Midnight Eyes by Brophy, Sarah (well read books .TXT) 📕

his began. She let out a groan of raw desire, and Robert answered it with one of his own.

He would go mad if he wasn’t part of her. Now. Here. In a dungeon.

The thought froze him. It was impossible to think of savagely taking his beautiful Imogen on the straw pallet that was the only bed his meager cell had to offer.

He dragged his mouth from hers and drew her head against his chest, his breath coming in ragged bursts as he tried to gain control over his raging body. That control would have been more easily found if every inch of Imogen’s body wasn’t pressed against his, but he lacked the willpower necessary to put her away from him entirely.

He was only a man and even as his honor demanded he let her go, his achingly aroused body could no more put her from him than it could fly from William’s fortress.

When he thought he might be able to see her without falling on her like some ravaging beast, he gently allowed the tension in his hands to ease, and dared to look into her flushed face, her lips bruised from his kisses.

“Sorry,” he growled. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. Not here.”

“Why…why did you stop?” she asked in confusion, her mind still numbed by the raw desire that filled her to overflowing.

“I thought it was for the best.”

“You thought…” She pushed herself away from him and grabbed his head between her hands. “Why is it that you get to make all of the decisions? Why is it that you never ask me what I think, or never even think to ask me what I might want?”

Robert ran a finger over her cheek and along the damp fullness of her swollen bottom lip.

“Forgive me, but I don’t want to take you like a dog in heat on the stone floor of His Majesty’s dungeon.” He saw her flinch at the coarse expression, but he continued determinedly. “Imogen, I’m chained to a wall so that I can’t stand, or even crawl to the other side of the room. I’m not fool enough to believe that you can want to be with me like this.”

She lifted her face and placed a lingering, searing kiss on his startled lips.

“I love you. I want to be with you,” she murmured against his lips, her breath burning his skin as her words fired his heart. “I want to be held in the arms of the man I love. I want to be able to forget about the outside world, even if for only a moment. I want to forget that there might not be a tomorrow for us.” She groped for his manacled hand, lifted it to her breast and held it there by force when he made to move it away. “The only thing I care about is that you hold me as close as you can in the precious time we have managed to steal. Please hold me,” she whimpered, her voice breaking.

Robert groaned as he pulled her into a crushing embrace, not able to reject her generous gift. “I suppose I should be grateful that William saw fit to imprison me in a new fortress. Compared to the filth of Westminster’s, this is a paradise,” he muttered as he fumbled with her skirts so that his hand could touch the warm satin of her thighs. He groaned helplessly and closed his eyes as his hand ran adoringly from knee to hip. “You do know that you are entirely mad, don’t you?”

The cell filled with her sultry laughter. “Well, that would just about make us a matched set, then…” Her words were cut off by a gasp as his long fingers moved along the skin of her inner thigh and brushed the curls that protected her feminine core.

That protection proved entirely inadequate and Robert’s fingers found the treasure that they sought, sending shivers of ecstasy through her body. His hand resting under hers tightened around her breast, sending a shaft of pure fire to her lower abdomen.

“Oh, Imogen,” he murmured as he lowered his lips to capture her moans and whimpers of pleasure. He no longer dared to question the fate that had brought this woman to him and made her say that he was the man she loved, but he let out a growl of frustration as he tried, and failed, to pull her body under him. His chain clanked noisily as they tangled around them.

He dragged his lips reluctantly from hers. “Damn things,” he groaned as he tried to untangle himself, only seeming to tangle himself further.

Imogen pulled herself to one side, listening impatiently to the sounds of his struggle, trying to determine how they had him chained.

“Can you sit against the wall with your legs out in front of you?” she asked hoarsely. Taking Robert’s aggravated grunt as an affirmative; she placed her hand in the center of his wide, bare chest and gave it a gentle push. “Then do it.”

Robert hesitated only a second before complying. Imogen waited till everything was near silent and the only noise to be heard was the sound of his ragged breathing. She had to try and steady her own before she felt ready to do what she wanted to do for him.

She was going to show him just how much she loved him; she was going to show him the woman she had become because he loved her. She was a woman who was no longer so completely crippled by the past that she barely existed. Because he loved her.

Reaching out, she ran her hand up the length of his calves, the hair bristling under her fingers, creating an enticing friction. She smiled a little when she heard his sharp intake of breath as she placed a kiss on the rough skin of his knee, then one on the more-sensitive area on the inside of his thigh.

“I don’t have the stamina for this torture,” he said gruffly.

“Well, I have enough stamina