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An Excerpt From: WATER CRYSTAL
Copyright © ANYA BAST, 2005.
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
A swath of moonlight cut through the room. Angelo’s
breathing sounded deep and even from where she lay on her bed. Bianca got
up as quietly as she could and crossed the short space between them. His
face lay in shadow and moonlight kissed the length of his body, coating him
in molten silver.
Damn. She swallowed hard. What right did this man have
to be so fucking good-looking? He was a hazard to womankind, or at least to
her.
Moving her hand down in one smooth motion, she touched
the top of his pants. She remembered what he’d said about sleeping lightly,
but she had no choice. She had to take the risk. He shifted in his sleep
and she froze, waiting for him to settle in again. Once he did, she slipped
her hand into the pocket that contained the key. Her fingers closed on it
at the same time his huge hand wound around her wrist.
She tried to wrench away from him, but his grip was like
steel. Pulling away from him, she attempted to use her free hand to pry his
fingers from her wrist. She fisted her hand around the key. In a fit of
irrational desperation, she swore she would not give it up. Bracing her
legs on the floor, she tried to wrench herself away from him.
He sat up, smoothly swung
his legs over the side of the bed and caught her other wrist with almost no
effort. Inexorably, he drew one wrist to wed with the other. A sound of
complete desperation escaped her. Now he held both wrists in one of his
hands. She struggled and pulled backward. He wrapped one arm around her
waist and yanked her off-balance, pulling her down against him so she knelt
on the mattress, straddling him.
“Open your hand, Bianca. Give me back that key now.”
She squeezed her fist even tighter. Another sound of despair
came from somewhere deep within her.
“Give it up, Bianca,” he said in a voice like velvet.
She struggled and he held her firmly against him.
“Bianca,” he said again, close to her ear. “Come on,
stop fighting and let it go.”
She went limp. Her will left
her with a silent whoosh. It was no use. With a sob, she opened her palm
and he released her wrists. The key fell onto the bed beside them, glinting
silver in the moonlight.
He’d managed to put her in a very intimate position and
she felt completely vulnerable. He held her tight around her midsection,
and showed no signs of relinquishing her. She shifted on his lap, and felt
the hardened length of his cock against her suddenly damp sex. He made a
sound deep in his throat at her movement. She stilled instantly, her breath
coming faster. Her nipples were like two pebbles on her breasts. Every
breath she took scraped the material of her shirt over the sensitive peaks.
Something down deep stirred with the knowledge of his arousal,
and how she was positioned against him.
She closed her eyes. God, she wanted him. For the first
time since that unpleasant time back home, she wanted a man.
Her breath came shallow, and it wasn’t because she’d
been fighting him or because she’d failed in her escape attempt. She knew
that if she wanted to, she could have him now. All she had to do was move a
little, brush up against him, and he’d tumble her down onto the bed beneath
him, Guardian Code of Ethics be damned.
His mouth drew close, hovering not far from hers. Warm
breath teased her lips, sent a shiver up her spine… Could he tell how
turned on she was? She put her hands against his chest and pushed away from
him a little. “Angelo?” She couldn’t keep her voice from quavering. Sexual
teasing was one thing. This was real.
And it terrified her.
He stilled, closed his eyes and locked his jaw. He slid
his hands to her waist and slid them under the bottom of her shirt to rest
on her bare skin. She could feel the cold metal of the key sandwiched between
his palm and her hip. He let out a sharp breath of air. “Damn it, Bianca,”
he growled. “You’re baiting me hard, too fucking hard. You’re going to end
up in a lot of trouble one of these days.”
The thing of it was, this was the one time she’d hadn’t been
trying to bait him at all. She whimpered deep in her throat in a mixture of
fear and hard, sharp desire. If he tossed her down on the bed right now,
she’d let him do anything he wanted to her.
Tense silence reigned for a heartbeat. Angelo rubbed his
thumb over her skin. Back and forth, back and forth. Bianca hissed out a
breath as her clit seemed to get bigger and more sensitive. It was like he
caressed it instead of her hip and the sensation was tipping her straight
into a place where she wouldn’t be able to hold herself back from him.
Abruptly, he lifted her off him. She had to sit down on
the opposite bed. Her knees felt weak. He pushed himself up off the
mattress. He shook his head and dragged a hand back through his hair,
pacing back and forth between the beds. “God, Bianca, you are something
else. Remember what I said about having limits? Being locked in this room
with you is causing mine to be breached fast and hard in a couple of
different ways. You might be a thief. You might be a con artist. But you
still affect me in the way a woman affects a man.”
He grabbed the pack from the corner, pulled out his
handcuffs and stuffed the key into it, and then threw it with force to the
head of his bed. He walked toward her, handcuffs dangling from a finger.
“What are you doing with those?” she asked. As if she
didn’t know.
“I would like to get some sleep,” he growled. “I won’t
be able to do that if I have to worry about you all night.”
“I won’t—”
“Give me your wrists.”
“I promise I won’t—”
Anger flashed through his dark eyes. “Wrists.”
She held out her hands and he slapped the cuffs around
them.
“Get on the bed and lay down in a comfortable position.”
She hesitated a moment and he narrowed his eyes at her.
“Don’t make me do it for you,” he said. She wiggled back onto the mattress
and lay down, keeping her gaze on him. He took her in from her head to her
feet and a muscle worked in his jaw. He knelt on the mattress and leaned
over her, cussing under his breath. Her heart skipped a beat, and her mind
created a multitude of carnal images that had her breath coming faster.
He eased her arms over her head and secured the cuffs to
the headboard. When he’d finished, he lingered over her, looking down into
her eyes. “What’s your story, Bianca?” he asked softly. “You tease, you
tempt, you almost push me past my limits of
control. Then you get all innocent and scared.” He cocked his head to the
side. “You fascinate me.”
Her fingers found and grasped the spindles of the
headboard. “Touch me,” she murmured. “Angelo, touch me, please.”
He stilled, every muscle in his big body going rigid.
“Bianca….”
“I know you want to and I want you to do it. For the
first time in a very long time, I want…” She trailed off and turned her
head away from him, ashamed of her admission. “Please,” she whispered,
nearly sobbing. “Please put your hands on me.” Bianca closed her eyes,
readying herself for heartbreaking rejection.
He did nothing, said nothing for several heartbeats.
Then she felt his hand high on her waist. The warmth of his palm bled
through the material of her shirt and into her skin. He just kept it there,
not moving. She closed her eyes at the contact and sighed in contentment.
CLOSE WINDOW
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