permeated him, stealing across the narrow space to invade her flesh. His muscles were rigid with repressed power, agitated from restraint. Cerise sensed he could attack at any moment, that he was prepared to intercept any move she might make to try and escape.
“You have no notion how much a beast I can be, Cerise,” he growled softly, leaning close.
His aggression aggravated her senses, made them riot out of control. She was aroused and she didn’t know why, couldn’t understand her response. She only knew she must diffuse his anger if she were to survive it.
The moisture had fled her body, sucked to the core of her femininity, leaving her mouth and throat unbearably dry. Cerise moistened her lips, meaning to apologize for her abrasive impulsiveness, but his gaze seized on the slight movement of her tongue and her voice died in her throat. Her knees went weak as a fresh surge of hot, pulsing excitement filled her.
“I didn’t mean to offend,” she said breathlessly, her nipples hardening with the nearness of his chest, aching to feel him crushed against her.
“You said exactly what you meant to say,” he snarled softly, snatching her other wrist and pinning both arms above her head. He leaned closer, his gaze capturing hers as his chest pressed against her breasts. She wanted to moan at his pressure, at the weight of him against her. Her breasts felt impossibly heavy, swollen. His eyes were filled with dark intent, smoky with sensual menace.
Cerise’s sex clenched in anticipation. Her mind reeled in abhorrence at her response, yet she was incapable of denying it. Some enchantment stole over her, suffocating her natural inclination to fight him, leaving a watered version of herself that craved the touch of the forbidden. Her entire body felt seized by demanding need. She felt like she would burn up with it if he didn’t touch her, more. Rougher.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head weakly, her voice thready with pent-up emotion and breathless expectation. Her lips parted to drag air in as he bridged the distance between their mouths.
Her body jolted as his lips covered hers. Cerise could barely restrain a whimper of arousal as the wet heat of his tongue slipped along the seam of her lips with haunting precision. Her arms strained—to do what, she didn’t know, but some insane urge made her want to close herself around him. His hands tightened around her wrists as if he were more than aware of the reaction she fought to hide.
His tongue surged inside her mouth, possessive fire that melted the fragile strength of her resistance. Cerise jerked against him, yearning to free her hands and escape his sensual invasion. It was too much, too intimate. The invasion of something so vitally him—his taste, his scent—made her quiver inside with revulsion and longing. He tasted hot, wild and dangerous, some inscrutable taste that was at once intoxicating and frightening with intensity. His voracious tongue swept through her mouth, tasting her with a savage hunger that bordered on starvation.
His chest crushed against her breasts, engorged her nipples to the point of pain. The shift offered no protection from the hardness of his chest, from the feel of his muscles melding against her.
Cerise whimpered, clenching her hands in frustration. He slanted his mouth over hers, tangling his tongue with her own, seeking to seduce her into a dark lust that would consume her if he himself did not first.
He groaned against her lips, pressing her into the wall, bending his legs to rub the hard bulge of his arousal against her mound in rough promise.
He clasped her wrists in one hand, moving his free hand down to thrust her shift up, until his fingers grazed the length of one thigh. Cerise struggled against sensation, against the desire to welcome his touch. He shoved a knee between her legs, pulling her shift taut on