Free Haunting Desire by Erin Quinn Page A

venture. The feel of his tongue, so hot and velvet, so foreign and somehow exotic in her mouth, made her moan and her fingers clench in his hair.
    She kicked back the furs as her temperature spiked and she shivered at the quick breath of cold before his hands began to roam over her body, thumbs brushing against her nipples, dipping down her ribs to close over her hips, pulling her up and into the hard thrust of his pelvis. He caught the hem of her dress and yanked it up with an impatience that thrilled her. The zipper at her back thwarted his efforts, and she sat, turning so he could pull it down. For a moment he seemed distracted by the simple thing but then the two halves of her dress opened and he pushed them off her shoulders and bared her back to his hot mouth. When she turned again and he caught sight of her lacy bra, his mouth opened and his eyes glazed in a way that made her feel powerful, beautiful.
    Then she was naked, beneath him once more, and the realization cut through the heat like a sharp blade, adding a new dimension to the blind groping, the desperate clinging. Tiarnan propped himself on his elbows, looking down the length of her body, gaze hot on her breasts, hungry on the rippled stretch of her ribs as they heaved with each heavy breath she sucked in.
    She felt the stroking glance like a caress as it moved down to the place where their bodies pressed together. He stared at that point of flesh upon flesh and then his gaze moved to her face again. In those whiskey depths she saw something that spoke of wonder . . . and he smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners and his lips parted to show white teeth, slightly crooked in a way that made that smile all the more sexy.
    Shealy felt to her soul that she saw something rare, something as intimate as the touch of his hands on the softness of her breasts. That smile was a crack in his armor, a gift of his pleasure, and she answered it with a smile of her own, dragging her fingertips down the hard planes of his chest, over the rigid lines of his abdomen to that soft and vulnerable place just beneath his belly button. He had to lift his hips so she could tug at the laces that held his pants shut and he sucked in to give her access, never looking away from her face, never even glancing at the scars that marred the right side, the sickle-shaped wound on her throat, or the misshapen shell of her ear. It was as if he didn’t see them . . . or more importantly, as if they were too inconsequential to matter.
    Her fingers slipped under the loosened waist and she pushed his pants over his hips, feeling him sway from one side to the other so she could maneuver them past the hard arousal that sprang free and rested, velvety and heavy, on her stomach. The feel of it there, the knowledge of its purpose, of her own intent—all of it gathered like a hot, molten pool deep inside her body.
    At last she closed her eyes, arching against him as she shut out that carnal male spark in his gaze. His mouth covered hers in a kiss that no longer felt gentle, no longer giving. It demanded, it took, and it punished in a way that Shealy craved. He didn’t hurt her—it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about dominance or pain. It was about forgetting every single thing but the texture, taste, and friction of their mouths as they moved against one another. They used teeth and tongues and lips to narrow the moment into just this, only this. The need to relinquish control and simply feel governed them both. His rough and scarred palms rasped against her throat, her breasts, squeezing, stroking, waking every erogenous zone she had.
    His lips followed, open mouthed and wet-hot over her nipples, tonguing and teasing until she felt like they were hardwired to the ache growing below. At his mercy, she tried to curl her fingers around the hard length of him, but somehow he stayed just out of reach. While he was distracted by his play, she anchored her foot and pushed, rolling until she sat on top of