LITMIR.BIZ

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I did so that something I had never felt before stirred to life within me. “Is that why you dare come to me with all this belligerence?”

      It was because she was mine, I told myself. That was why I felt that uncharacteristic surge of possessiveness. I had not felt it for a woman before, it was true. Despite how much I had wanted Celeste back in the day and how infuriated I had been when I had lost her to that aristocratic zombie of a count she called her husband.

      I had wanted Celeste, yes.

      But that was a different thing entirely than knowing she was meant to be mine.

      Imogen was mine. There was no argument. I had paid for the privilege—or that was how her father planned to spin this match.

      He and I knew the truth. I was a wealthy man, my power and might with few equals. I took care of my sisters and my mother because I prided myself on my honor and did my duty—not because they deserved that consideration. And because I did not want them to be weak links others could use to attack me.

      But otherwise I had no ties or obligations, and had thus spent my days dedicating myself to the art of money.

      The reality was that Dermot Fitzalan needed my wealth. And better still, my ability to make more with seeming ease. He needed these things far more than I needed his daughter’s pedigree.

      But I had decided long ago that I would marry a Fitzalan heiress, these daughters of men who had been the power behind every throne in Europe at one point or another. I had determined that I would make my babies on soft, well-bred thighs, fatten them on blue blood, and raise them not just rich, but cultured.

      I had been so young when I had seen Celeste that first time. So raw and unformed. The animal they accused me of being in all the ways that mattered.

      I had never seen a woman like her before. All clean lines and beauty. I had never imagined that a person could be...flawless.

      It had taken me far longer than it should have—far longer than it would today, that was for certain—to see the truth of Celeste Fitzalan, now a countess of petty dreams and an angry old man’s promises because that was what she had wanted far more than she had wanted me.

      But my thirst for my legacy had only grown stronger.

      “If there was another,” my confounding betrothed said, a mulish set to that fine mouth and a rebellion in her gaze, “I would hardly be likely to tell you, would I?”

      “You can tell me anything you like about others,” I told her, all menace and steel. “Today. I would advise you to take advantage of this offer. Come the morning, I will take a far dimmer view of these things.”

      “It doesn’t matter what I want,” she threw at me, pulling her chin from my grasp.

      I assumed we were both well aware that I allowed it.

      “I never said that it did. You are the one who came here. Was it only to call me names? To ask me impertinent questions? Or perhaps you had another goal in mind?”

      “I don’t know why I came,” Imogen said, and I could tell by the way her voice scraped into the air between us that she meant that.

      But there was a fire in me. A need, dark and demanding, and I was not in the habit of denying myself the things I wanted.

      More than this, she was to be my wife in the morning.

      “Don’t worry,” I told her with all that heat and intent. “I know exactly why you came.”

      I hooked my hand around her neck, enjoying the heat of her skin beneath the cover of those wild curls. I pulled her toward me, watching her eyes go wide and her mouth drop open as if she couldn’t help herself. As if she was that artless, that innocent.

      I couldn’t understand the things that worked in me. To take her, to possess her, to bury myself in her body when she looked nothing like the women that I usually amused myself with.

      But none of that mattered.

      Because I already owned her. All that remained was the claiming, and I wanted it. Desperately.

      I dropped my mouth to hers.

       CHAPTER THREE

      Imogen

      HE WAS KISSING ME.

      The monster was kissing me.

      And I hardly knew what to do.

      His mouth was a bruising thing, powerful and hard. It should have hurt, surely. I should have wanted nothing more than to get away from all that intensity. I should have tried. But instead, I found myself pushing up on my toes and leaning toward him...

      As if I wanted more.

      He cradled the back of my head in one hand and moved his lips over mine.

      And I wanted. I wanted...everything.

      I had dreamed of kisses half my life. I had longed for a moment like this. A punishing kiss, perhaps. Or something sweet and filled with wonder. Any kind of kiss at all, if I was honest.

      But nothing could have prepared me for Javier Dos Santos.

      Nothing could have prepared me for this.

      I felt his tongue against the seam of my lips, and couldn’t help myself from opening up and giving him entry. And then I thought I would give him anything.

      And even though I understood, on some distant level, what he was doing to me—that his tongue was testing mine, dancing here, then retreating—all I could feel was the heat. The heat. Something greedy and wild and impossibly hot, thrilling to life inside me. What I had called dread had melted into something else entirely, something molten. It wound around and around inside my chest, knotted up in my belly, and dripped like honey even lower.

      And still he kissed me.

      His arms were a marvel. Heavy and hard, they wrapped around me, making me feel things I could hardly understand. Small, yet safe. Entirely surrounded, yet sweet, somehow.

      Still Javier’s mouth moved on mine. He bent me backward, over one strong arm. His heavy chest, all steel planes and granite, pressed hard against mine, until I felt my breasts seem to swell in response.

      It was like a fever.

      The ache was everywhere, prickling and hot, but I knew—somehow I knew—I wasn’t ill.

      He bent me back even farther and there was a glory in it. I felt weightless, too caught up in all that fire and honey to worry whether or not my feet still touched the ground.

      And then I felt his fingers as they found their way beneath the hem of my dress, a scandalous caress that made my heart stutter. Yet he didn’t stop. He tracked that same sweet flame along the length of my thigh, climbing ever higher.

      My brain shorted out. The world went white-hot, then red-hot, then it became nothing at all but need.

      His hand was a wonder. Not soft and manicured, like the hands of the very few men whose hands I’d shaken at some point or other, but hard and calloused. Big, and brutally masculine.

      He traced some kind of pattern into my skin, and then laughed against my mouth when I shuddered in response.

      His taste was like wine. It washed through me in the same way, leaving me flushed, giddy.

      And then his fingers toyed with the edge of my panties, until I was sure I stopped breathing.

      Not that I cared when he angled his head, taking the kiss deeper. Hotter.

      While at the same time, his fingers moved with bold certainty to find my soft heat.

      And then, to my wonder and shame, he began to stroke me, there below.

      His tongue was in my mouth. His fingers were deep between

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