unsatisfied, needy rhythm.
Now she would release him. Prove him wrong. End the kiss and imprint her palm hard and fast across his cheek.
Hard and fast, she crashed her hips against him, needing those bits of herself still untouched by his fire… consumed.
Shewouldend the kiss.
“Still kissing me, Bea,” he whispered against her lips.
“Youare still kissingme.”
His hands bracketing her head, her fingers tangled in his shirt, they stood nose to nose, gasping breath to gasping breath.
“You think I’ll stop first?” he rasped.
“It won’t be me who stops.” When had this become a challenge, a duel? Last man or woman left kissing won.
Lost?
Didn’t matter. He was rubbing his thumb gently along her lower lip, gaze hazy. When he kissed her this time, he parted her lips, slipped his tongue into her mouth. She could feel and taste and smell the man, every inch of him a heady, exhilarating challenge. She would not run from it. She tangled her tongue with his, imitating the stroking motion he’d done to her.
He moaned, and the sound made all that had been dark light. She’d been making this man scowl and snap for so long. What she’d really wanted to do all that time was make him moan.
She deepened the kiss and trailed her fingers down his chest. No longer holding him captive. But he didn’t bolt away. He rocked closer, as if he wanted whatever bands she chose to put around him, and moaned once more when she flattened her palms against his hard abdomen.
Victory.
“Will you stop now?” she asked, afraid, so very terrified of what she wanted his answer to be.
“Never.”
Relief flowed through her. “Stubborn man.”
“As a damn mule, Beatrice. Will you stop, concede, retreat, surrender?”
“Ha!”
“That’s my Beatrice.” He smiled into the next kiss he took.
Or did she give this kiss, eagerly?
His fingers dug into her waist right above her hips. Hot. So hot across every inch of her skin. Her body would surely sizzle dry her wet clothing. She threw her head back, her breasts aching, and he licked a line down her throat, peppered that line with kisses.
His hand squeezed her arse.
