“Samuel,” she protested, but her gaze fell to his mouth.

God, she made him feel alive! He wanted her. Damn their differences, damn Vale, damn the whole goddamn country. She’d been eager last night. “And I liked the feel of your rump on top of my cock.”

Her eyes flared wide. “Stop it! It’s too dangerous. You can’t—”

“Here we are,” Vale said happily. He plunked down a laden plate in front of Emeline and sat with a tall glass of what must be barley water for himself. “I wasn’t sure what would tempt you, so I got some of everything.”

“You’re too kind,” Emeline said weakly, picking up a fork.

“Quite the gallant,” Sam murmured. “I shall have to take lessons from him, don’t you think, Lady Emeline?”

She pursed her lips. “There’s no need—”

“But there is.” He’d lost all control. It was the sight of her being cared for by Vale, a man who didn’t even know her. He was aware that his face had tensed, that he was revealing too much, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “My manners are too rough, my speech too blunt. I need to learn to smooth my ways so that I can have proper congress with a lady.”

On the word congress, Emeline dropped her fork.

Vale choked on the sip of barley water he’d taken and started coughing.

Sam looked at him. “Don’t you think so, Lord Vale?”

“I’m sorry, I just remembered...” Emeline’s face was pale with anger as she searched for an excuse. “I don’t know. I have to go.” And she got up and walked quickly from the room.

“Congress, old man, is really not the word you were looking for,” Vale said. “Conversation, maybe, or—”

“No? I stand corrected,” Sam murmured. “Excuse me.”

He didn’t wait for Vale’s reply or look to see what the other man thought. He didn’t care anymore. She’d fled, and she must know by now the reaction that that would provoke in a predator.

EMELINE GATHERED HER skirts as she quickened her pace down the hallway. Awful, awful man! How dare he—after rejecting her the night before, actually pushing her away from himself—act as if he were the one wronged? She rounded a corner, nearly cannoning into the Duke of Lister and barely muttering an apology before continuing. The worst part was that her attraction to the horrible man was completely undimmed. How mortifying. To have offered herself to him, have him reject her in no uncertain terms, and then be unable to kill the animal lust her body felt for him.

She’d been so worried when she’d first seen him in the breakfast room. How were his feet? Had she properly cleaned them? How had he been able to walk this morning? And then he’d begun stalking her with his words, not caring who overheard or that he’d already rejected her. It was because of Jasper, she was sure. Samuel was reacting with a kind of male territorial instinct like a hound guarding its dinner. Well, she wasn’t some moldy bone to be fought over.

The stairs were in front of her, but her vision was blurred by rage and frustration. She didn’t care for him; she refused to care for him. He was a colonial without manners or sophistication. She hated him. On that thought, she nearly slipped on a tread and prayed she could make her room before she broke down altogether. That would be the final straw—to be found wandering the Hasselthorpe hallways out of her mind because of a man. She nearly ran the last distance to her room, wrenching open the door and falling inside before slamming it behind her.

Or at least she tried to slam the door. It met with resistance. She looked over her shoulder and found to her utter horror that Samuel stood there, one palm flat against the wooden door.

“No!” Emeline pushed against the door with all her might. “Get out! Get out, you whore-mongering, son of a bitch, arsehole!”

“Hush.” His eyebrows were drawn down sternly. He took her shoulder and effortlessly pulled her away from the door before shutting it.

Which only enraged her further. “No, you don’t!”

She was writhing, trying desperately to get out of his grasp, slapping at his hands, snaking her head to bite him.

“Yes, I do,” he retorted.

And he pulled her roughly against his chest. He slammed his mouth onto hers. Immediately, she bit him. Or tried to. He yanked his head back and, amazingly, grinned down at her, although the expression held no amusement. “I remember that trick.”

“Bastard!” She flung up a hand to hit him, but he caught that as well.

He shoved her bodily against the wall and pinned her there like some unfortunate moth. Then he bent his head and, avoiding her mouth, bit her neck, just under her ear. And her body—her idiot, traitorous body—responded, going all soft and warm. He nipped and tongued her neck, and her head arched back even as something close to a growl slipped from her lips. He chuckled.

“Don’t you laugh at me!” she screeched like a harpy.

“I’m not,” he murmured against her throat. “I’d never laugh at you.” He pulled at her bodice, ripping something. Then he was licking across the mounds of her breasts above her stays.

She sobbed and his mouth softened, whispering against her flesh.

Damnable man. “Don’t you dare do this out of jealousy.”

He raised his head, his cheeks flushed, his mouth reddened from kissing her. “This doesn’t involve anyone else. This is purely between you and me.” He yanked her hand down and thrust it crudely against his breeches.

And she felt him, long and hot, waiting behind his clothes just for her. It was a kind of triumph that she could make his body hard for her. She wanted that. She wanted him. She pressed the palm of her hand against his length.

He groaned and then spun her to face the wall, reaching around her to tear at the ties in the front of her stays. She placed her hands flat against the wall, scraping her nails against the paint; her fevered cheek lay on the cool plaster. This was madness, insanity, and she didn’t care. He wrenched down the sleeves of her gown, more fabric ripping, and she felt cool air on her shoulders. He trailed his hands, large and warm, down her spine. She could feel his calluses, male against her soft, feminine skin. He nipped at the back of her neck, and she closed her eyes. It had been so long. So very long. She was melting. There was no need for him to do any more; she was quite ready for him now, but he seemed in no hurry. Or maybe he was just enjoying her naked and vulnerable. He was kissing her spine now, and she felt the touch of his lips, each moist stroke of his tongue.

She moaned.

He reached her hips, where her gown, chemise, and underskirts were tangled. He must’ve done something truly awful to her clothing then, because there was a prolonged tearing sound, and yards of fabric were at her feet and her bottom was bare. He placed his mouth on the small of her back and kissed her there before moving downward to kiss, actually kiss, her buttocks. This wasn’t mannerly. This was animal and crass and she shouldn’t like it. She shouldn’t.

“Samuel,” she moaned.

“Hush,” he muttered.

He was urging her legs apart, and one part of her mind was thinking that his position relative to hers did not put her in the most attractive angle. Then she forgot any doubts, for he was running his thumb along her crease.

“You’re wet,” he said, his voice deep and dark with male satisfaction.

She lifted her head from the wall and almost pulled away at that. How dare he take her for granted?

But he tilted her hips and then...

Oh, God! And then he licked her. Her cheek fell back against the wall. It didn’t matter anymore, her ungraceful position, his feral nature. She wanted him to continue this forever. His tongue worked between her folds, nudging and licking, and she thought she had never felt anything like it in her life. He pulled his mouth away and blew on the place where it had been, cooling and exciting her at once. Then he was pulling apart her folds with his thumbs and tonguing his way to the very center of her being. She was moaning now, her hips pushing back at his face, and if she thought too hard about what she was doing and what he was doing, she would be completely mortified. So she drove any thoughts from her mind and simply concentrated on the sensation, his mouth against her most intimate flesh. His tongue seeking out and finding her clitoris. She moaned as he found her. Moaned again when he licked delicately.

She felt him wrap one hand about her hip and stroke through her curls. She gasped and opened her eyes to look down. The sight was unbearably erotic. His dark fingers tracing across her white skin and into the black curls above her thighs. He slid his middle finger into her cleft, and she was forced to close her eyes as that finger replaced his tongue on her knot. She felt him lick back, and then he thrust his tongue into her, and she convulsed violently. Her body shuddered and she gasped, scraping the wall with her fingernails, moving her hips mindlessly as pleasure streamed through her. Spasms wracked her as he thrust and thrust again his tongue into her body, while his finger worked over her bud. Her climax seemed endless, a hard, shimmering river of light that went on and on and on.

Finally she subsided, weak and shivering, her knees threatening to give beneath her, her arms shaking as she held herself up.

His mouth left her and she tried to turn, but he held her still. “Bend over.”

She was dazed, her mind in a fevered sexual haze, and she could do naught but obey him, bending at the waist and grasping at the wall with outstretched arms to keep from falling.

His fingers nudged against her wet flesh, and then his cock. She sighed. So sweet, so beautiful. That hard, hot flesh parting her folds, beginning to enter her. This was the best part, the part of discovery. When he was a man stripped to his essentials and she was a woman receiving him. Exploring him and holding him. Discovering how this was with him.

He should be at the end of his rope by now, nearly frantic with delayed lust, but he went slowly. She felt each inch of his flesh enter hers, widening her until the fabric of his breeches met her bare bottom. He inhaled and thrust once, and he was fully seated. She could stay like this forever, she thought dreamily, holding his hardness within herself, reveling in the feeling of fullness, of connection.

But he drew back, as slowly as he’d entered her, and her inner muscles pulled at him, as if reluctant to let him leave. He thrust suddenly, and her arms bent with the force of the impact.

“Hold still,” he grunted, the words almost unintelligible.

She locked her elbows. And then he gripped her hips and began thrusting into her, hard and fast, the slide of his cock tormenting and wonderful. She angled her hips to more fully receive him.

“Jesus!” he growled.

His fingers were suddenly in her bush again, tunneling and seeking, finding that part of her that ached for his touch. He pressed down firmly in front even as his cock ravished her from behind. She felt a scream build in her throat. It was too much, the pummeling, the pressure of his knowing finger, the ache of her arms holding her up.

He swore suddenly, and then he caught her against himself, her bare back pressed to his waistcoat as his cock buried itself in her and began to spurt. It was an odd angle—and erotic—her feet on tiptoe, her legs wide apart, her breasts and belly bare and displayed, impaled on his cock. She heard him groan and reveled in his loss of control. He worked insistently at her bud, splaying his hand possessively over her cunny as he came inside her.

And then she did scream. Waves of almost painful pleasure coursed through her as she convulsed on his cock. He placed his hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, and she bit him, relishing the taste of his skin on her tongue.

Behind her, he caught his breath. “Little cat.”

He withdrew his flesh from hers and grasped her about the waist, lifting her from behind and dumping her on her back on the bed. Emeline only had time to brace herself and then he was in the bed beside her, the mattress dipping with his weight.

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