Page 27 of Ten Rules for Loving the Wrong Rake

She made a sound of protest that died in her throat when he turned her in his arms, her body sliding down the length of his until her feet touched the ground, and then he kissed her.

Not softly. It was too late for that. Four weeks of wanting her, imagining her in every compromised position his wretched mind could conjure, and now he had her in his arms. Restraint had served him well all this time. It was finished now.

He kissed her hard, graceless, his hands fisting in the back of her hair. He tilted her head back where he wanted it. His mouth crushed hers open and he tasted her: the sweetness, the tea, the small, shocked sound she made against his teeth.

For one breath she was still. Just her mouth under his, her body rigid with surprise, her fingers splayed against his chest as though she could not decide whether to push or pull.

Then she pulled.

Her fists closed in his shirt, and she dragged him closer and kissed him back with a ferocity that knocked the air from his lungs. Not the careful, closed-lipped kiss of a lady. She bit his lower lip, hard, and when his mouth opened on a groan, she licked into it, tasting him back, her tongue sliding against his, and the sound she made was a trembling moan that vibrated through his chest and settled directly in his cock.

He walked her backward. She went, her hands still fisted in his shirt, her mouth still on his, kissing him like she was angry about it, like wanting him was an insult she intended to repay.

He half carried her deeper into the tunnel until her back met one of the timber props, and she gasped at the rough wood through her dress, but she did not stop. She arched off the beam and into him, pressing her breasts against his chest, her hips against his, and it nearly undid him.

His hands found her waist, her ribs, the curve of her hips. He gripped her thighs and hitched her upward against the prop. Her arms flew around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist as though her body knew what to do before her mind had caught up.

"Oh." She broke the kiss, her gaze falling to his crotch, breathless, her eyes widening as she took in his arousal. Her eyes were half closed. Her lips were parted and swollen, and she was breathing in short, sharp pulls that pressed her body against his with each inhale.

He pressed his hips forward, pulling her skirts aside so there were only two layers of fabric between them. He ground against her and watched her face. Her brow creased. Her mouth opened wider. A flush spread from her cheeks down her throat and disappeared beneath her bodice and he wanted to follow it with his tongue.

"Kit." His name came out of her on a shudder.

"Tell me. How may I serve you, my darling Robin?"

She pulled him back to her mouth by the back of his neck and kissed him again, deeper, wetter, her teeth catching his lip a second time, and he felt her hips roll against him, tentative and instinctive, searching for a pressure her body understood.

He gave it to her. Shifted his angle, pressed harder, and she whimpered into his mouth. Her fingers slid from his nape into his hair, gripping, pulling. Her ankles locked tighter at the small of his back. She was holding onto him with a fierce desperation he had never encountered.

He groaned into her mouth. Pulled back just enough to look at her. Her lips were bruised. Her eyes were glazed and bright and fierce, even now, even wrecked. She was trembling. Dazed. A bewildered look on her face, as though her own body had betrayed her into pleasure.

And the sight of her undid what the kissing had held at bay.

What was he doing. She was the woman he had been sent to kill. She was pressed against a timber prop in a smuggling tunnel with a dead man fifteen feet behind the wall, and he had put her there. He had carried her here with his hands and his mouth and the want he had no right to, and she was looking at him with an openness that would not survive the truth. When she learned what he was—what he had almost done—this face, this flushed and trusting face, would close against him and stay closed, and he would deserve it.

His grip on her thighs loosened. His weight shifted backward, a fraction, barely a movement at all, but enough. Enough for the air to return between their bodies. Enough for the cold to find the places where his warmth had been.

"Stop," she said.

He began to lower her.

"No!"

He stopped. Waited.

"I meant stop whatever you are about to talk yourself out of and..." Her gaze dropped, then returned. "Do that again. ...Please."

Please. The word went through him, crumbling his restraint. Her voice had cracked on it, the pride stripped away, and what remained was so bare and so brave that it dismantled every argument his conscience had assembled.

He would tell her. He would tell her everything. She would hate him for it, and he would have earned that hatred. But not now. Not with her legs around him and her mouth swollen from his and her eyes wide and dark and asking him for something no one had ever given her. He couldn’t give her the truth yet. He could give her this.

He eased her away from the prop and carried her a few steps to the pile of excavated dirt against the tunnel wall, covered with old sacking. He lowered her onto it, sitting, her hips level with his. She was breathing hard, leaning back, pressing against him. He adjusted his trousers around his groin, his erection straining against the fabric. Her gaze followed his hand and stayed there.

"Wicked girl," he murmured. "Disobeying me at every turn. Talking back." He kissed the corner of her jaw. "Fighting me from the first night." Her neck. She tilted her head to give him access, a shiver running visibly through her. He put his mouth to her ear.

"You followed me into a dark tunnel." His hand slid beneath her skirts. Up the outside of her thigh, slow enough for her to stop him. "So curious… It was not curiosity about the tunnel."

"It was—"