Alicia blinked back more of the tears that had verged close so often tonight. She’d wept enough over the Earl of Kinvarra. She’d wept enough tears to fill the deep, dark waters of Loch Varra that extended down the glen from Balmuir House, his ancestral home.
“Hell, Alicia, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”
She opened her eyes and through the mist of tears saw he’d risen to watch her. The fire lent enough light to reveal that he appeared tormented and unsure. Nothing like the all-powerful earl.
“I’m not crying,” she said in a thick voice. “I’m just tired.”
His mouth lengthened at her unconvincing assertion. He reached out with one hand to clutch the back of the chair. “Go to sleep.”
“I can’t.” She wondered why she didn’t let him be, instead of courting further misery.
“Damn it, Alicia…” The hand on the chair tightened until his knuckles shone white in the flickering firelight.
“I’m not…I’m not attempting to seduce you,” she said, and suddenly wondered whether that was the truth.
What in heaven’s name was wrong with her? Surely she couldn’t want to revisit the messy humiliations of her married life. Memories of those fumbling, painful encounters had tormented her since she’d left him.
Kinvarra’s long, lean body was as taut as a violin string. Tension vibrated in the air.
He closed his eyes as if he was in agony. “I know. Dear God, I know.” His chest rose as he sucked in a shuddering breath. He opened his eyes and stared at her, his gaze blazing across the distance between them. “But if I get into that bed, there’s no way I’ll keep my hands to myself. And I don’t want to hurt you again. I couldn’t bear to hurt you again.”
She was appalled to hear the naked pain in his voice. This wasn’t the man she remembered. That man hadn’t cared that his passion had frightened and bewildered his inexperienced bride.
This man sent excitement skittering through her veins and made her burn for his touch. She’d never felt like this. It was like balancing on the edge of a cliff over a wild sea. Dear God, was she likely to end up smashed on the rocks below? The answer didn’t matter. It was too late for caution.
On unsteady arms, she raised herself against the headboard and drew in a breath to calm her rioting heartbeat. Another breath. She took the last rash step into infinity.
Her voice was quiet but steady. “Then be gentle, Sebastian.”
Chapter 3
KINVARRA’S GRIP ON the chair turned punishing. Good God, he must be mistaken in what he’d heard. Alicia couldn’t be offering herself. In all these many years, she’d never offered herself. Even in the beginning, he’d always had to take. He’d grown to hate it, whatever physical pleasure he found in her arms, so that when she’d finally begged for a separation after those wretched months together, he’d almost been relieved.
Of course, he hadn’t realized then that his agreement would lead to ten excruciating years without his wife.
She sat up against the bedhead, pale against the dark wood, and watched him with a glow in her blue eyes that in any other woman he’d read as blatant sexual interest. She’d taken her beautiful golden hair down and it flowed around her shoulders, catching the firelight. She’d become his fantasy Alicia. The unforgettable woman who had haunted every empty day he’d endured without her. The woman she’d never been for him, even when they’d lived together.
“Sebastian?” A faint frown drew her fine eyebrows together.
He should say something. His continuing silence must make her nervous.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said in a constricted voice, wondering why the hell he tried to talk her out of fulfilling his dearest hopes.
He’d missed Alicia since the day she left him. Now she was near enough to touch. And for once she didn’t seem to loathe him. All his dearest, most outlandish hopes came to fruition. He’d always been blackguard enough to want more from their meeting tonight than mere conversation. One bed and a cold night and Alicia in an uncharacteristically amiable mood all seemed to augur at the very least a physical respite from his damnable longing.
Then he’d remembered those fraught encounters at Balmuir House. However much he wanted her, he couldn’t face having to inflict himself upon her again. So he’d consigned himself to an excruciating night in the chair. That was less excruciating than seeing her now and knowing that she’d accept him into her bed—and realizing that in his desperation, he was only too likely to disgust and frighten her again.
She raised her chin, an act of bravado familiar in the young Alicia. The memory made his gut clench with poignant yearning. He’d hurt her before. He couldn’t bear to hurt her again. He must stay away from her, for both their sakes.
An uncertain smile curved her lips, as the silence extended into awkwardness. “Tonight you chased my lover away. Honor compels you to offer recompense.” Then in a low voice, “Sebastian, once long ago, you wanted me. I know you did.”
He swallowed and forced his response from a tight throat. “I still do.”
She raised trembling hands to the buttons on her mannish ensemble. An ensemble that looked anything but mannish on her lush figure. She’d filled out from the girl he’d married. Delightfully so.
Her traveling garb was cut like a riding habit, and the white shirt under the dark jacket was suitably modest, buttoned high at the throat. Even so, when her fumbling fingers loosened that top button to reveal a couple of inches of skin, every drop of moisture dried from his mouth and his heart flung itself against his ribs.
The Earl of Kinvarra was accounted a brave man. But he immediately recognized the emotion holding him paralyzed as ice-cold fear.
Tonight provided a miraculous second chance to heal the breach in his marriage. A gift of love for Christmas Eve. But if he hurt Alicia again, he’d never have another opportunity to bring her back to him.
He needed patience, self-command, insight to seduce his wife into pleasure. Yet he burned hotter than a devil in hell. What was he to do? He wanted her too much. And wanting her too much would destroy the cobweb of intimacy building between them in this quiet room. An intimacy woven from soft conversation and new understanding.
When his family had presented him with such a beautiful bride just after his twenty-first birthday, he’d been confident that he and Alicia would find happiness. Instead every coupling had been furtive and soured with shame, accomplished in darkness and ending with his wife sobbing into the pillow. No wonder he’d lost his taste for forcing himself upon her, although to his endless torment, his desire had never waned.
Desire still roared inside him.
Her shirt fell open another fraction to show a delicate line of collarbone and a shadowy hint of her breasts. Her stare unwavering, her hand dropped to the next button.
“Stop,” he said hoarsely.
Her hand paused in its downward progress. “Stop?” The self-consciousness that flooded her face carved a rift in his heart. “You said—”
Shaking his head, he finally released the chair. He flexed his fingers to restore the blood flow. “And I meant it. But let’s do this properly.”
Her hand fell away from her shirt to lie loose in her lap. “Shouldn’t I take my clothes off?”
Dear God, she was going to kill him before she was done.
He closed his eyes and prayed for control as recollections of touching Alicia’s naked body crammed his mind and turned him as hard as an oak staff. When he opened them, she watched him as if he acted like a madman. She wasn’t far wrong.
“We’ve got plenty of time.” He stepped toward the bed, his hands opening and closing at his sides as he fought the urge to seize her and tumble her back against the mattress. “Why rush things?”
“Kinvarra…” she said unsteadily.
She might have invited his attentions, but he caught the flash of uncertainty in her eyes. He didn’t underestimate the courage she’d needed to ask him to join her.
“You called me Seb
astian before.”
“You weren’t staring at me as if you wanted to eat me then.” She clutched at the sheet although she didn’t pull it higher. He was close enough now to notice the wild flutter of her pulse at her delicate throat and the way her erratic breathing made her swelling breasts rise and fall.
“Believe me, I’d love to.” The urge to rush, to grab, to possess before she changed her mind thundered in his veins, but he resisted its demands. He had to rein himself in or the promise of joy would disintegrate to dust.
Her scent washed over him, floral soap and something honeyed and enticing that was the essence of Alicia. In all this time, he’d never forgotten. He drew a deep breath, taking that delicious fragrance deep into his lungs.
Slowly, as if any untoward movement might scare her away, he reached for the hand that crushed the sheet. At the contact, she jerked and released a choked gasp.
“Don’t be afraid, Alicia,” he murmured, feeling her trembling in his grasp. “I won’t hurt you.”
He hoped to hell he spoke true. His grip tightened, even as he told himself he needed to be careful with her.
“I’m…I’m not afraid,” she said on a thread of sound.
He laughed softly and lowered himself to sit on the bed, his hip resting against the blankets over her legs. “Liar.”
She blushed. As a girl, her blushes had charmed him. They still did, he discovered.
“I’m nervous. That’s not the same as afraid.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. He felt her shiver, and her eyes darkened with unmistakable response. Turning her hand over, he kissed her palm. As he heard her breath catch, desire spurred him to take more, satisfy his pounding need. With difficulty he beat back his arousal.
She remembered him as a selfish lover. He needed to vanquish those bleak memories and replace them with bliss. His voice deepened into sincerity. “Alicia, trust me.”
He held her gaze with his. Doubt, fear, and something that might have been reluctant hope swirled in her eyes. He felt tension in the hand he held. In aching suspense, he waited for her to agree. Surely she couldn’t be so merciless as to deny him now.
The silence extended. And extended.
Then finally, finally, she nodded.
“I trust you, Sebastian.”
Relief flooded him, made him dizzy. Relief and gratitude. After the mull he’d made of everything, he didn’t deserve her consent, but he was bloody glad she’d given it all the same. Now he had it, he’d make sure she never regretted it.
“Thank you,” he whispered, wondering if she knew how profoundly he meant those simple words.
He leaned forward to brush his lips across hers. A deliberately light kiss, however much her nearness eviscerated good intentions. A glancing touch that promised more. A salute to the woman who would become his partner in rapture tonight.
Her lips were impossibly soft under his. Smooth. Satiny. He lingered a second, savoring the exquisite sensation. In nearly eleven years, he hadn’t kissed his wife. He’d kissed her before they’d married, during the giddy days of their short engagement. He’d kissed her during their first weeks together, but the spiraling unhappiness of their life at Balmuir had soon made kissing seem a travesty.
Kinvarra started to withdraw, the beast inside him straining against gentleness. Then Alicia made a soft sound deep in her throat and her lips parted.
Her warm breath filled his mouth. She tasted familiar. Yet as fresh and new as a fall of snow. Hot darkness exploded inside his head, and reaction ripped through him. He longed to ravish her mouth with all the passion locked for so long inside him. Struggling to remember what was at stake, he clenched his hands in the blankets,.
God give him strength. His control already shredded, and he’d hardly launched his seduction.
Alicia cradled his head between her hands, holding him close, as though afraid he meant to pull away, even now. Foolish woman, as if he was going anywhere. He’d ventured up to the gates of paradise, and to his astonishment, they’d opened to allow him inside.
Her kiss was clumsy, as if she hadn’t kissed anyone in a long time. Shock rocketed through him. On an intellectual level, he’d known that she’d never been unfaithful. But that urgent, unpracticed kiss reassured his needy soul that in all the years they’d been apart, she’d belonged only to him.
Once, when he’d been an arrogant stripling who thought the world was his for the taking, that knowledge might have provoked triumph. Now he was only humbly grateful that she’d waited for him. After so long without her, he took nothing for granted. He was under no illusions how lucky he was that Alicia was in his arms right now. The slightest misstep could put them at odds again. This time forever.
His arms encircled her, curved her into his body. She molded to him with an eagerness that set his heart cartwheeling. His mouth shaped itself to hers as she curled her arms around his neck. Her breasts crushed into his chest until blazing heat threatened to incinerate all will beyond his hunger to possess. Even as he kissed her deeply, ravenously, stroking her tongue with his, he struggled to remember that he couldn’t dive headlong into this fire.
Kinvarra’s resolution faltered when her tongue moved in unmistakable response and she moaned with female pleasure. Restraint became even shakier after she sighed into his mouth and rubbed her body against his.
His shaking hands clasped her head as he plundered her mouth, stoking her passion. She began to touch him, feverish brushes of her hands, as if she needed to learn the shape of his body again after all this time. Her unfettered reactions intoxicated him. Who would have guessed his wife contained such delicious wildness? She was glorious, the answer to his every dream. When he finally raised his head, she whimpered in protest and her eyes were dark and slumberous under heavy, drooping eyelids.
A soft, shaken laugh escaped him as he stroked his hands through the soft hair at her temples. He couldn’t resist touching her—he couldn’t rely on fate being generous enough to let her stay with him past tonight. “I’m struggling to be careful, my darling, but you make it almost impossible.”
Uneven gasps escaped her moist, parted lips. Her face was flushed with arousal. “I’m not seventeen anymore, Sebastian,” she whispered. “I won’t break.”
Almost reverently, he cupped her jaw. “You deserve respect.”
Her smile was tremulous. “Is that what you feel for me?”
“Of course,” he said swiftly. Then after a pause, “And desire.”
“Show me the desire.”
He bit back an agonized groan. Leashing his hunger was the most fiendish of tortures. But she couldn’t know what she asked. He’d acted the savage with her when he’d been a mere boy, but now he wanted her with a man’s passion. If she’d thought him a barbarian then, she’d quail if she guessed the fierce hunger raging inside him tonight.
“I promised I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said in a raw tone.
Her gaze was steady. “You won’t.”
“I did once.” Shame bit deep, chastened his craving, although nothing could ease his craving apart from having her. The devil of it was that one night, however dazzling, wasn’t going to be enough for him.
She touched his cheek with a tenderness that speared him with guilty awareness of how badly he’d behaved. “We’ve both grown up since then, Sebastian. I trust you. Please, trust yourself.”
Staring into her beautiful face, he realized she was right. She was no longer the frightened girl he’d first married, and he was no longer the greedy, thoughtless boy who hadn’t appreciated the jewel fate had delivered into his keeping. The yearning to prove himself worthy of her confidence flooded him. He couldn’t fail her now. But nor could he continue to treat her as if she were made of spun glass. It would destroy him.
Time had changed them, and now it offered the opportunity to start again, to move beyond their mistakes and create something new and invincible and shining. He wanted to insist on declarations, but he was wise enough to know that the momen
t was too fragile to bear the weight of anything beyond the present.
His hands were gentle as he undid the next button on her shirt. By the time he slid the garment from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, she was trembling. Her hands had dropped to her sides.
Her scent filled his head, making him drunk with desire. Even so, he still held back. Painful as restraint was. Carefully he undressed her. Finally she was bare to his sight, and he paused in wonder.
In their years apart, she’d changed. Her body was a woman’s. Ripe. Alluring. He drew a shuddering breath and reminded himself of the risks in what he did. His blood beat hot and hard, but he managed to cling to control.
Just.
In shy wantonness, Alicia lay spread before him. Color lined her slanted cheekbones, and the breath came fast between her lips. Almost hesitantly, Kinvarra reached out to cup one full, white breast. It plumped in his hand as if created for his touch, and the raspberry nipple pearled. When he bent to kiss that impudent peak, Alicia’s surprised gasp of pleasure rewarded him. He drew harder on the nipple and ran his hand down the smooth plain of her belly to the feathery curls at the juncture of her thighs.
She was already damp. Her musky scent lay heavy on the air. This slow seduction worked its magic on his wife, too. He took her other nipple between his lips and bit softly at the crest. She shifted restlessly under his hand and buried her fingers in his hair, urging him to continue.
He needed no further encouragement. But as he licked and bit and suckled, as his hands roamed her silky skin, some trace of reason lingered. She wasn’t ready yet, however her touch and sighs spurred him to further depredations. He wanted to be inside her more than he wanted his next breath. But this night wasn’t about what he wanted, but about showing her the pleasure a man and a woman could find together. To his everlasting regret, he’d never given her that.
Mistletoe Wishes Page 4