Succumb to Me (23 page)

“You’re going for a ride?” he asked, if only
to confirm the blatant lie.

“Yes.”

“In the dark?”

“Ye-yes.” Her chin came up now, stubborn, and
her eyes flashed a challenge at him.

“With all of your things?” His voice was
careful, but even he could hear the ice beneath the words. Guilty,
Jocelyn looked over her shoulder at her bags and cursed. By this
time Damon had had more than enough and using his grip on her
ankle, he tugged her forward until he could capture her waist with
the other.

For one heart stopping, gut clenching moment
as he pulled her from the horse and slid down his body, he was
cradled between her legs. He could feel her breasts, plump mounds
of heat that seared his flesh and his breath caught as her nipples
peaked through the material of her gown as they slipped past his
face. She wasn’t wearing the trapping a woman of her station
usually wore beneath her clothes and Damon could only surmise that
it had to do with her haste to escape.

His grip on her ankle became soft, a tool to
caress rather than to trap and punish and he let his fingers run
over her bare ankle to her calf. Over that smooth roundness to the
dangers of her outer thigh, the touch of which sent her body into a
delicate trembling that had he not been pressed so closely to her,
he never would have noticed. By this time she’d slid far enough
that her breasts were crushed against his chest and her mouth was
on level with his own and when he could drag his gaze from the
plumpness of her lower lip he fell into those eyes….

And right there with the smell of the stable
and the whinnying of the horses fading in his awareness and her
dress hiked up over his wrist and her nipples burning against his
body like brands, he tightened the hold he had on her thigh, and
pressing her back against the solid strength of her horse, he
kissed her. His lips were punishing, his tongue when it came to
tease the dewy seam of her lips, almost cruel. He could feel a fire
raging in him, a need so deep and strong it left him stunned as he
plundered those delicate lips with his own. And then, in the
relative peace of the stables, as his lips separated from hers in a
brief instance to drag in air, a sound pierced the night. Her mouth
had parted and her eyes were closed tight. Her body arching against
him in silent plea, he was sure she didn’t understand. She let
forth a broken, needy whimper from somewhere deep in her throat. A
sound that he wanted nothing more than to swallow on his tongue
until she produced another and yet another.

The knowledge brought him up short and with
her panting in his arms, her thigh, where his fingers anchored her,
now slick with a fine coat of sweat and twin flags of color riding
high on her cheeks, he looked down at her and tightened his
jaw.

She was too young, she was too rich, and she
was John’s daughter.

Repeat them again when his treacherous
fingers slid just a centimeter higher and pull her tight, bringing
her flush against the hard ridge at the front of his britches so
that her head fell back on a moan.

Too young.

Repeat it again when his eyes traced the path
of a drop of perspiration as it danced down her throat to disappear
in the bodice of her gown.

Too rich.

These words ricochet in his head and are
easily ignored when he found himself leaning forward, hungry once
more for the taste of those lips.

John’s
daughter.

This is
Jocelyn.

And that, God help him, is what had him
dropping that damnable leg and pushing himself away from her as if
she had the plague.

He felt cold where her body had been, empty,
and ragingly, achingly hard.

Her absence, he noted, was beginning to leave
a hole. And not just any hole, but one with her name permanently
engraved on it. Or at least that was the direction he was afraid
things were going if they hadn’t gotten there already.

He needed to get control of himself and
fast.

Looking up, he met Jocelyn’s gaze and barely
managed not to flinch at the open vulnerability he found there.

John’s daughter.

The words were enough to force the rest of
his hunger back when the other two reasons had failed to do so.

“Da--” She caught herself. “Mr.
Burleigh?”

He’d wanted her to say his name. And because
he’d wanted it, still wanted it, his voice went cold and his body
coiled tight.

“Get out.”

“But--”

“Go back to your room.”

“Mr. Burleigh!”

“NOW!”