Lovers' Tussle Read Online Free Page A

moisture. God, she tastes like berries, sunshine, and pure heaven .
     
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    Tienna sank into the welcoming heat. It closed around her, enveloping her like a cloak of warmth and security. He had spun his web so expertly, a suave and cultivated silken band that had trapped her. And as helpless as an insect she had been ensnared by this patient rogue, seduced by his charm and devilish smoothness.
    His hair, so light blond it could pass for white in the moonlight, slipped between her satin-gloved fingers. Her fingers tightened, clinging on for dear life, cursing the obscuring material that impeded her sense of truly testing the texture. His tongue invaded the privacy of her mouth with such temperate actions she could feel each nuance of her heated body melt with fever, and it did so in alarming, slow degrees.
    She inhaled deeply. Bay rum mixed with man, but the scent of beast lingered still. The length of his body was hard and stiff against hers. She submitted to the velvet invitation he expertly extended. Her tongue slipped into his mouth. His taste, sweetly masculine, meshed with her taste buds and sent her spiraling. Her knees weakened. His hold strengthened.
    Tienna felt herself being swept away on this current he had formed. He remained so docile and yet was so very compelling. She could not escape. She didn’t want to. Her soul was being claimed in such leisurely degrees, like the patient erosion of a soil bed against a gentle stream. Every throbbing need within her was being stoked with trained, compassionate ease. Her passion was patiently caressed, coaxed, and prodded until the yearning threatened to overpower her. Within her, each part of her body sang with blissful need, a slow build to an all-encompassing crescendo. He was dangerous. He was a thief, and he was stealing her soul, bit by painstaking, delightful bit. She surrendered.
    The growl, a fierce, primitive rage, cut into her head. Tienna jerked back. By the bewildered look on Aiden’s face she knew he had heard it, too. Tumultuous lashes, savage and vehement, whipped across her mind like hot branding irons of red, glowing fire. She stumbled back from the relentless fury beating at her. “Roth.” His name slipped from her numbed lips. Her eyes searched the surrounding darkness, desperate for escape. But she could not see him. He was there, in her head, pounding at her with his wild fever, his relentless anger. She could not run from him. She could not hide. But she turned and fled nonetheless.
    She felt the presence behind her immediately as she flew past the open courtyard and into the deserted street. Her soft satin footsteps and hammering heart did nothing to drone out the sound of the threat. She knew this was not Aiden. The presence was dark and malevolent— Roth . God, what was she to do?
    There was nothing else to do. She darted into the nearest darkened street, divesting her clothes as she went. Using only partial mind control, her dress flew off. Her petticoats tangled around her legs before finally joining the discarded gown on the dirty ground. Finally losing all control of her panicked senses, she simply burst forth from the remnants, a fully formed wolf. Her paws barely touched the ground as she soared, leaving in her wake a bundle of palettes, stockings, and a ravaged whale-bone corset. The wind rushed past her back-pressed ears as she put her nose down and raced her heart out. She had to get away. But the presence behind only grew stronger.
    The scratching of her claws against the cobblestones and its eerie echoes sent a shiver through her. Would he sink his claws into her first, or his vicious teeth? More than once she felt the hot breath at her neck, the whispered kiss of death. But she dared not look. She dared not stop. She ran until her lungs burned and the steam from her muzzle brought tears to her eyes. And still it was not enough. Vengeance would not be cheated. Roth would not be denied.
    She knew she had made a fatal error