“Which is undoubtedly my problem.” Del tried to shut up, but something-that something-was riding him hard. He met her glare for glare, leveled a finger at her nose. “This habit of yours of putting yourself in danger has got to stop!”
“Me putting myself in danger? Pray tell, who insisted we go to the recital tonight? And yes, I enjoyed it, thank you very much, but taking me there doesn’t give you the right to dictate to me!”
“You’re a female-one in my care. Your parents’ request for me to act as your escort makes you my responsibility.” Lowering his finger, he jabbed it at her sternum. “It’s my job to protect you.”
Her eyes narrowed to flinty shards. “Indeed? Is that what that kiss was about then? The second kiss. Protecting me?”
Deliah heard her voice rise-abruptly remembered the kiss in Madame Latour’s narrow hall, the more recent exchange, and her helpless reactions. She searched his eyes, all dark, hot and heated. Heaven help her, he was infinitely more dangerous to her than any thug.
Luckily, he didn’t know it.
So she could look down her nose and scornfully state, “I am not yours, not in any way-you don’t need to feel responsible for me!”
Fueled by a senseless, witless fury that he’d only kissed her to keep her safe-to continue their roles before the modiste, to stop her making a sound tonight, and even tonight’s second kiss she felt sure he’d have a sensible reason for-she whirled and stalked into her bedroom.
The door had been left ajar. Passing through it, she shoved it closed behind her.
Waited to hear it slam.
It didn’t.
On a stifled gasp she swung around-to see Del, his face like a thundercloud, storming after her.
Fury boiled through her veins. She straightened to her full height, raised one arm and dramatically pointed to the door, opened her mouth to order him out-
He grabbed her pointing hand, jerked her hard against him.
His head swooped.
And he covered her lips with his.
Six
Crushed them. Hauled her into his arms and held her as if he were trying to absorb her into his body.
He kissed her in the same way.
As if he wanted to devour her. To own her, claim her.
Have her.
In every imaginable way.
Deliah sank her hands into his hair and kissed him back. With equal fervor, equal need.
Their wills met and merged in a clash of fire and passion.
Of instant conflagration and fiery need.
The anger that had driven her converted in a heartbeat to something more potent, to a compulsion that thrummed in her blood, that filled her head with dizzying desire, that burgeoned, erupted and swept her on.
Her inner self seized control, and it wanted, needed, yearned.
For more. For this. For what it had been starved of for so long.
He angled his head, ruthlessly, relentlessly deepened the kiss, and she pressed against him, into him, and met him caress for caress.
She remembered this, the heat, the urgency.
Yet this time there were flames and fire, and heady des peration.
Del sensed the same, knew beyond doubt that he ought to stop, that if he’d been wise he’d never have kissed her.
Yet he’d had to.
He had to show her because she refused to see, had to demonstrate unequivocally in the most indisputable way that she was his-his in more ways, deeper ways, than could ever be needed to justify his right to protect her.
He wrenched his mouth from hers. “This is why I need to keep you safe.”
Safe from the Black Cobra. Safe from all danger.
Safe. And his.
She blinked up at him, jade eyes drowning in a glory of passion. Then her grip on his head tightened and she hauled his head down, hauled his lips to hers. Catapulted them both into a blazing inferno.
An eruption of molten desire shook him-snared him, lured him.
If he’d been able to think…yet he couldn’t, not with her hands gripping his skull, not with her lips ravenous beneath his.
Not with her tall, curvaceous figure provocatively plastered along the length of his.
She wanted, incited, and he broke, seized, took. Claimed her mouth, then, holding her tight within one arm, raised a hand to her breast and claimed that, too.
Her response was instantaneous, undeniable, encouraging-a murmuring moan trapped in her throat. Her fingers tightened in his hair as his fingers played, learned. Seduced.
Deliah felt the wanton within her rise, felt her blossom and bloom with every evocative touch, with every heavy thrust of his tongue against hers, every increasingly flagrant caress.
No matter her memories, it had never been like this. Never so fiery, never so fraught. She’d never been so desperately needy.
Even through her pelisse, his knowing hands made her breasts swell and ache, a sweeter, sharper ache than she recalled. Griffiths, the bastard, had never made her feel like this. There was no comparison.
This was new, and she had to have. Better, more; she had to know. She reached for the buttons of his coat as he reached for hers.
The next minutes went in a blind flurry of hands and grasping, greedy fingers, of passion escalating degree by inexorable degree as this garment, then that, slid away.
Tugged, pulled, ripped away.
And blind need took over-infected them both, drove them, fired them.
His hands found her skin, hard, hot and urgent. Hers found his, greedy and grasping. The muscled expanse of his chest, his heavy shoulders, the shifting muscles of his back.
Then his lips left hers, slid lower. His mouth fastened over one nipple and she arched, cried out.
Discovery and demand, yielding, then seizing, insisting and commanding, they traded caresses, shared and challenged, uninhibitedly answered the other’s call.
Until they rolled on the bed, skin to naked skin, long limbs tangling, hands sculpting, urging, fingers searching.
Finding.
She arched beneath him as he stroked between her thighs. Lips locked with his, she burned, her hands gripping his sides, urging him over her.
Into her.
He complied. Lifting over her, he parted her thighs with his, spread them wide, set his hips between, and with one powerful thrust joined them.
She lost her breath. Every nerve in her body sparked, then whipped taut. She gasped, might have cried out, the sound muffled by their still rapacious kiss.
He withdrew and plunged in again, deeper still, steel encased in velvet shafting into her body.
And the wild ride began.
Pagan in its power, it held her, compelled her. She danced beneath him, rode with him, through the flames, straight into the heart of the fire.
And they burned. Hotter, more intense than anything she’d dreamed, a fiery need blossomed at her core. Relentlessly, ruthlessly, he fed and stoked the blaze…
Until that need became her all, until it throbbed beneath her fingertips, pounded in her blood, burned beneath her skin.
Silk and passion. She was that and so much more. Del had never known such urgency, such all-consuming, unwavering compulsion to have a woman-to take her and be damned. Regardless-despite-any and all restrictions.
Despite every last one of his rational reservations.
It was madness-this driving desperation, this compulsive conviction. Its claws were sunk deep, not just in his flesh but into his psyche, his soul.
He couldn’t live without having her-some part of him had accepted that as indisputable fact. That primitive side rejoiced as he pinned her beneath him, as her curves-those bounteous curves he’d coveted from first sight-cushioned him, cradled him. As, her long legs spread, she took him in, arched and took him yet deeper, all scalding slickness and wet, clinging heat.
She was tight, tighter than he’d expected, the walls of her sheath clutching, clamping, fisting him.