Ace's Wild. Sarah McCarty

she wanted to offer Ace so much more than an apple. And she wanted him to take it. All of it. Everything she could give. The fact that he would wasn’t the scary thing it should have been.

      She was sure she wasn’t the first woman that Ace had wanted. His conquests littered the town. But he might just be the only man who’d ever truly wanted her. Not to prove a point. Not to gain access to her family’s power or money, but because she was a woman he found attractive. Her fingers curled into his chest. The immediate hitch in his breathing padded her confidence. Inside, she started smiling. He really did want her.

       Prove it.

      For the skip of a heartbeat, she didn’t know if she could. She was a spinster. A suffragette. A scholar. What did she know of kissing the socks off a man? As if sensing her panic—which was silly since she hadn’t given any outward sign of her distress—Ace nudged her thigh with his knee.

      “Want me to bend down?”

      His voice, deeper than normal, rasped like velvet over her senses. And she wanted more. Tempting Ace Parker was madness, it was foolishness, it was reckless, but she’d already given herself an excuse. She’d made a deal, and no Wayfield ever reneged on a deal. And all she had to do to hold up her end was to kiss him like she meant it, and suddenly that didn’t seem so very hard. There was so much she could imagine doing with this man. He might be a reprobate, he might be a gambler, but he was the only man in her recollection who could make her feel like a schoolgirl and forget her morally correct upbringing. He was, quite frankly, her one chance to feel what other women felt so easily. To give what other women found so easy to give. To be who she always thought she could be.

      That did not mean, however, that she was ready to just roll over. When he tried to pull closer, she shook her head. She shouldn’t have found the cock of his eyebrow endearing, but she did.

      “What?”

      “We had a deal. This is my kiss.”

      His fingers relaxed infinitesimally on her neck. Highlighting just how subtle his control had been. “So it is.”

      She fitted her mouth to his, rubbing gently until she found that perfect spot that sent tingles shooting inward, wishing she knew more than she did, wanting to make this a kiss he remembered, wanting against reason to be memorable.

      Again that soothing touch on her neck. His mouth opened against hers, guiding her, she realized.

      “Thank you,” she whispered.

      Ace took her gratitude and upped it with the lightest touch of his tongue. Those tingles burst into streaks of lightning. She returned the caress, and he moaned. She did it again, and again, experimenting with going deeper, wider, turning her head so her tongue could touch his. It wasn’t enough.

      “More,” he whispered, slipping his thigh between hers.

      Yes, she wanted more. She’d noticed Ace the first day she’d walked into town, and he’d made sure she could never give up that infatuation, teasing and taunting her, irritating her with his very existence. And now it was her turn to tease him. His lips were full, fuller than she expected, softer than she expected but so good. Giving in to the wildness throbbing inside, she nibbled and bit at his mouth, demanding something he needed to give.

      He groaned deep in his throat. She stood higher on her toes, pulling him down, dragging herself up, rubbing her breasts against his chest, trying to get closer, but she couldn’t. There was no way she could get close enough. The kiss was good, but it wasn’t good enough, and she didn’t know what to do. She dug her nails into the back of his neck in silent demand. Again she got that look that asked for the words. She blushed at the thought. But what choice did she have? This was her one chance, and she wasn’t done with it yet.

      She had to struggle to find her voice and when she did, it was a breathy thread of sound that took the command out of her order. “Fix it.”

      He didn’t seem to have the same trouble. His voice was deep and even and seductive in its calm. “You know our deal.”

      This time it was her turn to growl but not with passion. “Not that.” Nipping his lip, she snapped, “This.”

      Catching her chin in his hand, he held her still, his mouth just inches from hers. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away. God, she wanted him.

      “Do you want my mouth, Pet?”

      She nodded.

      With a little jiggle of her chin, he snapped her gaze to his. “Not good enough. Do you want my mouth?”

      Why did he have to be so demanding?

      She nodded again, hoping it would suffice, not willing to give him everything, not understanding how he could resist the fire she could feel burning just beyond her reach. She could only imagine how good it would feel while he had to know.

      His fingers rubbed against her nape; his thumb crept over her cheek, catching the corner of her mouth, pressing gently, forcing her lips to part naturally around it. She touched it with her tongue. His pupils dilated and his nostrils flared, but he didn’t give ground.

      “If you want it, my Pet, you’re going to have to ask for it.”

      “Kiss me.”

      She’d thought he’d kiss her then, but though his eyes narrowed, all he did was hold her still and give another order, “Ask nicely.”

      She wanted to stomp his toe. “Just kiss me.”

      A tap on her cheek made her look up again. There was desire in the hard lines of his face and the softness of his mouth, but in his eyes...in his eyes was the will of a man who expected to be obeyed. A shiver she didn’t understand went down her spine. Between her legs, moisture gathered.

      “Say it right,” he ordered.

      He wanted her to beg. She wasn’t a begging woman, but the word slipped past her control, filling the silence between them with an import she didn’t understand. “Please.”

      It was enough. With a curse that sounded like the sweetest music to her impatient ear, he stepped in, his hands sliding down her back, pulling her into his body, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, breast to chest, mouth-to-mouth. Oh, God, mouth-to-mouth. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer still. Another growl, and his mouth smoothed across hers. Against her groin, his erection pressed. Thick, hard and foreign. A shock at first followed by a soothing burst of pleasure. She had the urge to spread her thighs, to grind against him, but she couldn’t move, and even that was good. So good, and she was so hungry. The hot, wet touch of his tongue along the seam of her lips had her jumping again.

      “Open.”

      This order growled against her mouth didn’t annoy her at all. She opened, willingly, eagerly, joyfully, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears, it blocked out the world, and there was only him. Ace took advantage of her surrender, full, wonderful, glorious advantage, claiming her mouth in a single thrust of his tongue. She opened wider; he teased further. His breath became hers; his moan hers and hers his, she realized. It was a blending; it was a mating; it was a... She couldn’t find the word but the feeling. Oh, the feeling! It surged forward out of the most primitive part of her in an exultant burst of joy. Free at last; she was free. And just in that moment when she would have given that moment a name, Ace fisted his hand on her bun and pulled her mouth from his, leaving her aching as he stepped back.

      For a second, Petunia couldn’t comprehend what had happened. The only things that kept her from tumbling were the wall at her back and his hand on her arm. She felt bereft and abandoned. Lost.

      “You’ve got your deal.”

      A slap to the face couldn’t have been more shocking than his withdrawal. The afternoon sun had sunk behind the buildings, and she felt the chill of the shadows sink into her bones, even as he took that second step away. For him, it had been nothing more than a kiss, probably one of thousands, but for her it had been a moment that shook her world in ways that was going to take days to figure out. She