Page 11 of Road Trip With a Rogue

His mouth twisted in a mocking smile. “Noware you realizing how stupid you’ve been? Aside from your brothers, I’m probably the only man in this house who won’t fuck you.”

She flinched at his deliberately crude language, even as she battled a paradoxical disappointment. Of course he didn’t want her. She was nothing like the women he usually chose. She gripped the edge of the desk, trying to anchor herself, determined not to show how rattled she was, how out of her depth.

“Fine. I shouldn’t have come. Let me go.”

She’d never been this close to him. His lips were hovering over hers, barely a sliver of air separating them. She could feel the warm exhale of his breath, smell the intoxicating midnight-forest scent of him. She was practically shaking, her blood pounding in her throat.

He shook his head. “I don’t think you truly understand the danger. What you’re inviting.This.”

His lips crashed into hers, hard, an obvious punishment designed to prove his dominance and her foolishness. He leaned in, pressing her back with his weight, the hand at her neck holding her in place.

Daisy stiffened in shock, then tried to wrench herself free. She opened her mouth to tell him that he’d made his point, but the moment she did so he took ruthless advantage; his tongue slid between her lips, and the taste of him washed over her, so dark and forbidden she thought she might faint.

She made a noise, something between a gasp and a moan, and they both stilled.

Daisy thought he’d release her in disgust, but instead he made a rough sound in his throat, and kissed heragain. His lips slanted over hers, his tongue tangling with her own, and she closed her eyes, hardly daring to believe what was happening.

Dear God, she was kissing Lucien Vaughan!

It was a revelation.

He set a deliberate, taunting rhythm, coaxing her to participate with little nips of his teeth and flicks of his tongue that caused butterflies in her stomach and a molten throb between her legs. His right hand was still in her hair, but his left came up to cradle her jaw before his fingers traced the sensitive skin behind her ear, then slid along her throat.

Fire raced through her blood.

His kisses became harder, more demanding. A wet, teasing slide toward insanity. Daisy kissed him back as though her life depended on it. A terrible urgency was unfurling inside her, a need to keep on kissing him forever. She pressed herself against him, wordlessly urging him on, and he stepped closer, between her legs, crushing her skirts between them. Even through the layers of fabric, she could feel the heat of him. The hardness.

He dragged his mouth from hers and pressed a row of searing kisses down her throat.

“Another man wouldn’t stop.” The words were breathed against the top curve of her breast. He sounded dreamy, almost as if he was talking to himself. He kissed his way back up the other side of her neck.

“They wouldn’t resist such temptation.” He kissed her jaw, the corner of her mouth.

And then his fingers tightened on her skull and his lips stilled, just resting against hers. She was panting with arousal, his chest against hers.

“They wouldruin you,” he growled, a vibration so deep she felt it right through her body. “And it would feel sofuckinggood.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the raw intensity in his voice, but a splinter of alarm skittered through her. He seemed equally aroused and enraged. He was holding her precariously, bent backward over the desk at an awkward angle that gave him all the advantage of weight and balance.

“You don’t even have the wits to be afraid,” he whispered. “To understand how fragile you are. How easily they could break you.”

Her elation vanished as reality struck her with the force of a blow. He hadn’t been enjoying himself. He’d been teaching her a lesson!

His hand slid to her throat again, and her pulse pounded against his fingertips as he increased the pressure just enough to impress upon her his utter control. And her helplessness.

“You’re at my mercy.” He pressed the lightest, most teasing kiss to her lips, the gentleness at odds with his vicious words, and she fought back a traitorous shudder of desire. Her body still wanted him even though her mind was shrieking in outrage at his cruelty.

“And you should be thanking God that I don’t want you,” he growled.

Daisy wrenched her head to the side and he finally released her, stepping back and crossing his arms again. She shivered in the sudden rush of cold air.

His breathing seemed insultingly even, as if what they’d just done hadn’t affected him in the slightest, but her chest felt tight and her hands were shaking against the desk.

How had the evening turned from heaven to hell in less than five minutes? She was almost reeling with the abrupt change.

“You’ve made your point, Vaughan.” Her voice was a breathy croak, but she was proud of her composure. “Let me go.”

He shook his head, his eyes still glittering dangerously. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to stay right here until I come back.”