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His warm breath fanned her cheek. Hot. Insistent. It called to the desire that pooled low in her belly as she met his wild gaze.

“Good.” She smiled mischievously. “Because I wantmyWolf back.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

He tried to be good. He tried to protect her. Damn, but he was done trying now. With her so close, her saying that she wanted him…

He wanted her all to himself, and he was cruel enough to claim her. It was like tasting the first drop of ambrosia after walking in the desert. Like stumbling upon a banquet amid a famine.

There was no finesse in his movements, no coy seduction. Only an endless, aching need that was finally fulfilled as his lips slanted over hers. He shouldn’t have her, but he’d take her anyway. She was going to be his undoing.

He groaned as her arms came around him, her lips answering his call.

Too late, his mind warned him. She had alreadyundonehim, just as the first few strains of the opera resounded in the theater. She had unraveled his control and sent him spiraling into lust.

He hiked her skirts up to her waist, his fingers plunging into her folds, groaning when he was met with the slick evidence of her desire. How could a woman be so responsive?

“The o-opera,” she moaned, just as Josephine’s singing barely registered in his fogged consciousness.

Like I care about that.

Hudson circled the bundle of nerves, and Scarlett cried out, her body arching into him, her head thrown back in careless abandon.

“The only thing I am interested in hearing is you moaning my name, little cat.” He pressed against her and was rewarded with another moan.

Indeed, what need did he have for operas when he had the sweetest music playing in his ear?

He watched her eyes flutter open, the blatant desire in them answering the call in his own. “B-But I thought that…” she trailed off as he continued to stroke her languidly. “Miss J-Josephine…”

She honestly thought he came here to watch his previous paramour sing? Hudson nearly laughed. Instead, he nibbled on her earlobe.

“I have not been with Josephine for more than a month now, my sweet,” he told her. He paused to coax another sweet gasp from her. “Not since you showed up on my doorstep and accused me of kissing you.”

Her breathy laughter played along his nerves. How could she so easily tie him up in knots?

“Well, youdidend up kissing me,” she murmured.

He eyed her hungrily. “Oh, I plan to do more than that, little cat.”

“Oh, yes please,” she moaned. “Do all of them.”

Hudson needed no further prompting. He backed her to one of the chairs until she fell with a slight squeal.

“Shh!” he admonished her, pressing a finger to her kiss-swollen lips. “You would not want the whole theater to hear yourhusbandpleasuring you.”

“Husband,” she sighed, undiluted need threading through her voice. Her eyes were half-lidded as her tongue darted out to swipe over her bottom lip. “I like the sound of that.”

The banked embers of his desire, tempered by numerous cold baths and hours in his tower, exploded into a conflagration at her words. He pulled down her stockings, trailing kisses up her calf to the inside of her thigh as he pushed her legs wide open.

The red-gold curls that covered her sex glistened with her essence, her womanhood flush and slick with arousal. He ran a finger down her slit, and she shuddered with a slight gasp.

“Hudson, what are you—oh!”

He delighted in the surprised squeal that came out. “Tell me, Duchess, is this part of your list?”

Her teeth captured her bottom lip, her knuckles white on the carved armrests as she teetered on the precipice.

“Part of what list?”