“Oh come, Doctor, you’re a woman of science. Surely you can appreciate a statement of empirical fact.” He followed her, drew up behind her once again, and slid his arms around her middle.
Beneath that fitted, cultured attire, a torso rippled with unthinkable strength. Muscle corrugated his entire frame with unmitigated power.
And all that power was behind her. Behind her. Securing his arms beneath her breasts and pulling her against his body. Any time he wanted he could push her toward the bed. Bend her over and—
“I am not flattering you,” he murmured into her ear. “Your beauty is undeniable, and evidenced by my pervasive desire for you.”
He brought their bodies flush, his ribs against her shoulder blades and the hard, pulsing intimate length of him pressing against her back—
Alexandra twisted and leaped out of his grasp. Air. She needed air. She raced over to the bedroom window and threw it open, gulping in large breaths of the cool summer breeze.
He’d let her go, she told herself, trying to rein in her runaway pulse. She’d pulled away and he’d let her go. This was significant, something she could clutch onto during the ordeal that was to be her wedding night.
He didn’t know. How could he realize what agony he’d created by approaching her from behind?
He couldn’t know. And she couldn’t tell him.
God, what he must think of her.
Drawing in one last, trembling breath, Alexandra whirled to face him. She blinked around the golden stateroom, bedecked with beveled crystal and mahogany, polished to an impossible gleaming finish.
And empty of the mystified duke she’d expected to find.
“I thought you might be in need of this.” His voice rumbled from the doorway to the main quarters. Redmayne strode toward her, lips tilted faintly, a healthy dose of caramel liquid glinting from a glass in each hand.
Alexandra could have cried as she took the whisky from him, the little points of cut crystal a welcome abrasion against her trembling palm.
She finished the entire thing in three desperate swallows, releasing a few breaths of fire before attempting an explanation. “Forgive me … I…”
“You’re nervous.” Indulgently, he relieved her of her glass and replaced it with his own, encouraging her to take another sip, which she did. Slower this time, and with more relish.
He strode to the end table next to the bed and made a show of opening each drawer.
Curiosity overcame her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m searching for a notepad,” he explained, flashing her a charming half-smile. “I’ve the feeling a list might lend you courage. A schedule, maybe? Or did you have your seduction notes nearby? I shouldn’t mind picking that up where we left off.”
The very fact that he’d evoked a smile in such a moment also brought her dangerously close to tears.
When had she become such a wretched mess?
Alexandra set the glass on the nightstand. “Do you remember the conditions?”
She noted he didn’t smile as much with his lips as he did with his eyes. They wrinkled at the corners, his cheeks tightening with mirth.
Perhaps smiling caused him physical pain?
“Let me see…” He ticked them off on his fingers. “I’m not allowed to use my tongue. We’re to be completely nude. We’re to face each other—” He paused, eyeing her pensively. “Oh dear, I’ve broken a rule.” At this his lips split in a crooked devilish smirk, disavowing her previous notion. “We never did discuss a punishment for just such an occasion. Something appropriately dastardly, no doubt.”
Alexandra couldn’t tell if it was the whisky or the unsettling appearance of his wicked smile, but something warm glowed in her middle, threatening to melt the icy daggers of fear. “You forgot one.”
That warmth was mirrored in his eyes as he reached for her, his hand grazing the curve of her cheek, the rasp of his calluses catching her downy skin. “No, I didn’t.” He stepped closer, bringing his other hand to hold her face, cradling it in his palms as though she were made of glass. “My appearance, my manners, and my voice may be harsh, Alexandra, but I promise you my hands will never be anything but gentle with you.”
Moved beyond words, Alexandra slid her fingers into his open suit coat and encircled his lean, hard waist. She couldn’t say if he pulled her close, or if she stepped in, but she found herself delving into his embrace once again, luxuriating in the scent of him. Warm and rich and undoubtedly male.
It encouraged her, she thought, that she could not only endure his nearness, his touch, but that she could enjoy it. That she could see herself becoming not just accustomed to him, but also forming an attachment.
Was that such a terrible thing? To like one’s husband?
“You may have read everything there was to read about what we’re about to do,” he murmured, finding a spot on her temple with his lips he seemed fond of kissing. “So, it isn’t any wonder you’re dreading it.”
She drew back, tucking a thread of hair behind her ear. “It isn’t?”
He caught her hand, lifting it to his mouth. “Did your books teach you about desire? About sensation? Could they adequately explain how the lightest of touches, the whisper of a kiss, can be felt throughout your entire body?” His breath scalded her skin as he turned her palm up and pressed reverent lips to her fingers, letting them feather across his mouth with an expectant patience.
His eyes fluttered closed when she traced the seam of his scar, the healed skin a shiny, smooth dissection from the velvety feel of his lips.
Mesmerized, Alexandra did her best to remember just what she’d read about … about anything. Ever. She couldn’t. Her entire being was focused on his mouth. “I—I don’t recall that passage,” she breathed.
His beard scraped against her fingertips as he moved his attentions to her palm. He slid the lace of her nightgown back, discovering the delicate skin of her wrist, nibbling at the iridescent vein he found, then smoothing a kiss over it. “You must know, Doctor, that there is so much more to be learned in application, than can ever be taught in a lecture hall or read from a book.”
“T-true.” Something melted in her knees, turning the bone to liquid. Her breasts were suddenly tender, the tips rigid and sensitive against the worn cotton of her night rail.
He released her hand, and it dropped against his chest, her wrist limp and fingers trembling.
“What did your texts teach you about temptation, anticipation, longing, rapture, or bliss?” he queried. One hand skimmed her spine, the other investigating the modest, spun-lace collar held together by a trail of pearl buttons.
She struggled through a swirling fog of a thousand, thousand emotions, sensations, and reactions to reply to him. “N-nothing.”
His eyes crinkled with a masculine arrogance, tempered with a glint of an emotion so genuine, so incredibly foreign, Alexandra couldn’t identify it if she tried.
He leaned in, his lips pausing before they brushed hers. “Let me teach you about pleasure,” he said against her mouth, nudging her nose with his in an oddly affectionate gesture. “And I’ll do my best to spare you pain.”
Alexandra shared hot, whisky-scented breath with him for an eternal moment. She expected him to take her mouth. To press those warm, aching kisses against her as he’d done before. But he stood impossibly still, his lips so close a moth’s wing wouldn’t have survived between them, his great body quivering beneath her hands. His ribs bunched and grooved like those of a thoroughbred before the start of a race.
Did she have the courage to unleash his desire? All the straining lust and male need she sensed boiling beneath his herculean restraint?
She had to.
Besides, he seemed so certain. So absolutely sure that he could bring her pleasure.
He already had, hadn’t he? With gentle kisses and patient caresses, he’d already dissolved some of her frigid distance. He’d already taught her something about need.
And perhaps desire.
Because she wanted to kiss him again.
“Yes, husband,” she exhaled. “Yes.”
His first kiss was just a whisper. A chaste press of his warm, dry lips against hers. He did that for a moment, putting her at ease, vanquishing her defenses. It was only after her blood ceased its riotous pulsing that Alexandra noticed his lips were behaving so eminently civilized, while his hands, however, were anything but.
Her nightgown slipped down one of her bare shoulders before she realized with no little alarm that he’d expertly undone the entire placket of buttons.
“Can we douse the lights?” she asked.
His gaze lingered at the line of her collar. Had his expression graced features any less savagely masculine than his, she’d have called it a pout. “I want to see you.”
Alexandra chewed her lip. She had to go through with this, but she had no idea how she’d react. What if terror seized her? What if she wept?
What if the sight of his aroused … sex overwhelmed her, and she fainted? It would be better, easier, if she only had a few senses activated at a time.
“I—I don’t … I’m not ready.”
A shadow darkened his gaze before he carefully wiped it away. He released her to reach for the lamp, his hand slipping over his beard, to brush his scars, before he plunged the room in darkness.
To reward him for his patience, Alexandra undid the rest of the buttons on her nightgown, allowing it to slide from her shoulders into a puddle beneath her.
How strange that she felt better like this. Naked. Exposed.
All right, she thought, anxious to begin. To be done.
For better or worse.
She reached for him, finding his shoulder first. Wordlessly, she dragged her fingers over the fine fabric of his black suit until she found the lapels.
He made to reach for her, but she slid the jacket from his shoulders, imprisoning his arms to his sides until he shucked the garment altogether. Next, he assisted her in gathering his shirt from his waist, the buttons plinking against the carpet evidence of his haste.
Shivering, she found his shape as her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. She caught his forearms as he was searching, and held them, caressing down to his wrists.
It was easier like this, she thought. Grateful that he allowed her to control where she placed his hands, to decide where and when he touched her.
She shivered to her bones, despite the balmy summer night, as she placed his palms on her bare waist.
He distracted her mouth with long drags of his lips as his thumbs stroked the thin, satiny undercurve of her breasts. A moan vibrated against her as he cupped them, testing their weight in his palms.
“You hide these,” he chided softly. “Beneath that wrap of yours.”
“I—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m simply acknowledging another delightful discovery.” He rested the distended nipple between the seam of his fingers, exerting gentle pressure.
The sensation of her cool, naked breast against the heat of his palm stunned her, overwhelmed her, and she flinched away.
No one had touched her there before. But the hungry looks they’d elicited in men had repulsed her.
So she’d wrapped them, hiding them from view.
“I’m sorry.” He reached for his drink once more, granting her a reprieve with which to catch her breath.
They were silent in the dark for a moment until he pressed, “Why do you conceal your shape?”
Alexandra crossed her arms, unsure of why she felt defensive. “In my line of work, I need economy of movement. I don’t want my wardrobe to be another cage. I can’t be mired in a world of muslin, unable to properly move or breathe. Nor can I be chained in gold and jewels, draped like a display. It isn’t practical.”
“And you value practicality over what is socially acceptable.” The gentle curiosity in his voice disarmed her.
“I do,” she said. “All our lives, we’re told we mustn’t, we shouldn’t, we can’t. I don’t like those words. I never have.”
“Nor have I.” His voice was reverential as he abandoned his drink.
“I-it’s part of why I didn’t want a husband. Because I thought he would use those words against me. But I … I don’t think, that is to say, I hope you’re not that sort of man … that sort of husband.”
“I don’t want us to be impediments to each other, Alexandra.” He reached for her once more, his body throwing off waves of heat. “I’ll not be a forbidding husband, if you’ll not be a faithless wife.”
Swallowing hard, Alexandra pressed her palm against his bare chest. Somewhere left of center, over the unrestrained tempo of his heart.
“It is not in my capacity to stray,” she said. “I can never imagine wanting another man.”
She could have never imagined wanting this one. Of doing what they were about to do without a great deal of suffering, And yet, she had to admit, the swells and contours of his chest were a magnificent blend of smooth skin and rough hair. The abrasion against her palm was rather lovely. She drew her hand down, counting the depressions of his ribs, marveling at the width of his trunk.
The touch interrupted his breath, then he released a foul word. “You’re always one step ahead of me, woman.”
“I am?”
“Not for long.” His mouth descended with more urgency than before. His lips coaxing hers to open, their breath mingling in the darkness.
She braced for his touch, for his hands to travel down her hips and lower. So when he spanned her rib cage with a gentle exploration, she tensed, her nerves stretching taut. “Do you want me to lie on the bed?” she asked.
“Eventually.”
She didn’t guess what he was about when he bent down, until the heat of his mouth replaced that of his hand over her nipple. A gasp escaped her as a cry when he compressed his lips, tugging gently on the aching bud.
“You can’t!” Her fingers clawed into his hair, wrenching his neck away.
“Can’t I?” His voice matched the night around them. Darker, even. Laced with a savage carnality. “I didn’t use my tongue.”
Every part of her was trembling now, thoroughly overstimulated by what he’d just done. By how it affected her.
There.
Between her tightly clenched thighs, something had stirred.
At her silence, he gathered her to him. “It’s all so much for you,” he crooned. “So new. They tell women to be afraid of their own need. To be ashamed of it. But I can’t have that. Do not allow what you feel, what you want, to frighten you.”
How could he know just how deeply shame and fear dominated her life?
She allowed him to draw her to the bed as he inquired, “Is there aught you’re curious about? Anything you want to ask me?”
“I just … I’d rather get it done.”
She felt rather than saw his smile. “Anticipation can be cruel,” he acknowledged.
Passively, she let him nudge her onto the bed, and stretch her on her back over the silk coverlet. Her breath trembled in and out of her, her ribs struggling to contain lungs that threatened to seize at any moment.
Alexandra expected him to crawl over her, between her legs, to insert himself inside her.
Instead, he joined her on the bed with his trousers still on, lying beside her raised on one elbow. “I need to make you ready,” he murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear and leaning down to bury his face against the curve of her neck. “Then we will ‘get it done’ as you so poetically put it.”
“Ready?” The word was a breathy whisper as his lips nudged at the sensitive flesh of her earlobe and his hand caressed over her breast to drift along the silken skin over her ribs, and the quivering expanse of her belly.
Alexandra squeezed her eyes shut, her jaw locking. Any moment he would touch her. He would claim her.
She wasn’t ready. She didn’t—
The little drag of his teeth against her earlobe shocked her away from her thoughts and shot an electr
ic sensation there.
She clenched her thighs together, her intimate muscles pulsing around emptiness.
Confused, distraught, she reached to him for comfort, and he lifted himself so her arms could encircle him, so she could clutch at the curious columns of muscle bracketing his spine. “I don’t know if I can—” She hated that her voice sounded so young. Hated that she was so utterly at his mercy. “What do I do?”
He paused, his fingers splayed just below her belly button, and rested his head in his other hand. “You do nothing, darling,” he crooned. “I want you to let go of all control. Just lie back and let me teach you. And in doing so, I will learn you, as well.” He nuzzled at her, his beard grazing her cheek, his lips seeking hers in the dark.
He found them as his hand brushed over the sealed seam of her thighs, nudging them open.
She didn’t resist him. Was afraid to. If she never denied him, he’d never technically have the opportunity to coerce her into anything. To force her.
Once her legs had parted enough, he curled his knee between them, resting the weight of his muscled thigh against her open one.
The hair on his body was softer than she’d imagined, less crisp on his legs than on his chest. Why she noted that, she couldn’t tell. Perhaps because she was doing her utmost to catalogue pleasant things.
Perhaps because she was trying to ignore that place. The one now exposed to the ever-cooling night air.
He didn’t allow that for long.
His fingers slipped through the little tuft of hair there, his chest emitting an animal sound as he found the smooth, swollen flesh inside.
Alexandra’s throat slammed closed. Her eyes squeezed shut. Her jaw clenched and her lips compressed beneath his kisses. She clung to him, her hands clawing into fists.
Instead of pulling away, he folded over her, allowing her to tuck her head beneath his chin and tremble her way through this.
His fingers found pliant, silken skin and he danced around it in the softest circling strokes until Alexandra recaptured her breath. Her heart still pounded. The muscles in her limbs refused to unknot, but … it didn’t hurt. She didn’t fight the queasy revulsion as she’d expected to.
How to Love a Duke in Ten Days Page 18