Free Bloodlust Denied by Christina Phillips Page A

going to respond, wasn’t going to show him how much she needed his touch, but instead she writhed in fruitless frustration, as the muscles in her arms screamed at their prolonged torture.
    “Tell me of your grave disappointments, Morana.” With a featherlight touch, he brushed errant strands of hair from her cheek, and then continued to trace the outline of her ear, her jaw, the seam of her lips.
    She shook her head violently. How dare he caress her in such a way, when he kept her tethered like a wild beast?
    His finger continued along the column of her throat, and his forearm slid sensuously against the straining muscles of her shoulder.
    “Tell me.” His voice was persuasive.
    “I’ll tell you nothing while you keep me prisoner.”
    He shifted on the bed, his lean hip settling more comfortably against the dip of her waist. From this angle, she could knee him in the ribs. With any other man, she could be certain of breaking bones and rendering him helpless while she escaped. But with the duke she was certain of no such thing.
    But that was not the real reason she didn’t try to disable him. It was because a despicable part of her did not wish to escape his dark entrapment.
    “Did your lover abandon you to this fate?” His tone was conversational. They might have been speaking of an evening recital.
    “Certainly not.” She tensed as his finger explored the contour of her breast, circling, ever decreasing, inexorably centering toward her aching peak.
    “Did your protector die, and leave you no other choice but whoring?”
    She reared off the bed, infuriated she couldn’t slap the arrogance from his face, wrench the words from his throat. “I’m not a whore.”
    “Then why did you act like one in the alley?” His finger slipped from her breast, trailed along her rib cage. “You straddled me like the cheapest strumpet and fucked me as if squalid alleys and nameless strangers were all in a night’s work for you.”
    The condemnation in his eyes blazed through her, causing heat to stain her cheeks and shame to bloom through her heart. But why should she be ashamed? He had acted no better than her. And yet, because he was a man, he would never see the hypocrisy of his accusation.
    She fisted her hands, although she was rapidly losing feeling from her shoulders up. “I thought you were someone else.”
    Satisfaction stabbed through her as shock registered in his gaze. She could never wound his feelings as he could hers, but his ego was a fragile thing, easily damaged.
    “You— what ?” His words were low, incredulous. He clearly doubted the veracity of his hearing.
    “I was waiting for another.” That much was true. “I mistook you for him.” And so was that.
    “And when, precisely, did you realize your mistake?” He no longer caressed her but instead loomed over her, a conquering warlord on the cusp of deciding the fate of his captured slave.
    She gave a breathless laugh at the image although there was nothing amusing in the situation. She had always believed a mortal could never kill her, and yet in this moment, that certainty trembled on the precipice of doubt.
    And still she couldn’t summon the terror such a catastrophe should engender.
    “When I allowed you to enter my body, without severing your spinal column for such conceit.”
    Let him think she exaggerated. It made no difference.
    His lashes swept over his eyes and for a second she was distracted. Such long, luxurious lashes for a man. So decadent. So…strangely familiar.
    He looked at her, and she forgot the eerie sensation of familiarity because there was nothing strange about it. She knew these eyes because of the innumerable dreams she’d had during the countless nights since they had first met.
    “Are you a spy, Morana?”
    Again she laughed. A spy? How delicious he should think so.
    “If I am, I could scarcely admit such to you, could I?”
    “I could entice you to admit anything to me if I put my mind to it.” His finger