Passion for the Game(7)
Author: Sylvia Day

Maria blinked, her gaze dropping and finding even more to covet. She struggled to find something witty to say, but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wanted him, all of him, everything she could see and the backside as Well.

Christopher raked her from head to toe in a similarly thorough perusal. His gaze heated, became dark, and a low rumble that sounded deliciously like a purr rose up from his powerful chest.

Before she could find her wits, he caught her hand stil held in midair and yanked her in.

Chapter 5

“A re you daft?” Christopher slammed the door closed, then glared down at the brazen temptress before him and bit out, “You cannot wander about dressed in that manner!”

The filmy feminine concoction presently touching the curves he desired was alarmingly transparent, revealing every bit of Maria’s abundant charms —long, lithe legs, ful hips, trim waist, and ripe, lush br**sts. The shadowed juncture between her thighs and the dark circles of her areolas were plain as day.

His jaw clenched until his teeth ground audibly. In the candlelight, her olive skin shone like silk and he would wager it was of similar softness. To think of her traversing the gal ery where any of the many bedroom-hopping guests could have stumbled across her…

She gave an elegant shrug. “You should not open doors nak*d.”

“I am in my rooms.”

“I am in your rooms also,” she replied evenly.

“You were not a moment ago!”

“Are you going to hold my past against me? If so, I have far worse offenses.”

“Bloody hel , that was only a minute past!”

“Yes, and only a minute past you were standing nak*d in the hal .”

She arched a brow, her deportment every inch the Wintry Widow. He might have believed the façade if not for her eyes and bared body, both of which exuded sensual heat. Besides, she was here, ready for sex.

“I personal y think your offense is greater,” she continued. “I, at least, have a garment on.”

Christopher growled. Catching her shoulders, he tugged her close and heard a rip. The sound only goaded his anger. Whatever she was wearing, it offered less protection from a man’s hands than it did from his eyes. “This is not a garment! This is a temptation, and what you are tempting with belongs to me.”

Her mouth fel open. “Beast! Tearing my clothes and handling me in this manner.”

She stepped back, shrugged off his hands, and slapped him. Across the face.

The action so startled him, Christopher could scarcely process it. No one dared to assault him. Even those who had a wish for death chose to find it in a more peaceful manner than by provoking him—

He faltered, unsure of how he felt about her actions. The near-painful throbbing of his c*ck answered that question, and before his mouth could ruin it for him again, he lunged after her retreating form with such force they both tumbled to the ground. It was only by the grace of God that he managed to jerk himself to the side before crushing her.

“What are you—”

“Oompf!” The impact of hitting the floor with only the rug to soften the blow jarred every bone in his body.

“By God!” Maria cried shril y, turning her head to gaze at him with wide eyes. “You, sir, are certifiable!”

Her prone body wiggled delightful y beneath the arm and leg he pinned her with. She was as soft and lush as he had imagined she would be. She also smel ed delightful, that sweet smel of things both fruity and floral that teased with its promise of innocence, a promise her appearance could never deliver upon.

Part of him knew that he should say something, apologize for her torn gown or some such platitude that would soothe her, but damned if he could do more than grunt and try to push up her hem with his knee.

When her elbow connected with one of his ribs, a low, warning rumble rose up from his chest. It was a sound that struck terror in most. In Maria, it inspired rage.

“Do not growl at me!” she snapped, struggling with such strength he doubted his ability to restrain her without hurting her.

It was then he gave up his attempt to be gentle, knowing it was hopeless, understanding that he had regressed to some primitive frame of thought that cared only about how desperately aroused she made him.

Catching both of her wrists in one of his hands, Christopher slid over her, then forced her legs apart by settling between them.

Maria paused for a moment, col ecting his intent. Then she fought him as he had urged her to do earlier—like a feral cat. She struggled, attempting to crawl across the English rug to the sitting room door but not budging an inch. “Oh no! You will not have me!”

He snorted, then tore her night rail in his impatience to bare the beautiful y rounded curve of her derrière. This time he managed a sound that resembled something vaguely apologetic.

She was not impressed. “I would sooner share the bed of Lord Farsham than I would yours.”

That comment earned her a slap to the ass, which made her yelp. Farsham had two score years, at least, and was said to be impotent, neither fact mitigating Christopher’s rising agitation at the thought of any other man seeing her thusly.

In retaliation, Maria sank sharp teeth into his forearm with vicious fervor. He roared in pain and felt a trickle of moisture slide down the crown of his cock. He thrust his hand between her legs and found her cunt slick, hot, and ready. Studying her features, he noted her state of arousal reflected in her passion-dazed eyes and the flush of her skin.

Thank God. He was nigh undone, his seed leaking in its eagerness to flood her with his lust.

Maria stil ed for a moment, her gasp the only sound in the room, his own breath trapped in his lungs at the feel of her beneath his touch. He stroked through the lips of her sex with trembling fingers and closed his eyes. Without forethought, his head dipped, his lips pressing against the curve of her shoulder.

His hand moved, leaving her, aiming his aching erection at her creamy opening.

“Maria.” Final y. A word. Squeezed out of his clenched throat by the fisted grip of her cunt around the flared head of his cock.

She whimpered and arched her h*ps upward as much as his weight would all ow her, altering the angle with which he pressed into her. He slipped a fraction deeper.

Christopher’s breath hissed out between his teeth. Christ, she was fevered inside, hot as hel , and so exquisitely tight…

“How long?” he bit out.

She threw her h*ps at him impatiently.

He nipped her earlobe with his teeth. “How long?”

“A year,” she said, her voice low and breathless. “But continue with this pace and it may be two. Did you forget how to have sex when you forgot your manners?”

“Maddening. Contrary. Vexing wench.” He punctuated each word with a thrust of his hips, working his way into her, forcing her thighs wider with his own.

“That. Is. My lady. To you,” she retorted with gusting breaths.

Then he hit a spot deep inside her that made her moan and writhe in a completely different fashion than she had before—in sensual invitation, not anger.

“Like that?” he murmured, his mouth curving lazily. Her sudden capitulation soothed him immeasurably. Being inside her helped also. From the moment he first touched her in the theater, this was where he wanted to be. “A little more?”

Christopher clenched his buttocks and slid deeper, dizzy with the feel of her beneath him, clasped around him.

Her cunt rippled hungrily, sucking him deeper, the sensation so intense he shuddered against her.

“Maria,” he breathed, his head hanging down next to hers. “You…”

With his brain presently wal owing in sexual madness, he could think of nothing to say to describe…whatever it was he wished to describe. Instead, he pulled free of her, groaning at the caress of her soft, silky tissues on his withdrawal.

“Damn you,” she muttered, rol ing to her back when he slid off her. She glared at him, her beautiful face betraying her frustration and renewed anger.

Oddly, the sight of a furious woman did not make him wish to be rid of her. Just the opposite with Maria.

She was not cowed by him and made no attempt to hide who she was—his equal. Her response made him ache from head to toe with the need to spread her wide and sink his hard c*ck into her. Over and over again.

“Not here,” he growled, rising to his feet and yanking her up with him. When she tripped, Christopher caught her and tossed her over his shoulder.

“Brute!”

“Witch.” He watt her again. Then, unable to help it, he rubbed the firm flesh with the palm of his hand.

“Craven! Fight me face-to-face. Instead you strike when my back is turned.”

He smiled, adoring the sound of her voice, fil ed with such chal enge. Leaving the sitting room, he entered his bedchamber. He crossed the large space and threw her down upon the mattress.

She bounced, then kicked out at him, slapping at his grasping hands while heaping a thousand curses upon him. None of which was able to save her night rail. He tore it from her and tossed the remnants aside.

“I shal f**k you face-to-face, my passionate heathen,” he purred, pinning her down with his much larger body. “Hence the necessary change of venue. We shal be at this for some time, and I’ve no desire for burns on my knees or on your luscious br**sts.”

Her nails dug into the backs of his hands as he laced his fingers with hers. With a strong push of his knee, he spread her wide and then thrust into her. The sound that left his throat as he sank to the hilt was harsh and visceral. Inwardly startled by it, he lowered his lips to her bared breast and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

“Yes!” she hissed, wiggling madly under him.

“Stop that,” he admonished, lifting his head to look into her dark eyes. “You shal exhaust me before I have the chance to ride you properly.”

Maria bucked. “Move along with it, damn you.”

He laughed, the sound swel ing to fil the intimate space created by the canopy above them.

She blinked and went stil , watching him. “Do that again,” she urged.

Christopher’s brows rose, and he flexed his c*ck inside her. The soft pant that left her parted lips made his bal s draw up. “I can laugh or fuck, but not both at the same time. Which would you prefer I do first?”

The instantaneous sexual tension that gripped her was palpable.

“Good,” he murmured, licking her bottom lip. “That was my choice, too.”

He moved then, pul ing their joined hands down to her shoulder level, using his elbows to support the weight of his torso. His h*ps lifted and fel slowly, dragging his c*ck out, then pushing deep again. Maria whimpered and he nuzzled his cheek against hers.

“Let it out,” he whispered, his lips to her temple. “Tel me how much you enjoy it.”

She turned her head and bit his earlobe. Hard. “You can tel me how much you enjoy it, if you ever start the business!”

He growled and stepped up the pace, knowing he was mere moments away from a bril iant orgasm of epic proportions. It could be nothing else.

Because of her, and her blasted mouth and her temper that drove him insane. He intended to occupy that mouth with a much more pleasurable task. Later. At the moment, he was so bloody aroused, his c*ck and bal s were pained with it, his skin coated in perspiration, his exhales bursting from his lungs as he rode her lush body with hard, deep plunges. all the while, he tried to make it good for her, a concern he had never had before, but one that goaded him fiercely now.

Maria took his lust and gave it back in like measure, her legs locked around his hips, her lithe thighs working with equal fervor. Her n**ples were hard, and every thrust he made brushed his chest across them, making them both moan. all the while she whispered in his ear—naughty things, sexual things, tiny barbs and insults that drove him to the edge of reason.

Christopher lunged into her, bal s deep, and rolled his hips, glaring down at her. He watched her eyes widen, her lips part, her neck arch as his pelvis circled against her clitoris. He watched the orgasm take her, move through her. Saw it darken her eyes and soften the tension that always bracketed her mouth.

The word “beautiful” was incapable of describing her. Maria was far beyond that, so stunning that he noted it even within the throes of his own building cli**x. He felt her cunt ripple along his cock, squeezing, sucking, drawing him deeper, until he could not hold back.

The pressure built at his shoulders, poured down his spine, pooled in his testicles, and burst from the end of his c*ck in a stream of white-hot sem*n. How he managed to keep from roaring out his relief, he would never know. He knew only that he was held tight against soft curves, tiny hands cupping his buttocks, a breathless voice crooning, anchoring him in the midst of a toe-curling orgasm.

And a kiss. Feather light in the crook of his neck.

Lost to a violent cli**x, he stil felt that kiss.

Maria stared up at the shadowy recesses of the canopy above her and shifted restlessly. Christopher mimicked her pose an arm’s distance away.

The silence between them stretched out uncomfortably. Had she been in bed with Simon, he would have glasses of wine in their hands and some inane tale to tel her that would make her laugh. With Christopher there was only this damnable tension. And an all -encompassing tingle that thrummed through her entire body.

She sighed, reexamining the night’s events.

Christopher’s laughter had caught her off guard. How wonderful the sound how been, how delicious it had felt vibrating against her. It had transformed his features, making her heart stop altogether. On the whole, the entire encounter had been…intense, as she had known sex with him would be. His dangerous edge excited her, made her reckless, urged her to goad him into a fine temper. It was thril ing to push such a control ed man beyond his limits, to make him lose control. He f**ked with such passion, such strength, his body a finely honed instrument of pleasure.

She shivered with renewed desire and turned her head to find him watching her. He canted an eyebrow and then yanked her closer, tugging her body to drape over his side.