Lord of Scoundrels

by Loretta Chase

“If you run away,” Dain said fiercely, “I shall hunt you down. I shall follow you to the ends of the earth.”

Perhaps, Dain thought, his wife knew him a great deal better than he knew himself. She saw in him qualities he’d never discerned when he’d looked into a mirror.

“You’re exhausted from your ordeal,” he said, swallowing a groan. “Also, I’m sure you must be bruised in a hundred places. You don’t want a fifteen-stone brute heaving about on top of you.” She drew her thumb over his nipple. He sucked in his breath. “You could heave about under me,” she said softly.

She licked the hollow of his throat. “I like the way you taste,” she murmured. She drew her parted lips over his collarbone. “And the way your skin feels against my mouth. And the way you smell…of soap and cologne and male. I love your big, warm hands…and your big, warm body…and your immense, throbbing—”

“I’m clay in your hands,” she breathed against his ear. “I love you madly. I want you so much.”

He grasped her sweet rump and lifted her onto his manhood…and groaned as she guided him into her. “Oh, Jess.” “All mine.” She sank, slowly, down upon his shaft.

“Sweet Jesus.” Pleasure forked through him, jagged and white-hot. “Oh, Dio. I’m going to die.”

“All mine,” she said. “Yes. Kill me, Jess...

“Ti amo,” he said. And so ridiculously simple it was that he said it again, in English this time. “I love you, Jess.”