Page 99 of Carnal Wagers

“Yes,” she groaned, shoving herself down onto me with every thrust of my hips. “S’il te plait. Cillian. Touch me.”

My cock wept precum in anticipation, but my hands stuttered along her thighs. There was a reason we shouldn’t, that we couldn’t, but I was finding it dead difficult to care when she shivered in my arms and demanded more.

A door in the next room over slammed shut and pulled my senses together.

“Fuck.” I ripped myself away and banged a fist against a locker. “Fuuuck.” I panted with a garbled groan and squeezed my throbbing, aching erection through my pants. “We…we can’t.”

“Yes, we can.” She cupped my face and leaned in to kiss me again.

“No, we can’t,” I insisted, prying her hands off me.

She gave an indignant huff. “You chased me down this hallway to kiss me like that, only to reject me? Again? You couldn’t just let me go?”

“There are things you don’t know about me. About my family.”

“And whose fault is that?” she snarled.

“Will you just goddamn listen, woman?”

Her gaze anchored into mine and sank its angry claws in, and I suddenly felt like a goddamn gobshite for what needed to be said.

I cleared my throat, then licked my lips and cracked my neck.

“Well?” she prompted.

“I don’t…I can’t…”—these words sounded so ridiculous to say out loud—“I can’t be with the same woman more than once.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you understand how silly that sounds?”

“I swear it’s not.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No.”

“Is this a virility thing? You need to prove you’re the big, strong man, still able to sow his wild oats?”

“No. That’s not—”

“Monogamy too good for you?”

“No. There’s—”

“Is it…is it me?” Her voice broke. “Am I that repulsive to you?”

“Feck, no. I—”

“If you’re going to say things like that, there was no need to chase—”

“Enough!” The pressure burst out of me like steam from a pipe. “Goddamn it. I can’t even get two words in with you.”

“Look at that. You just did.”

My hand barreled through her hair and clasped her nape. “You are the most enraging, headstrong, overconfident woman I have ever met.”

I crushed my mouth against hers and poured all my frustration into the hard press of my lips on hers, into the dominating tangle of our tongues, and into the squeeze of my fingers in her hair.

She tore her lips away, chest heaving. “That wasn’t the kiss of a man who doesn’t want me.”