“You cut me to the quick, my lady. And yet, no one knows more than I just how unsuitable I would be as a son-in-law. However, Lady Darby insisted and I obliged. Despite my better judgment and suspicion of her intent,” he muttered, the words laced with anger and accusation. “You should be in bed.”

“And you should go to hell,” Celia promptly replied, then clapped a hand over her own mouth, wishing the words back.

The corners of his lips quirked upward with amusement. “My prickly little sugarplum. Deliciously sweet but somehow covered in thorns.” His eyes bored into hers while forcing Celia’s retreat back into the bedchamber. The door slammed shut behind them with a swift kick of his booted foot.

Then Gabriel’s mouth was upon hers. Hot and demanding. Insistent and possessive. Hard and yet so achingly soft. One hand cradled her face, his fingers sliding further until they wrapped around the thick braid of her hair. Gripping it as though it were a tether useful in controlling a wild animal, he held her in place.

He kissed her until she was faint, and even if her ankle had not been injured, Celia would have collapsed without his arms holding her aloft.

Alarm bells clanged inside Celia’s head. Desire burst deep within her soul, clawing its way out of her body. It was so wrong for him to be in her room. Wrong that he was kissing her. Wrong that she welcomed the soft warmth of his hard mouth molding hers.

Thunder echoed, big and booming and so loud it seemed it was just outside the windows. Or was that her heart? She did not know, but one thing was certain. This man would ruin her, and she did not care.

Celia wrapped her arms around his neck. She nestled into his embrace. Reveled in the tight hold he had around her waist and the one of her hair. Sank into the treacherous depths of his mouth and lips as he took what he wanted with lazy insistence. She should push him away. She should call for help. She should do anything that would stop the inevitability of this man claiming her heart.

But she did not. She could only do one thing. The one thing that felt right. That felt true.

That felt like fate.

Destiny.

Her future. And his, too.

She kissed him back.

CHAPTER 11

Gabriel told himself he should stop.

But it was impossible. He couldn’t stop when the girl in his arms tasted so sweet. Not when she was so warm and smelled so damned good it made him want to weep. She felt… right. It was the only way he could describe it.

Right in his world of everything wrong.

It’d been a long time since he had experienced anything so perfect. It was impossible to stop the continued onslaught of her innocent mouth. He plundered her sweetness, becoming drunk on everything that made Celia Buchanan who she was.