Page 140 of Morally Black Betrothal

I stroked the side of his face, enjoying the roughness of his stubble under my fingertips. His eyes closed again with obvious pleasure.

“Simone,” he whispered. “What are you doing to me?”

I traced the line of his jaw from his chin to his ear. “I don’t know. What am I doing to you?”

Brendan took another deep breath, then exhaled slowly. Then he took my face between his hands like he wanted to look at me close enough to figure me out. Solve the answer to his own question.

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “But I do know that I want to kiss you right now.Thatwould make me happy.”

My mouth fell open, and I was rewarded by a slight dilation in his eyes as they tracked to my bottom lip.

“Please. Not for my father or for an audience or to convince anyone of anything. Let me kiss you because I want to. Let me do it…just for me.”

I should have told him to stop. Should have said the lines were already so blurry between us, and a kiss like that threatened to destroy them completely.

But those fathomless eyes pulled me into their depths, and all I could do was stare. Stare and acknowledge my own need, the desire that had been clawing inside me since our first meeting.

“Okay. Kiss me.”

32

IT’S NEVER JUST A KISS

Simone

At first, it was tentative. Searching. Matching the uncertainty that had literally dragged this man to the ground in his anxiety.

His lips found mine like a question, but as soon as my tongue touched his, his hesitation turned into blazing demand. Our hands were everywhere, grabbing for collars, straps, his hair, my waist, searching for purchase that would keep us anchored in this sudden firestorm. We couldn’t get close enough. Within seconds, I went from comforting him to mauling him right there on the floor like there wasn’t any possibility one of the several hundred partygoers might wander around the corner at any moment.

I couldn’t help myself.

All night—no, allmonth—he had been a buffet I’d had to stare at but not touch, despite the fact that I was starving. Now he’d practically begged me to dive in, and I couldn’t stop myself from gorging.

“Mmmph—fuck!” he hissed when my teeth found his bottom lip.

I paused, but before I could pull away, he took a handful of my hair and yanked me closer so he could devour me right back.

Then he was all motion, grabbing my thighs and lifting us both to standing, then flipping me against the wall so that his big body trapped mine against the wainscoting, urging my legs to wind around his back like vines around a tree trunk.

“Fuck.” His teeth dragged down my neck. “Baby, I’m not—Christ, this isn’t—I don’t want you to think?—”

I took his jaw, forcing him to look at me. “Brendan. I don’t.”

His eyes flickered from my mouth back to my eyes, like he was fighting some animal instinct to consume me the way I desperately wanted to consume him. “Don’t what?”

“Think this is…part of the contract.”

And there it was. The suggestion that was always present when we were together. That had lingered whenever we crossed the imaginary line between fake and real.

Something in his expression softened. “Christ.” His voice was feather-soft. “You are an angel, do you know that? My angel.”

“Brendan—”

“Do you think,” he interrupted before I could voice any argument, “that we could take a break from the contract? Just for the night?

Such a sweet request following a kiss that was anything but. Almost gentle, though I could feel the ferocity of his desire against my stomach.

Camille and Patrice would be very,veryjealous.