The terse, edgy tone to his voice sent shivers of delight tingling down her spine and through her body to her sex. But she was suddenly unsure.
“Get your mouth all wet, then open as wide as you can and let your lips slide over me.”
His instruction helped. She worked at getting her mouth wetter. Then she closed her eyes. He was watching her so intently, and she couldn’t bear to see him watching her while she did this. She opened very wide and guided his cock to her mouth. Tentatively, she placed it to her lips and did as he suggested, sliding over his velvet flesh. Then she grasped how it worked, curling her lips over her teeth and taking him in.
Heavens, he felt wonderful in her mouth. And the trust he must have in her, to let her do this to his most private and precious part. Avidly, she tried to take as much of him as she could, until she suddenly choked and gagged convulsively.
His cock withdrew rapidly from her mouth as he pulled his hips back. He was touching her face. “Easy, now—don’t try to take too much. I should have told you to swallow.” He chuckled softly. “I am not used to playing the schoolmaster.”
She was mortified. “I am sorry, I did it all wrong.”
He gently touched the back of her head. “Come, now—practice makes perfect. Let’s try it again.”
She complied with pleasure, swallowing this time when she felt she might gag. She still couldn’t get that much of him into her mouth. She wasn’t sure how much she should be taking in and wished she’d thought to ask before they’d started again. He’d probably had so many women. Scores of women with beautiful faces and lush, flawless bodies. All skilled to perfection. Her attempts were probably awkward and tedious.
However, from the way his hips arched and from his groans, he seemed to be enjoying it. He took her hand and placed it on the shaft of his erection. “Stroke this part while you do it. Let it get all wet from your mouth.”
Why hadn’t she thought of doing that? He must be getting impatient with her inexperience. Were there books she could read about this sort of a thing?
“Here,” he said, pushing gently on her shoulder. “Just with your hand.”
She let him withdraw from her mouth and took over sliding her hand up and down his shaft.
“Faster, harder. I am close.”
Her heart leapt at that and her sex fairly wept as wetness oozed down the insides of her thighs.
“Harder, love,” he gasped.
She looked up at him quizzically, not daring to believe he wanted what he asked for.
“I won’t break.”
She grasped him and stroked as hard and fast as she could.
“Oh, God,” he groaned.
She laughed nervously, trying to increase her efforts. His cock twitched in her hands and she started, dropping him. He immediately caught himself, holding his cock up so that the white fluid jetting from the tip shot all over her breasts. Heat and joy blossomed in her chest and spread all over her. She laughed with the intensity of it.
“Oh, God,” he repeated, leaning forward while pulling her up. His seed was getting on his evening clothes, but he didn’t seem to notice. He crushed his lips to hers for several moments.
Then he backed away from her, his gaze riveting on her breasts.
“Oh, God.” His voice resounded with reverence.
“Say something else,” she said through renewed giggles.
“I can’t, my love. You’ve rendered me dumb.”
Sudden knocking at the door startled both of them.
“Alex, are you in there?” It was Mr. Van Moerdijk’s voice.
“Oh, God,” Alex said.
She stuffed her fist into her mouth to keep from laughing.
Alex stood and shoved himself back into his pantaloons. “Oh, Christ,” he swore softly and pulled out his handkerchief, wiping his seed from his clothes. Then he came to her and wiped her off.
“Of all the insane, randy ideas I’ve had in my time, doing this here tonight tops them all,” he whispered. He moved away and tossed her chemise to her.
She pulled it over her head.
“For God’s sake, Alex, are you all right?” Van Moerdijk called from the other side.
“Yes, Peter.”
The knob turned and Emily’s heart leapt into her throat and she dropped her gown just as she’d been ready to step into it.
“Don’t come in,” Alex called loudly, a definite edge of command to his voice.
“Oh, I see.” Sarcasm dripped from Van Moerdijk’s voice.
Alex came to Emily and helped her into the gown as best he could. “Oh, Christ, there’s no help for it. I’ll never be able to lace you with one hand.”
Alex went to the door, opened it and stepped aside. Van Moerdijk walked in, his silver-blond hair glowing orange in the firelight. His features were so angelically handsome that he looked almost feminine, but at the moment a scowl marred them.
“Damn you, Alex—you’ve been in here girling this whole time while James and I have been struggling trying to hold things together in the dining room.”
“Spare me your bitter grapes.”
Emily tightened her grip on her gown. What the devil was Alex thinking, letting him in here? She turned wide, alarmed eyes to Alex as he approached her.
“Don’t worry sweetheart, he’ll never betray me.” He cut his eyes back to Peter. “I know too much about him.” He held up his wrapped hand. “Peter, if you’re going to force yourself in here, at least make yourself useful.”
Alex put his hands on her shoulders and spun her about so that her back faced Peter. Emily glanced behind herself in dismay. To her amazement, Peter took up her laces without a word and began threading them with as much disinterested diligence as if he were Sally.
“Aye—tonight isn’t exactly shaping up to be a smashing success. What the devil happened to you earlier?” Peter said.
The corner of Alex’s lip lifted. “Those men don’t give a damn and no amount of wine and kissing their arses is going to change that.”
“Well, something has to give.” Peter gave a hard pull on her laces and she took a deep breath. “There, sweeting, you’re all laced up now.”
Alex held his good hand out to her. She took it and he led her to him, then over to the settee. He sat on the end that had no bloodstains and, when she would have sat beside him, he pulled her into his lap. She ought to have taken exception to this public display of intimacy. But there was a protective possessiveness to sitting on his powerful thighs and having his large hands clasping her waist that gave her a warm feeling inside. As if she belonged in his lap. As if she belonged to Alex. She had never seen any couples sit like this, except for John with Anna. Likely Alex did it only because she’d been his harlot. Peter didn’t seem in the least fazed by it.
Alex had turned his attention back to Peter. “Why, Peter, I never knew you were so passionate on this issue. I thought James had coerced or blackmailed you into all of this.”
“I make my living representing merchants. Between the depredations of the French and the British, not to even mention those Barbary bastards, if I lose too many more clients to bankruptcy I’ll be declaring bankruptcy myself.”
“Miss Eliot’s book will change some hearts.”
“Please. Why don’t you simply call her Emily, Alex? It’s not exactly a secret to me now what she is to you.”
“Because she’s still Miss Eliot to you.”
The possessive edge to Alex’s voice increased the warmth blooming in her heart. She lost all desire to debate with herself over whether or not she should want to belong to him. Regardless of the wisdom of the feeling, she did want to belong to him and, right now, she wished that Peter would leave so they could be alone again.
Peter’s mouth went slack, falling open for a moment, and his startlingly blue eyes widened. Then he smiled. “Oh, I see. Well, anyway, your faith in Miss Eliot’s book is misplaced. Nothing is going to soften the hardened hearts of our politicians unless it affects their ledgers.”
/> Alex’s muscles tightened under her body. “I don’t mean it will change their hearts, but the hearts of the voters, the public.” His voice was terse and impatient. “They’ll know it when they see the book.”
“But Alex—”
“You’ve seen her book. I don’t know how you can’t believe it won’t make a difference.”
Alex’s words warmed her even further. No one had ever before believed in her work like she did. Her grandfather had viewed it as a waste of time that could have been spent studying. Grandmother had seen it as unladylike to paint things like human pathos and suffering when one could paint pastel watercolors of sunsets. But Alex sounded as if he had utter conviction in what he said.
She was beginning to hate Peter for lingering here. She didn’t just want to be sitting in Alex’s lap, feeling the idle, distracted stroke of his hand on her hair.
She wanted to be naked in his arms and as close to him as possible. She wanted him to be inside her again and claiming her in the most primitive way. Just for now, she wanted to be his completely and not think about the future.
And it was her own choice. She could make the conscious decision to enjoy him for now without committing to any long-term abnegation of her power to control her own life’s course.
“You sound convinced,” Peter said at length.
“I am,” Alex said firmly.
Peter chuckled softly and rolled his tongue in his cheek, studying them both for long moments. “Well, you’ve always been an idealist. I suppose there’s no curing you now.” He stood. “I know when I am not wanted.” He caught Emily’s eye and winked. “I’ll be getting back in there now. Alex, James is livid. I’d hate to be you on the morrow.”
“I don’t know what James expects from me. I cannot work a miracle.”
“None of us has your special knowledge of the situation in Algeria. You take a sympathetic interest that supersedes our monetary interests in it. The argument needs that kind of passion.” Peter regarded his cousin with a fond look in his eyes.
But Alex’s expression grew drawn, his skin tone almost gray—or was that her imagination?
Her heart began to beat very fast.
Everyone kept speaking of Alex’s ‘special sympathy’ for the situation in Algeria. They seemed to take it as a matter of his particular personality. A quirk.
But a terrible suspicion took hold of her.
Her stomach sank and she began to feel a little ill.
No—she didn’t want to know. She really didn’t.
But after Peter left, she couldn’t keep herself from asking. “Do you really have special knowledge of Algeria? A special sympathy?”
A slight smile curved his sensual lips. She didn’t believe that smile for a moment.
“Alex?”
He bent and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You’d best find your bed, sweetheart. It’s late and tonight has been a strain. I know you must be tired. And I have to go back to the dining room. There will be supper, the wine, the fruit, nuts. All the toasting. Maybe if we get them drunk enough, they’ll listen harder.”
He said all this as if it was a perfectly logical reason not to answer her. His tone and his expression didn’t invite further inquiry, and he quickly moved away from her and walked to the door.
She watched him leave the study and realized that although they’d shared so many physical intimacies, she knew nothing of him.
But what did it matter? If he wanted to keep his secrets, that was surely his right. He had as great a right to his own liberty in that area as she did to direct her own art. On a small sigh, she left the study and went to her chamber. She stripped off, donned her nightgown and climbed into bed.
She felt small and ridiculous in its large, downy plushness and isolated within the heavy bed curtains. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering what Alex had experienced in Algeria. Had he…
No, it was simply too terrible to imagine.
She sat up, hugging herself. Nightmarish images supplied by her imagination continued to flash across her awareness. Sympathy pressed heavy on her chest like grief, as if she’d just learnt of some great loss. As if his previous pain were a part of her own emotional history. She wanted to embrace him and shelter him against all the horror he had known. No matter what it had been.
Shelter him?
As if he were some innocent boy?
Good heavens, what was wrong with her? This man had proved himself to be no better than Mr. Sawyer. Alex sought the use of her art to further his own political cause just the same as Mr. Sawyer had wanted to suppress it for the very same reasons.
But Alex was also her friend. Her lover. The man who showed her such incredible pleasures and shared his body so freely, even that first night allowing her to witness his most intimate acts of self-solace.
Distrust, lust and sympathy wound themselves around her heart, squeezing it until she couldn’t take a comfortable breath. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than a deep drink of the rich claret she knew the sideboard was well-stocked with. However, it did not soothe her. The more she drank, the more her thoughts drifted to lust.
And her body followed.
* * * *
Alex sat in his bedchamber wide awake, refusing to allow himself to drink to ease his conscience. In the study, he had managed to keep his battle with temptation at a draw. But then she had probed too deeply, effortlessly inserting herself under his skin.
She was a rare person.
She believed in something higher and grander and she was willing to sacrifice and fight for her beliefs. How long since he had believed in anything higher or grander than his whims? He spent his days merely distracting himself with his pastimes and carnal passions. Yet her strength of character shone like a beacon, warming him like a fire, penetrating the darkness of his life and revealing to him all too painfully the vapid state of his own heart. He had been swept away by her character from the first. Yes, her stubbornness was maddening but it was just a lingering effect of her lack of life experience. When she came fully into her woman’s maturity, she would be a strong, unwavering, idealistic woman whose principles would always be tempered by her gentle compassion.
An angel.
Yes, it was that angelic quality about her that made her most irresistible to him. Earlier this evening, her gentle compassion had been too much to take. Her wholeness, her purity—God, it made him believe that through her love that he could become whole and pure himself once more. If she knew all of his past and could still accept and love him, it would absolve him. It would heal him. Perhaps it would even restore his soul. And how he desperately he longed for that! He’d been overcome by an urge to spill his whole history to her. To share the horrors he’d known. To burden her innocent mind with tales of things she couldn’t possibly imagine.
And that was something he just couldn’t allow. He could never tell another soul.
However, the pull of her emotional appeal had been so strong, he’d found himself at a loss to fight it. So he had seized upon the only thing that could save him. He’d turned her attention to lust.
She had responded beautifully. Perfectly. Too perfectly. She was sensual and playful and imaginative and wonderfully generous. She might be the only woman who could hold his attention. The thought rocked him to his foundations.
He probably loved her.
All right, he was far too self-cognizant to lie to himself.
He did love her.
Truly loved her.
What the devil did that prove? It didn’t make him worthy of her. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her.
Peter had loved his wife. Deeply. He’d still kept himself immersed neck-deep in petticoats and had concentrated so hard on his legal and political career that he’d managed to be absent during all her pregnancies and her illnesses and had missed being home at her sudden death.
Nicolo had done the same, albeit bigamously, to several wives.
Alex had never been faithful to a woman for longer than a few m
onths at a time. He’d never been able to stay put at home for more than that, either. He’d spent more of his time on the road or at sea in the past nine years than not. He was old, far older than his years.
And he was weary—God was he weary. He was too old and weary to change.
He had no business dragging some fresh young girl into his world. Yes, perhaps she did have the kind of fire to hold his attention long term. Maybe even his whole life. But her life and happiness weren’t something to experiment with. He’d have to be damned sure he’d be able to be what she wanted. He’d have to love her completely for she was a woman who couldn’t be satisfied with less.
Yet how could he give all of himself when his core was damaged? Just because he loved her with all that was left of his heart, didn’t mean it would be enough to sustain a woman of her deep passions.
He should go and pay Brigit a visit. She was, after all, accustomed to receiving him unannounced at odd hours. And she had been plaguing him with her notes, inviting him to come.
He would go visit her. He’d spend the night in her bed and then he’d go visit Maggie and spend the day in her bed. He’d done that very thing many times before.
And he would also find some other new interest. He would do whatever he must to stay away from the temptation of Emily.
But the moments passed. An hour passed. And he did not arise to go. He simply sat there, replaying the evening in his mind.
A knock on his door pulled him out of his thoughts.
He arose then went and opened the door.
Emily’s eyes glittered white in the shadows of her face. Just the sight of her chased all his darkness away. A euphoria seized him, so sudden and intense that he knew—as if he hadn’t known before—that this was more, far more than mere infatuation.
No matter that his heart was hollowed out, out of proper working order, what was left belonged to her.
The cadence of her breathing betrayed her sensual tension. It crackled on the air like an impending thunderstorm. Her dark curls lay upon her shoulders in a wild profusion that glowed with reddish glints from the flickering light of tapers in the corridor. Her lips were parted and the scent of claret rose from them, mingling with a scent that was like wildflowers and rain and earth, the scent he’d know anywhere now, her arousal. He wasn’t a boy to go all trembling with desire. No, he was far too jaded for that. But his mouth did go dry.
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