The smallest touch from him is enough to make me reckless. As though I’m under the influence of a drug too powerful to resist. Each inhale I pull through my nose smells distinctly like Carter — crisp and male, smoke and spice. His own ragged exhales echo in my ears, a drumbeat to mark his own stirring desire. I know, from that sound alone, that he’s just as caught up in this stolen moment as I am. The steely length of his erection pressing into my back, turning my bones to water, merely serves as further confirmation.
Double fuck.
I don’t try to pull away from him. There’s nowhere to go, even if I wanted to. And the truth is, Idon’twant to. Being this close to Carter is something I’ve been denying myself for far too long. An ache, pounding in time to my stuttering pulse, is spreading through me, from the apex of my thighs out through my every limb.
A world away, Ava’s still talking. Telling her friend how ridiculous it is to even suggest Carter Thorne might crave someone like me in his arms, in his bed. I can barely hear her, anymore. My mind has short-circuited. Because Carter’s hand, still threaded with mine, is moving — from my back, along my side, across my stomach. He skims downward, over my navel, past my hipbones, leaving a path of fire behind even through the thin fabric of my dress.
“I heard Westley Egerton, the Baron of Frenberg, was courting her as well,” Harriet says, her voice muffled by the roar of blood between my ears. “Would serve her right to end up with him — he’s a total bore between the sheets, according to a girl I play tennis with at the club…”
Carter makes slow work of dragging my skirt up — inch by inch, breath by breath, until I’m unsteady on my feet. My free hand finds the stone column, a pathetic attempt to ground myself in reality. My knees seem to have gone weak. It doesn’t matter; he’s holding me up now, gripping me so hard, there’s not a molecule of space between our bodies. One hand on mine, the other banded beneath my ribs so tight, it’s difficult to take a proper breath.
I’ll have bruises tomorrow, but I don’t care. I like the feel of his hands too much to ever protest. That hint of pain mixed with passion brewing inside me is building to a dangerous storm. One that threatens to level everything in its path.
“Westleyisa bore. I slept with him three summers ago,” Ava says flatly.
Harriet giggles. “Maybe she’ll wind up with that Scandinavian prince. The one who can’t get it up at all, if rumors from the north are to be believed…”
Our joined hands move beneath the rucked hem of my dress, finding the whisper-thin lace of my underwear. I should be mortified by what’s happening; scandalized at myself for allowing him to touch me like this in public. But mortification and scandal are sensible emotions. And I am so far past sensible, I barely remember what the word means.
All I feel in this moment isneed. Bolts of pure, unadulterated lust are shooting through me as I hover breathlessly on the precipice, waiting for Carter to push aside that thin lace barrier and touch me.
Please, for the love of god, touch me.
He doesn’t though; instead, he manipulates my hand so I’m stroking myself, guiding me without contributing to the cause. The feeling of my own fingers at my core, in place of the ones I actually want there, touching me, dizzying me, sending me over the edge…
It’s a pale imitation of what I yearn for. A shadow of the thing I crave so badly. It does nothing to sate the hurricane of need swirling through my veins. If anything, it worsens the ache inside me to the point of pain.
I need more.
I needhim.
Still, he holds back — sparking the fire but not stoking it to full potential. He is an expert puppeteer torturing the paper doll at his mercy, pulling my strings in the precise way he knows will unravel all my self-restraint. As the minutes drag on, my fingers move beneath his ministrations until they are slick with evidence of my own unspooling.
I grind my ass against his erection, wishing it was somehow enough to sate the hollow feeling within me. That irrepressible urge to be made whole. Complete. Passion tugs at me in a restless tide, rising to the brink but retreating from the shore before it can ever truly crest; a climax dancing just out of reach.
It is the most exquisite torture.
Swallowing my own moans rapid-fire, I’m seconds from abandoning all dignity and begging him for release from this piercing madness. My fingernails dig into the stone wall, knuckles gone white in the darkness. My face turns over my shoulder, seeking his. I need his mouth on mine or I’m going to scream.
I feel the heat of his breath against my lips, scant inches away, and crane my neck to close that distance. I’m desperate… but he’s ruthless. He keeps his lips from mine, unwilling to give me the kiss I desire.
“I bet innocent little Emilia wouldn’t know good sex if it slapped her in the face.” Ava laughs scornfully. “Carter Thorne’s skills would be utterly wasted on her.”
The man in question chuckles with dark amusement.
“Carter,” I whisper brokenly.
A plea.
His hand stills beneath my dress, withholding my orgasm yet again.
A torment.
He’s not going to let me come. That much is obvious. I see the flash of white teeth in the shadows — the grin of a big bad wolf about to devour me whole — and realize he’s enjoying this. Immensely. The sight of me turned to putty in his uncompromising hands is exactly what he wanted.
He’s taking his pleasure in denying me mine. Reveling in every almost-scream he conjures up inside me. Toying with me until I’m half-shattered from unfulfilled wanting.
Vengeful bastard.