She scowls deeply at the suggestion. Disgust laces her voice as she says, “No man bent on rape would ever believe a woman wants it.”
Oh, little violet, I think, recalling all the vile conversations I’ve overheard in army barracks. You don’t know men.
“He will,” I vow darkly, so serious that the scowl melts off her face. “Men have an astounding capacity to lie to themselves if it’s something they want to hear. Make him think you want it, and then, once his guard is down, you raise your knee up like this, as hard and as fast as you can.”
I reach through my straddling legs to grasp the back of her knee, then pull her leg up to meet the underside of my crotch. She complies, shifting her hips beneath me to get a better angle. With her body fondling all around my groin, it’s all I can do to keep my breath from giving out. I get no perverse pleasure from pretending to force a woman, but I sure as hell am drowning in arousal to have Sabine Darrow between my legs.
“If you have a knife, now would be the time to draw it.” I take her hand and place it over my bare abdomen, above my soft inner organs. “Stab him on his lower belly. Here.”
Her fingers blaze a path against my bare lower stomach as she feels for the place I indicate. I silence a groan rising in my throat. I’m not the only one warring with myself over all our touches and strokes. Sabine tries to hide it, but her body betrays her. She shows all the signs of a woman in heat: shallow breath, dilated pupils, the sharp, sweet smell of lust between her thighs. Maybe she gets as confused between fighting and fucking as I do. She can’t have ever been in this position with a man before, so her innocent body doesn’t know what to do with itself.
“Now, try it,” I bark hoarsely, and pin both her wrists to the dirt above her head. Her coiled braid drapes around her face like a garland, her eyes searing up at me.
She drives her knee up to my groin. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to jostle things that shouldn’t be jostled. I free one of her hands, and she grabs a stick to act as a knife and presses its point against my lower abdomen.
“Good,” I bark. “Again.”
We go through the motions time and time again. Once Sabine masters the initial moves, she quickly wants to advance. She starts trying to distract me in various little ways so she can roll away, but I easily thwart her every time. She grows frustrated the more I foil her, her pulse thumping in her veins, her breath coming in little huffs.
“A man won’t go easy on you,” I challenge, perversely enjoying her frustration. “Neither will I.”
She temporarily stops struggling, letting her body sag against the dirt as she scowls up at me. We’ve been wrestling enough that her wiggles have awoken every part of my body, and it’s a damn battle to keep my focus on teaching her to fight instead of training her to do what I really want: wrap those pretty little lips around the specific body part she keeps battering with her knee.
“Had enough, my lady?”
She narrows her eyes. I think she’s about to concede defeat, but then her attention shifts to something behind my shoulder. A wrinkle of uncertainty forms in my brain. God, not a fucking wildcat again . . .
Before I can look, a chipmunk jumps on my head.
I’m so startled that I release Sabine’s wrists so that I can swat at the little devil, but Sabine uses the opportunity to shove me over. I’ve fought men with ten times her strength, so realistically, her effort does nothing, but I let myself tumble backward. Even I have to admit her trick was clever, and she deserves a prize.
Triumphant, she climbs over my chest to straddle my hips, victoriously pinning my wrists to the dirt over my head as she grins down at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Congratulations,” I murmur, unable to tear my thoughts away from all the dirty things I could do to her in this position. “I thought you didn’t want to use animals.”
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt it this time.” To hold my wrists down means she has to lean so far over me that her long hair drapes my scarred chest like silken chains. She raises a cocky eyebrow. “You let me win, didn’t you?”
Without thinking, I say hoarsely, “Yeah, well, I would let you do anything to me, beyond what even the most depraved gods could conceive.”
Her expression softens with surprise. Her big round eyes blink down at me, aghast. Our faces are only inches apart, both our lips parted. I know I said the wrong thing, but fuck it. It’s true. To feel her sweet body on mine, I’d happily let her stab me. She could knee me in the groin until the sun rises. I’d take any and all of the pain she wants to dole out just to have her touch.
A soft whimper escapes her sweet lips.
And I’m lost.
I’m so fucking lost.
She has all the signs of arousal. She wants me, but not nearly as much as I want her. I knead my hands around her thighs as they hug my hips, groaning as my fingertips sink into her luscious curves.
Her hips twitch in an instinctive little buck that makes her breath hitch in her throat. Her breathy pants fill my mouth, and then with one tilt of my chin, my last resolve breaks, and my lips are all over hers.
My mind would remind me that kissing Sabine is wrong, but right now, my brain isn’t the organ calling the shots. Knowing exactly what to do, my body takes over. My hands finally claim the touch they’ve been craving as I anchor one hand to her hip to pin her squarely in the straddle. I push up on my other hand to sit upright, with her now in my lap. Not breaking the kiss, I scrape my fingers through the hair at her nape to guide her head into a deeper kiss.
Our lips are searching, greedy, as they war together.
It’s like some spell has broken. Like waiting for rain after months of drought, feeling the drenching liquid flood my skin in relief that excites as much as it soothes.
Finally, I have the taste of violets on my tongue again. But kissing Sabine isn’t like eating candied flower buds. It’s devouring the whole cake. The whole fucking meal.
Kissing Sabine is everything.
I’ve wanted her ever since she fed that hungry mouse, when I so jealously yearned for her to offer me a morsel of the same kindness. Since I first saw her standing in her father’s courtyard in that skimpy silk robe with her scent splashing around, tormenting me.
Her legs wrap around my waist, and she matches the movement by sliding her hands around my neck. With one hand on the small of her back, I press her closer, wanting to feel every inch of her body against my own. My mouth is hot on hers as I kiss and suck and taste. I trail my lips down her jaw, and she lets out a moan that sends blood rushing straight to my groin.
Fuck.
I break the kiss to give myself a chance to breathe. I’m so flooded with desire that I can barely form thoughts. Our eyes lock, and it takes my breath away how beautiful she is. Freshly kissed, ready for more.
And that’s when my brain decides to turn back on.