Pursing her lips, she stomped a dainty foot and tried to push past him. He moved to stand directly in front of her, reached out and curled a hand around her wrist. He tugged her close, flush with his body. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Back to the house.”
“I tell you when we’re through, Olivia, and we aren’t even close.” Despite his anger, he loved the way her cheeks flushed, the way she swallowed compulsively. “I believe you owe me something.”
He didn’t know why he said it. At some point, he’d already decided not to collect his prize—but something inside, the man from two years ago, couldn’t let her go so easily.
Inching backward, her wrist still in his grasp, she bumped up against a tree trunk. “I owe you nothing. It was an idiotic wager.”
He smirked at that. “The only idiocy was pushing a horse you’d never ridden too fast. I should punish you for your foolishness.”
Her breath caught at the word punish, just a slight hesitation that would have gone unnoticed by anyone but him.
“Do you remember how I used to touch you?” He pressed his lower half to hers, effectively pinning her to the tree. He still held his riding crop in one hand, her wrist in the other. “You promised me the world, Olivia, then you snatched it all away.”
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice.” She’d chosen to leave him for the prospect of winning Lord Whitmore’s affections. It was a cruel, cutting blow that had destroyed him. Ultimately, her choice had been ill fated. Lord Whitmore had died three months later in a bee attack.
She swallowed, her breaths coming in quick, erratic bursts. “There wasn’t, I assure you.”
He almost believed her. Almost. Until he remembered what a grand manipulator she was. How she’d had him falling in love the first moment he saw her across that crowded ballroom. For a brief, breathless moment, their eyes had caught. Then she’d smiled at him, a coy tilt of her lips that had pulled at him in like a siren’s call. She’d lured him in with her intelligence and vivacity. Tempted him with her sweet honeyed lips, then just as quickly ripped it all away.
“In any case, I intend to collect on what should have been mine years ago.” He released her wrist and let his hand fall to her slender waist. She sucked in a breath as he gathered the fabric of her riding habit, exposing her right thigh inch by tantalizing inch. Out here, they were completely alone, shielded by the trees, where not a soul would witness what he was about to do.
“Please,” she whispered—to stop or to continue on?
He shifted his weight off her, to give him better access to her body. With her skirts inched high, he smoothed a hand over the lush warmth of her thigh. She was so soft, so enticingly smooth. A shudder rolled through her body, but she didn’t push him away.
“Turn around.”
There was a long stretch of silence, and he wondered if she’d comply. At length, she turned and faced the trunk of the tree.
Inching her hemline up, he exposed her perfectly rounded backside. Seeing her like this, vulnerable, trusting, made his cock swell and lengthen. How easy it would be to free himself and slide into her. He could smell the dark, heady scent of her arousal. She would be wet, ready for him.
“You will not risk your safety like that again.”
She leaned her head against the tree trunk. “No.”
He brushed the tip of his riding crop across the swell of her arse. She flinched, but didn’t move to pull away. He leaned in, and whispered in her ear. “Should I punish you, Miss Dewhurst?”
He remembered how well she liked this game, how she’d always begged for more.
She nodded, a barely there nod that set his blood aflame. His lips stretched into a smile. It’d been too long since he’d had her like this, vulnerable, trusting, and it spoke to something deep and primal within him. Hot, restless energy pulsed through him.
“Adam,” she breathed.
“Patience.” He gripped his crop tighter, flicked it lightly over her skin. She shifted restlessly. It wasn’t rough enough, he knew. She needed the sting of pleasure, the sharp bliss of pain. But this wasn’t about her pleasure. It was about her torment.
Leaning in, he kissed the nape of her neck, drawing her scent, her essence into his lungs. With his free hand, he reached around and tugged on her low neckline, freeing one creamy breast. It spilled into his hand, all warmth and softness, her nipple tight, beaded, begging for his tongue.
Drawing the crop back, he flicked it, hard, over her arse. She let out a sharp gasp, then instantly relaxed against the tree, the tension draining out of her. “Adam,” she breathed again.