Page 42 of Misadventures with a Time Traveler

Alessandra also believes it is possible. I know it as soon as she cleaves fiercely to me when I pin her against the tower’s cold stone ledge.

By sighing in ecstasy when I lock my hands around her wrists.

By sighing sublimely as I pin them to the top of the rampart. Her breath climbs to a groan as I roll my hips, grinding harder between her legs. She grabs at my neck and parts her thighs. My cock is cushioned by the hot evidence of her desire. Even through our clothes, I start to feel every desirous drop that has beaded on her slit. I rejoice in every perfect quiver of her lust.

When our mouths finally break apart, my anticipation grows bestial. The same primal need takes over her features. Her stare is hooded and primal. Her lips are swollen and parted. Her skin is flushed and dewy.

She is exquisite. Incredible.

“I need you,” she rasps. “Damn it, Max.” She twists open the buttons of my breeches. “I need this beautiful dick inside me.”

I suck back a groan, taking her breath in with mine. Yes. I will take the very air from her lungs. The beats of her heart. Anything and everything that gives her life, if only to brand myself on them for the few moments fate has allowed me.

Moments may be all I have left.

I rage against the thought with a snarl. She answers with her own savage vibration. I cut it short by plunging my mouth to the base of her throat. She tips her head back, offering more of herself to me. I accept the invitation, sliding my lips toward the cleavage exposed by her pretty plum garment. I push aside its lacy edges, savoring how the fabric stretches across her breast, before reaching in to caress the perfect mound beneath.

She tightens her hold around my pounding stalk. I growl hard with the heavenly way she strokes me. Her fingers are strings of divination, knowing the most sensitive parts of my balls and cock. Or perhaps all of me is like that now, burst open under her touch like a seed brought to life by spring’s first warmth. Now I need to grow, to push, to explode with that life.

To give that life to her…

But I am dealt a sobering blow—by the most ridiculous of foes. Why, at a moment like this, must I remember a gentleman’s code that has not meant anything for hundreds of years? Yet I cannot deny it. My decorum yanks me back. This time, it must.

“Max?” The wind turns her hair into flowing ink strokes on the air. “What the hell?”

“Hell is indeed what this feels like, ma cœur.” I attempt a steadying breath. “But I cannot, in good conscience, press myself on you like this, and—”

“You mean the same way you pressed on me last night—and rocked my damn world?”

I punch my own brows together. What rocks have to do with this is beyond my understanding but bears not on what I must declare. “Last night…was different.”

“Oh?” She wastes no time on the retort. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” I stiffen more. Her waves of irritation are confusing. Is she angry about me prioritizing her honor? “I was…in a different position then.” Such as being freed from a bottomless black cage and having you naked in my arms. “Though even that should not have happened. I should be properly apologizing for it now but cannot. Every word would be a falsity. I do not regret a moment of it.”

“Well, of course you don’t.” Her words are mild but her expression remains rankled. “Don’t worry, my lord. I get it, okay? Last night was a paying gig, and you don’t want to set a precedent by giving out freebies.” She juts out her chin. Her gaze glints like a tigress in wait. “You tried to tell me that this morning in the dining room, but I wasn’t listening. But I hear you now, and I understand.”

And that demolishes my proud glower. “You…do?” My perplexity nearly chops it into four syllables instead of two.

“Well, sure.” The tigress doesn’t waver. “You’re just being a good businessman. Nobody can fault you for that.”

And now, suddenly, I comprehend as well.

With furious force.

Once more, I trap her against the ledge. This time, I am not gentle about breeching the juncture of her thighs. Or ramming my hardness against the cleft where I belong.

“A ‘freebie’?” I do not soften a note of the growl—and take an equally stern interest in its impact on her. The flare of her nostrils. The undulation in her neck. The quivers down her body. In response, my body swells and throbs and stiffens. I should be ashamed, but being branded a lothario brings a unique and powerful rage to a man. “Is that your challenge about this, ma petite? That you are not paying for this now?” I bite the corners of her lips with deliberate purpose. “Then have not a care. There is plenty of payment I can demand of you.”

New shivers take over her body. I revel in every one of them. “Th-That depends.”

I lower my stare. “On what?”

“If I can afford it.”

“Oh, you can afford it.” I shift over to bite her bottom lip. My voice is husky with arousal. “But do you truly want to pay?”

“You think I can’t handle this, Hotness?”