Before she could lift the glass to her lips, Drake caught her wrist. “You’ve had enough of that.”
“I thought you wanted me tipsy,” she said, lifting her chin in dignified defiance. “So that I would do as you willed.”
“I did,” he admitted. “But I’ve changed my mind. I want you to be fully aware of who I am.”
Her brief rise of rebellion died. It would serve no purpose to delude herself. He was the man who had forced her into marriage. Tonight she would give herself into the power of Drake Wilder, gamester, scoundrel, pirate of noble fortunes.
He took the glass and set it on the table. Then he moved his hands to her upper arms, caressing lightly over her bare skin. “Alicia,” he murmured. “There is but one way to rid ourselves of this obsession we have for each other. One way to be done with it.”
She couldn’t answer. She could only stare mutely at him.
“I am going to make love to you,” he went on, and the confidence in his voice raised an inexplicable pleasure along her nerves. His fingers left a trail of sparks down her arms and over her breasts. “I will touch you and kiss you as I please. And when it is over, you will no longer be a virgin.”
She felt incapable of denying him. The bargain that had been so vital to her pride and her self-preservation seemed unimportant now. She could think only of the need burning inside herself, the need that made her lie awake in the darkness, her mind and body too restless for sleep. If one night with him ended this torment, then it would be well worth the price.
And she might conceive a child. A healthy child. A child to hold and love and guide. The possibility shone like a bright beacon in the dark turbulence of her desire.
I would never, ever forsake my child.
Did Drake want an heir to his fortune? Most men did. Yet she knew little of his thoughts, his dreams, his past.
He unbuttoned his silver-striped waistcoat, tossing the garment onto a chair. As he shed his shirt, the firelight bronzed his broad, muscled chest with its dusting of dark hairs. His abdomen looked hard and trim above the waistband of his breeches. He had the robust physique of a workman.
She stared, dazed by his splendor, stunned by his lack of modesty. Did he expect her to disrobe, too? Right here in front of him?
He must.
Turning unsteadily around, she took a deep breath and tugged off her gloves. He was a stranger to her. They had been wed less than a fortnight. A month ago, she hadn’t even been aware of his existence. And now she would surrender herself to him in a manner so private, no lady ever spoke of it. Yet she wanted to know the passions of the flesh; she craved him with an unladylike hunger.
Faintly horrified at herself, she stepped to the bedside table and arranged her gloves in a neat pile. She leaned down, but before she could extinguish the lamp, Drake caught her from behind and pulled her away.
“Leave it,” he said, his voice rough and low. “I wish to look upon you.”
Glancing back at him, she was relieved to see that he still wore his breeches. She couldn’t yet reconcile herself to shedding her clothes in front of him. The notion seemed shameful … and furtively exciting.
Standing behind her, he undid the buttons of her gown. She stood quietly, bemused by the shivers that prickled her skin. How extraordinary, to be tended by a man, to feel his fingers brush her undergarments in so familiar a fashion. He pushed the small cap sleeves from her shoulders, and the silk slithered downward in a whisper of sound.
With a stately calm that belied her inner agitation, she stepped out of her skirts. She intended to reach down and pick up the gown, but he slid his arms around her waist and drew her back against him. He kissed her bare shoulder, tasting her with his tongue, nipping her with his teeth. When he lay his palm over her corseted bosom, chills flashed down her spine.
“Alicia,” he said. “How composed you appear. But the swiftness of your heartbeat betrays you.”
Her skin tingled with heightened sensitivity. Awareness of him penetrated to her innermost depths, intensifying the secret pulsebeat between her legs. She said coolly, “I will not behave like one of your hussies.”
He rubbed his cheek against her hair, and she sensed his smile. “What do you know of how a hussy behaves?”
“I know how she doesn’t behave. With propriety and restraint.”
A full-fledged chuckle stirred the fine wisps along her neck. “My dear wife, manners don’t belong in the bedchamber.”
She didn’t believe him, of course. He had known only doxies, not a lady of good breeding. She held herself perfectly still as he removed her necklace, then untied her corset strings and the bindings of her petticoats. Her undergarments fell away until she wore only her white lawn shift. Before she could feel more than a twinge of embarrassment, he turned her to him and kissed her.
His lips moved with gentle pressure at first, his hands cradling her head, his thumbs stroking her temples. Their tongues met in a leisurely kiss, a kiss that was almost sweet, as if he controlled the wildness inside himself. He tasted of champagne and darkness, secrets she could not fathom. Placing her hands on the sweeping breadth of his shoulders, she succumbed to temptation and leaned into him, liking the pressure of her breasts against his hard chest.
Muttering something unintelligible, he caught her closer, his arms flexing around her. His hand sought her breast with a warmth that penetrated the flimsy shift. This time, she couldn’t stop a quiver of longing. Their mouths melded with increasing urgency, the thrust of his tongue growing more demanding and hungry. He slid his hand inside her loose bodice and cupped the heavy globe of her beast. When his thumb brushed the tip, she whimpered, unprepared for the rush of intense pleasure that radiated throughout her body. She raised herself on tiptoe, straining against him, wanting to be closer and frustrated by the limitations of the flesh.
He groaned deep in his chest, and his mouth crushed hers with a need so fierce she could scarcely draw a breath. Her senses swam with giddiness, and she moved her hands over his form, unable to get enough of his brawny contours, his steely muscles. He was stunningly hewn, utterly male. With a wild willingness that faintly appalled her, she welcomed his caresses, leaning back a little to let him lower one shoulder strap and take her naked breast in his palm.
Appreciation burned in his gaze as he looked down at her. “You are exquisite,” he muttered harshly. Then, to her shock and delight, he bent his head and suckled her.
His mouth was hot and hungry. An insidious softness weakened her limbs and strengthened her desire. Unable to silence her gasps of pleasure, she could only hold fast to Drake. He was right, she thought hazily; she could not pretend indifference. She longed for him, body and soul.
He raised the shift to her waist and moved his big, masculine hand over her bare thighs and bottom. Too enraptured to protest, she hid her face in the musky hollow of his shoulder, while he brought his hand between them and touched the tight curls between her legs. In some distant part of her, Alicia knew she should be mortified by his unthinkable liberty. But as he stroked her with expert fingers, a maddening pleasure leapt in her, a passion that made her twist and arch against him. Need built and coiled in her until she thought she might die from it.
“Drake, stop … please … I can’t bear it…”
Then she felt the sharpness of loss when he did stop, walking her backward until her legs met the edge of the bed. As he sat her down, she clung to him, her insides still knotted from his wondrous caresses. He removed her hands from around his neck, and as he stepped back, dismay flashed through her.
“Is that all?” she asked. “Are you leaving me?”
His teeth clenched into a hard grimace of a smile. His gaze scorching her, he unfastened his breeches. “I’m far from done, my lady.”
Alicia’s mouth went dry. She knew she oughtn’t stare as he stepped out of his breeches, but she couldn’t look away from her first view of a naked man. The sheer size of him awed her, even as she felt a frisson of alarm.
He caught her chin in his hand and tilted her face up for a tender, compelling kiss. “Say that you want me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Say it.”
“I want you,” she said in a weakening rush of feeling. “Oh, Drake, I do want you.”
His breath hissed out between his teeth. He tugged at her shift, the fragile fabric tearing as he jerked it over her head. As her last vestige of modesty vanished, a mindless sensuality swept over Alicia. She slid into bed, the linens cool to her fevered skin. Now. Now he would draw her onto him like that couple carved in stone.…
He pressed her back onto the pillows and came down on top of her, letting her feel the power of a man’s body. She knew the shock of flesh on flesh, and then he kissed her again with a violence that surpassed her most romantic dreams. All the while, he stroked her intimately, fondling her in ways that made her twist and moan, pushing her again to the edge of a precipice.
He parted her legs with his knees, caught her hips, and held her still. Through the cloud of ardor, she felt a probing invasion, too thick and hot to be his finger. She knew his intent, then, and she gloried in it. Bracing her feet against the mattress, she arched to receive him. A feral groan broke from his throat and in one swift thrust, he breached her last defense.
A brief stab of pain melted into an amazing sense of fullness. He held himself on his forearms, his chest sheened with sweat in the candlelight. His eyes glittered against the harsh handsomeness of his face.
“You’re mine,” he muttered. “Mine alone.”
“As you are mine, too.”
The fierce vow escaped her without forethought. They stared at each other, both of them panting. Something flashed in his eyes, a starkness she couldn’t read. She didn’t understand herself, either; she knew only that a bond had been forged between them, a link that connected them by more than the flesh. If she belonged to him, then he also belonged to her. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
Stretching up her hand, she caressed his cheek, and his expression darkened with passion. He turned his head and kissed her palm; then he began to move. She closed her eyes to savor the incredible intimacy, the unimaginable pleasure. The heat inside her flared into a frantic, mindless urgency, and she cleaved to him, writhing, reaching for something she could not name. She cried out and he did, too, in the moment before she plunged, breathless, into great waves of ecstasy. An impossible rapture rolled through her, and she sensed him there with her, as if they were one being, one heart, one soul.
The flash of heaven faded, leaving her limp and replete. For a long while they lay entwined as their breathing slowed and their bodies cooled. She drifted in the sweetest peace she had ever known. His arm rested on her bare middle, and his fingers curled against the side of her breast. The weight of him was heavy, yet infinitely comfortable. She wanted to lie with him forever.…
She must have drowsed, for the next thing she knew, he was leaning over the bed, sliding his arms beneath her pliant form. She squirmed in protest, loath to leave her warm nest, but he merely chuckled and swung her up into his arms.
As she wreathed her arms around his neck, a distant noise puzzled her momentarily. Then she realized the connecting door stood ajar.
“The key,” she murmured. “How did you find my key?”
A self-assured smile slanted his mouth. “I didn’t,” he said. “I had another in my coat pocket.”
So, he could have entered her chambers at any time he chose. An uneasy sense of vulnerability crept into Alicia. She was at his mercy; she had always been at his mercy. And now that he had won the high-stakes challenge and seduced her, would he come through that door every night?
To her shame, she wanted that. She blushed to remember all they had done together, all the ways he had touched her. Like a slave to passion, she had lost control, moaning and twisting beneath him, her dignity abandoned in the heedless need to couple with him, to appease the hungers of the flesh.
“Don’t,” he growled.
Tilting her head against his collarbone, she regarded him warily. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t retreat into that prim, prudish lady. Tonight, she doesn’t exist.” Shouldering open the door, he carried her into his room.
Alicia thrilled to his masterful manner, though a part of her longed for the safe and familiar trappings of pride. “Beast,” she muttered.
“Beauty,” he countered in the seductive tone that raised chills over her skin. “You shan’t escape me tonight.”
His dark promise nestled warmly within her. As he strode across his bedchamber, the background noise grew louder. It sounded curiously like … flowing water?
He carried her through another doorway and into a room bedecked like a grotto with statues tucked among the ferns and pillars. Candles flickered in niches, adding a subtle glow to the scene, and water poured from a wall spout shaped like a dolphin’s mouth. As the liquid cascaded musically into a circular pool, steam rose in a fine mist that dampened her skin.
“A Roman bath?” she said in wonderment. “With piped-in water?”
“For my lady’s pleasure.”
He bore her down the steps and settled her on a shelf carved into the marble below the waterline. Little waves lapped at the undersides of her breasts. Heat enveloped her, relaxing her muscles and soothing the slight ache where he had made them one.
Unashamedly naked, Drake waded toward the spout and shut off the levers that controlled the flow. With a suddenness that startled her, he dove head-first below the surface and emerged at her feet like Neptune rising from the sea. Droplets rolled down his magnificently muscled chest, over his taut midsection, to vanish into the pool, where the surface of the water blurred the most intriguing portion of his anatomy.
Feeling flushed from more than the bath, she looked up to see a cocksure smile on his face. He knew his effect on her, the wretch. But she smiled anyway, beset by a wave of utter happiness. She let her doubts float away on the gently rippling water. She wouldn’t let herself think tonight. She wanted only to bask in his virile presence.
He combed his fingers through his wet hair, the slick strands gleaming like black silk in the candlelight. Then he sat beside her and leaned closer to tuck a few strands back into her drooping chignon. His action held a curious tenderness.
How astonishing to recline naked in a pool with her husband. Her husband. They were truly wed now, their union consummated. Her heart full, she said lightly, “What a marvelously decadent life you lead, Mr. Wilder.”
“What a marvelously decadent life you will lead, too, Mrs. Wilder.”
His gaze held the pledge of more pleasures to come. No wonder young ladies were kept in ignorance of lovemaking, she thought dreamily. If they were to learn of physical joy, they would crave it all the time.
A glint in his eyes, he picked up a cake of soap and lathered his hands. Slowly he massaged her bosom, sliding over slick skin, his thumbs teasing the sensitive peaks until her breasts felt heavy and aching. As longing swelled in her, she braced her palms on the marble seat to keep herself from melting into the pool.
His hands moved lower, washing her belly and thighs with scrupulous care. “How soft and delicate you are,” he mused. “I must have hurt you.”
“No, I’m fine,” she assured him. “Truly I am.”
He raised an eyebrow. “My dearest lady, I took you like a savage. I’ll be gentler next time. Now lie back and relax.”
A droplet of water trickled down his chiseled face. On impulse, she leaned forward and caught it with her tongue. He tasted faintly of salt, and she breathed in his damp, exhilarating scent. “I liked what you did to me,” she said. “I wouldn’t change a moment of it.”
His eyes gleamed a dark mysterious blue against his swarthy skin. “Alicia.”
Then he moved his hand exactly where she wanted it, his gaze holding hers while he aroused her. Soft sounds of enjoyment rose from her throat. She reveled in the lazy stroking of his finger, the slow rise of tension, the warm lapping of water
against her breasts. She hadn’t known herself to be a creature of sensuality, or that a woman could feel such delight. In a fever of impatience, she brought her leg over so that she straddled him, her breasts moist against his chest, her aching center meeting his hardness. At last she understood the ecstasy of this position; it gave her the freedom to move against him.
Groaning out her name, he caught her hips and in a wild upward surge entered her. Water sloshed around them. Their lips met in an urgent kiss, their bodies straining, reaching for the pinnacle of pleasure.
When it was over, she lay spent and weak in his arms. His mouth drifted along her brow, leaving a trail of languid kisses. After a few long moments, he lifted her from the pool, holding her upright while he wrapped her in a soft towel. He bent his head to her hair and breathed deeply. “You’ve driven me half mad with wanting,” he said in a rough undertone. “I can’t get enough of you. You’ll sleep with me tonight.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice husky, her throat tight.
He took her up into his arms and walked to his bed, laying her down. The linens felt cool against her deliciously flushed skin. He blew out the bedside candle and settled himself beside her, bringing her close to the hearth fire of his body.
Drowsy and contented, she cuddled to him in the darkness, her head tucked onto his broad shoulder. His arm lay heavy and possessive over her stomach. As if in a dream, she felt his mouth against her brow, his lips gradually searing a downward path until he parted her legs for the most intimate kiss of all. His lovemaking was slow and sweet and strangely unreal, and she nearly wept from the beauty of it. He wielded a mastery over her body that was almost frightening in its intensity.
And in the quiet aftermath, as she drifted toward sleep, he held her within the strong circle of his arms as if he, too, could not bear for the night to end.
Chapter Sixteen
A streamer of sunlight awakened Alicia. The brightness crept through a narrow crack in the closed shutters.
Seduced by a Scoundrel Page 17