Page 24 of An Extraordinary Lord

She scoffed softly at that but couldn’t move away. She’d reached the side of the boat, with nowhere else to go but into the drink. “You can’t always win.”

“But I do. I’m a very good lawyer.” He dared to nuzzle his lips against the tender flesh behind her ear. “My father is a barrister, too, like his father before him.”

“An entire family of corruption and vice, I see.” But her mocking emerged as little more than a breathless whisper.

He smiled against her ear. “A herd of criminals. You’d fit right in.”

“Thank you,” she muttered. When her cheeks flushed, he didn’t know if it was from his teasing or from the way his warm breath tickled the side of her face. Not that he truly cared which.

“I’m also a former soldier, terrible card player, and bad dancer.” He followed that confession with a soft kiss to her neck. “Painfully ordinary, I’m afraid.”

“No, you’re not. I’ve seen you fight. You’re—”

“Boring.” This time when he kissed her neck, he followed it with a light lick across her soft flesh. A shiver trembled through her. “Dreadfully boring.”

“And at night,” she panted out as he traced his tongue along the outer curl of her ear, “you prowl the streets…dressed head to toe in black…armed to the teeth… Why?”

“To help people.”

Surprise flitted across her desire-flushed face.

He bit back a groan at the spicy-sweet taste of her as he brought his lips to the corner of her mouth, knowing the ambrosia waiting to be claimed within. He somehow found the clarity to ask, “You find it hard to believe that I want to help people?”

“Yes.” Her lips tickled against his as she answered, “I do.”

“Because I’m a barrister,” he murmured, sliding his mouth along her jaw to suck at her earlobe. “And you don’t trust barristers.”

“I don’t trust anyone,” she admitted yet tilted her head to give him access to her neck. “Especially you.”

Instead of being insulted, Merritt smiled. Even now, he could feel her arousal beneath the waves of shivers that passed through her, could feel her growing desire in the quickening of her breath and the parting of her lips. She might not trust him, but she ached for him as much as he ached for her.

“Liar,” he scolded and bit her ear just as she’d done to his. The soft gasp of pleasure that tore from her jolted through him like lightning, straight down to the tip of his cock.Jesus.He sucked in a deep breath to steady himself. “If you weren’t a criminal and I weren’t a barrister…”

“What?” she challenged breathlessly. “What would you do?”

The temptation was too much, and he brought his mouth to her ear. “Before or after I stripped your clothes off?” he asked. “With my teeth.”

Her hand tightened on his arm. “After.”

That single word spun through him with a streak of liquid heat. If he hadn’t already wanted her… “Before or after I licked my tongue over every deliciously bare inch of you?”

“After,” she breathed and dug her fingertips into his sleeve and the muscle beneath.

“After I laid you down and feasted my fill of you?” He swirled his tongue in her ear, mimicking what he would do between her legs.

She bit back a whimper. “Yes.”

“I’d simply ravish you.”

She lost her breath, and as her sharp inhalation shuddered into her lungs, she pulled back, wide-eyed and lips parted, as if she simply couldn’t fathom him or the effect he had on her. God knew he didn’t understand it himself. She was a confessed criminal, and when this mission was over, she’d be given a pardon and set free—an insult to everything he’d dedicated his life to.

Yet he inexplicably yearned for her, in a way he hadn’t wanted a woman since Joanna.

“What would you do, Veronica?” he prompted when she continued to stare at him, searching his face but not finding any answers. But of course she wouldn’t. He had none to give.

“I—I’d—”

She cut herself off, despite the way she stared hungrily at his mouth. What he’d wanted to hear, desperately, with every aching inch of him…I’d let you.