Free Sacrifice by Lora Leigh Page B

himself
with an amused smirk as she belted the robe.
    “Lord of the manor, huh?” she asked
him with a smile, her gaze going over his tall body, and feeling the helpless
femininity he never failed to inspire in her.
    “If I can get by with it.” His eyes
gleamed with laughter as the sensual curve of his lips deepened.
    She shook her head, feeling
something inside her loosen and lighten with his laughter.
    “You’re too arrogant for your own
good,” she warned him then. “One of these days, someone is going to knock you
down a peg or two, Jared.”
    He grunted at that, a sound of
disbelief and superior male self-assurance all in one.
    “You can try if you want, baby,” he
told her, the smug smile firmly in place as his gaze went over her body. “The
struggle could get interesting.”
    Kimberly licked her lips as she
fought the nervousness determined to attack her system. Nerves or uncontrolled
arousal, at this point she wasn’t certain which it was, the only thing she knew
for certain was her inability to fight the attraction building between them.
    “Think you’ll win, do you?” she
asked as she approached him slowly, watching his eyes narrow, darken with lust.
    “Definitely.” His voice was laced
with such arrogance she didn’t know if she wanted to grit her teeth in
irritation or laugh at the subtle challenge she knew he was deliberately laying
in front of her.
    “And what is it you’re playing
for?” She stopped directly in front of him, staring up at him, determined to
stay as cool and amused as he appeared.
    She could feel the subtle
undercurrents though, the tension rising between them as her breasts became
more sensitive, her nipples harder. She could feel him, his very presence,
sinking into her. It was a strange, oddly comforting feeling, and all the more
terrifying for it.
    His lips tilted self-mockingly as
his eyes gleamed with rueful laughter.
    “Whatever the hell I can get,” he
growled as he reached out for her, his expression changing abruptly from amused
arousal to hard, driving lust.
    Before she could do more than gasp
his name, he was pulling her through the connecting door and into his bedroom.
She had a quick impression of heavy, dark wood furniture, reflected in the dim
light from the bedside table before he picked her up and tossed her on the
thick mattress of the bed.
    Kimberly came to her knees quickly,
her eyes narrowing as she watched him unbutton the dark blue cotton shirt he
wore. His deeply tanned fingers worked at the buttons quickly, freeing the
cloth before shrugging it from his muscular shoulders.
    She had no intentions of fighting
him. No desire to delay the promise she could see glittering in his dark gray
eyes. Her lips opened then, her tongue peeking out to dampen the curves as his
hands went to the belt of his jeans.
    “Am I about to be ravished?” she
asked him huskily while her heart raced out of control.
    His lips quirked in a sideways
smile that had melted her heart for a year. Did he know, she wondered, what
that smile did to her?
    It warmed her heart, heated her
arousal and made her feel like the most beautiful woman ever created. A smile
she considered hers alone, simply because she had never seen him smile in such
a way with anyone else.
    “Ravished, ravaged, eaten alive,”
he growled. “You have no idea, Kimberly, just how eager I am to possess that
sweet little tush of yours.”
    His words shouldn’t have sent heat
striking forcefully into her womb, but that was exactly what they did.
    Then her breath caught in her
throat as he loosened his jeans and began to push them from his lean hips,
revealing the full extent of his arousal. His cock was fully erect, engorged
with his need for her. She watched, entranced, as the fingers of one hand
encircled it, stroked slowly as he kicked the jeans away and advanced on the
bed.
    “Take the robe off.” His voice was
deep, dark. A forbidden vein of emotion throbbed beneath it, making her throat
tighten in