Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

He was furious.

Or maybe not.

His arms tightened around her until she let out a soft gasp. It was then that she felt the hardness prodding at her belly, and a heated awareness flared within her.

He was not furious—he wanted her. Perhaps as much as she wanted him.

She felt his fingers on her chin, tilting her face up to his, and her breath started to come out in little gasps of excitement.

Dear God in heaven, she was thrilled. Her whole being absolutely thrummed with it, vibrating with the need for him to possess her. To make her thoroughly his so that it would leave no one with any doubt as to who she belonged to.

It was scandalous. Absolute madness.

But Evie had never wanted him more than she wanted anything in this whole world—even if he told her and showed her over and over again why she should not.

His lips came down on hers, hard and cold at first. She had learned not to expect gentleness from him. She did not want gentleness, anyway.

She wanted his raw, undiluted passion.

She let out a soft moan of approval as she threw her arms around him, standing on her tiptoes as she met his kiss with equal fervor.

His hands trailed from her back to span her ribcage, his fingers digging into the softness of her flesh as if he meant to imprint himself on her very skin. She felt him stroke the underside of her breast, growling in irritation at the fabric that stood between them.

It was quite as well, for she wanted to be rid of the entire thing, too.

“You have been a naughty girl, Evelyn.” His low, gravelly voice skated across her skin, seeping into her blood like a drug. “You should be punished.”

She should have been wary. She should have taken that for the threat that it was. Instead, she pressed her body to his harder, like a shameless wanton.

“If your brother and grandmama saw you right now, begging for me to kiss you, what would they say?”

Heat flooded her cheeks. They would be horrified, naturally.

But she could not stop. Would not stop.

She felt his hand grab her wrists and pin them hard against the trunk behind her. She could feel the rough bark scraping her skin, and instead of feeling fear, she was thrilled.

All the gentlemen she met had treated her with courtesy—whether it had been real or not. Only Daniel had ever shown her the real side of him. The Wolf that prowled the edges of Society.

And now, she was the fawn that had wandered into his territory.

“Look at you,” he murmured, his eyes dark with lust. “I should tie you up before you do anything more foolish.”

She tilted her chin up and gave him a slight smile. “Well, why don’t you?”

If it was possible, his eyes grew even darker. This close, she could see the black overwhelming those green orbs, and she knew she was facing his true nature—not that thin veneer of civility he put on for the public.

Evie gasped as the hand that held hers over her head tightened and his lips swooped down on hers in a punishing kiss, obliterating any thought of resistance she might have had.

His teeth scraped against her lips, his tongue plunging boldly into her mouth. She tried to kiss him back, but he had dominated her completely until all she could do was open herself up to him.

Gladly. Willingly.

She felt his hand yank at her neckline, exposing her soft flesh to the world. Almost immediately, his hand covered her breast, kneading it until she moaned into his mouth. When she did, she felt him pinch the turgid peak, eliciting a gasp from her.

It was a wholly new sensation, one that shot straight between her legs. She had never felt anything like it before. It was pure pleasure tinged with pain.

And she loved every second of it.

He rolled her nipple between his fingers, toying with her, leaving her gasping and moaning, her back arching as she unabashedly pushed her willing flesh into hand.

She wanted more of it. Dear God, she wanted all of it. Everything that he had to show her. Every scandalous, forbidden desire she ever had but could never voice.

She wanted ruination at his hands, a devastation that would claim her body and soul.

She wanted him.

Daniel had never met a woman more submissive, more pliant to his demands.

Evie had every right to be scared—he was not a gentle man by any means, and his pleasures could be somewhat… thought-provoking. There had been others far more experienced than her who balked at his requests.

But not, Evie, his little fawn.

Even as he pinched and tweaked her nipple, she continued to gasp in delight.

He wished she did not, though, for it only served to push his desire to greater heights.

He impatiently dragged her skirts over her thighs, feeling his mouth go dry at the sight of the silk stockings covering her shapely calves. Higher the dress went with his hand until he came up to the juncture of her thighs, the downy curls on her mound whispering against his fingers.

“Has anyone ever touched you here, little fawn?”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. And then, she shook her head.

“Have you never touched yourself?” he murmured. “Never pleasured yourself?”

The look in her eyes was almost embarrassed. “I do not know how…”

This was her most intimate spot, where nobody else had ever touched her before. That knowledge filled Daniel with a fierce possessiveness.

He smiled as he deftly slipped a finger into her slick folds, watching her eyes go wide, a gasp escaping her parted lips.

“Oh, dear God!” she exclaimed.

His smile widened all the more. “That is right, sweetheart. I am your god, and I shall make you feel a pleasure you had never known before.”

His words were blasphemous. If the Archbishop of Canterbury heard him, he would probably seize back the special license he had issued earlier that day.

Or maybe not.

“You like that, don’t you?” Daniel laughed softly. “You like me touching you, owning your pleasure like this.”

She nodded. “Yes… Dear God, yes!” she gasped.

He found that little bundle of nerves and rubbed it, watching the play of emotions on her face. Delighting in the strangled shriek that burst from her throat.

“So wet, my little fawn,” he crooned. “Open your legs wider.”

She nodded as she fought to comply with his request. He grabbed her leg and hooked it over his hip. In this position, with her hands pinned over her head, she was rendered mostly immobile and open to his advances.

His finger traced the seam of her drenched core, and she mewled, wiggling against his hand, eager for more. Who could have known that his innocent, little fawn could be so greedy? That she would brazenly part her legs for him and ground herself against his questing fingers?

Daniel found himself pleasantly surprised and very, very much aroused.

“You are not to drop your leg or close it,” he ordered in a low voice. “You may not scream as well, lest you attract attention and someone else sees you with your legs wide open for me.”

No gentleman would ever talk to a lady in such a manner, but Daniel had never been a gentleman. He did not play by the same rules they did, so it was only to be expected that his desires were… different.

He sawed his finger through her weeping slit, watching her quickly come undone. He pressed against the pearl of her desire, and she became a sobbing mess. When he clamped his mouth on her exposed breast, sucking on her stiff nipple, his teeth scraping against it, she shattered on his hand with a strangled gasp.

Her body sagged against him, but he was not done with her. Not yet.

With his fingers, he wrenched yet another climax from her until she sobbed helplessly into his shoulder, her entire frame trembling with the fierceness of the sensations that coursed through her.

He waited until her breath evened out, but even then, she wobbled dangerously on her legs, clutching at him for support.

“Dear God in heaven,” she murmured, looking a little dazed. “What was that?”

“That, my sweet, is what happens when you push a man too far.”

The sultry look she shot him made him want to take back his words. Somehow, he felt that she was only going to attempt more of the same.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“I am not sure I could walk properly for a good long while,” she joked.

He shot her a look, and she immediately sobered up.

“Never provoke me like this again, Evelyn,” he warned her.

Tonight would go down as yet another event that should never have happened.

I should have stopped at a kiss!

Better yet, he should not have kissed her at all. He should have known by now that her lips contained a drug far more potent than anything he could get from the black market with shady deals and exorbitant amounts of money.

When she ran off into the woods, he had followed her mostly out of a need to keep her safe. The shadows were not exactly a good place for women, especially wide-eyed innocents like Evie.

“But what if I want to?” she asked him, pouting like a petulant child.

His lips thinned into a grim line. “Then I highly advise you not to consider that line of thought.”

He felt her stiffen at his side. He could see the light in her eyes dimming, and he wanted to kick himself for causing that.

“In that case,” she told him flippantly, “I thank you for your assistance with my… situation earlier. You need not accompany me. I can walk on my own.”

Walk on her own? The woman could hardly stand on her legs after the climax he wrenched out of her!

His little fawn was stubborn to her wet, dripping core.

He said nothing as he took her back to her friends, only to find just Scarlett alone in the crowd, standing precisely where he and Evie had left her and Phoebe earlier to talk to Mr. Turner.

The redhead looked at Evie, and then her gaze knowingly flicked to Daniel. He only stared stoically back at her, silently warning her to keep her mouth shut.

I swear that damned vixen says the first thing that spouts off the top of her head!

He was not about to trust Lady Scarlett with any of his secrets, but Evie adored her. But then again, Evie always thought the best of everyone. She had even given that bastard Sidmouth the benefit of the doubt when he had been ogling her and her dowry since the start of the Season.

“Are you all right, my dear?” the redhead asked Evie. “You look a little… pale. Shaken up. You know what I mean.”

His betrothed managed a shaky smile. “I am fine. The fireworks just scared me a little, that is all.”

“Oh.” Scarlett nodded empathetically. “These things can be extremely overwhelming, would you not agree, Your Grace?”

Daniel only scowled at her.

Evie immediately rushed to his defense. “Fortunately, His Grace has been most considerate by helping me through it all.”

A slow smile spread across the redhead’s face. “I am sure he was most solicitous—as your betrothed, of course.”

A delicate flush rose to Evie’s cheeks, and she looked away as Daniel glared at her friend. He did not particularly like it when someone made his little fawn uncomfortable. Or blush.

Only he was allowed to do that.

This friend of hers frequently forgot herself and overstepped her bounds.

“Do not worry overmuch, though.” Lady Scarlett laughed lightly, seemingly reveling in her friend’s discomfiture and his growing irritation.

She should pray that she and Evie remain friends for a long, long time.

“No one noticed you were missing,” she added. “Besides, you were not the only couple missing.”

Her eyes lit up with mischief, and Daniel was reminded of a crafty fox. Once again, he reminded himself that this was a woman who should not be underestimated.

She was dangerous, mostly because she was audacious to a fault—annoyingly so.

If she knows what is good for her, then she had best keep Evie out of her schemes. Otherwise, I cannot be faulted for taking drastic measures.

As Evie’s betrothed, of course.

Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he would eventually believe it.