by Candace Camp
“Why?” She went up a little on her toes, lifting her face toward him.
“I—I forget.”
Alexandra put her hands on his stomach, and his skin twitched beneath his shirt. He could remember with great clarity the way her hands had felt on his skin in the carriage. He knew he ought to pull back.
Instead, he kissed her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALEXANDRA’S LIPS MELTED AGAINST HIS, their breaths mingled, and with a shudder, Sebastian pulled her to him, his mouth grinding into hers. His hands slid down her back and cupped her buttocks, lifting her up and into him, moving her against the thick ridge of his desire. Alexandra groaned and dug her fingers into his hair, moving erotically against him. Sebastian made an inarticulate noise deep in his throat and squeezed his fingers into her full, firm flesh.
Her hands came between them, and she started on his buttons. Again his brain registered hazily that he should not allow this, but the thought did not spark any action. Sebastian was too consumed with kissing her. He reveled in the tastes and textures of her, in the scent of her skin and the silken softness of her hair against his cheek.
She opened his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, and he paused long enough in his caresses to rip it the rest of the way off. Alexandra’s busy fingers went next to the dressing gown and undid the sash; then she shrugged out of the heavy gown in a single smooth gesture. It crumpled to the floor, and then it was Alexandra’s satiny skin beneath his hands, her heat searing his fingertips.
“Touch me,” she murmured, pressing herself into him. “Please, touch me.”
He could no more have resisted her plea than he could have walked away from her at that moment. His hands came around to her stomach and slid up to cup her breasts. Alexandra gasped and jerked, and her fingers dug into his hair.
“Yes. Please.”
Alexandra felt as if she were on fire. Her breasts ached for his touch; her nipples pointed and thrust toward him. And between her legs was a fierce throbbing, an unmistakable, undeniable hunger that she knew only Sebastian could satisfy. She whimpered as his fingers found her nipples and caressed them, gently squeezing and rubbing until they were as hard as pebbles, aching for something more.
He lifted her and carried her to the bed, laying her gently upon it. Then he lay beside her, propping himself on one elbow, and bent to run his tongue in a lazy circle around one nipple. Alexandra let out a choked noise, and her fingers dug into the cover beneath her. The velvet was soft upon her bare skin, unbelievably erotic as she moved upon the bed. She could not stay still as his tongue worked its magic upon her. Lightly, it teased the bud of her nipple, licking and stroking and lashing until she was digging in her heels and arching off the bed, her breath ragged in her throat. Then his mouth came down around her nipple, enclosing it in wet heat, and she shuddered in response. He began to suckle her nipple, pulling in long, lazy movements, while his tongue continued to play with the hard button.
While his mouth was busy on one creamy breast, his hand slid to her other nipple and teased it. Then he moved, trailing kisses across her chest to the other breast and took that nipple into his mouth. Alexandra moaned, feeling the pull of his mouth all through her, as if some cord ran straight from her breast to the center of her loins. His hand roamed down her body, smoothing over her flat stomach and down the sides of her legs, then up, drawing ever closer to the hot seat of her desire, until finally his fingers tangled in the thatch of hair and slid into the slick, wet folds of flesh. Alexandra groaned and began to tremble as he found her most intimate, neediest spot. Slowly he began to stroke, separating and caressing the folds, pressing and rubbing and gently arousing her. Alexandra writhed, panting, consumed by a fire she had never imagined. This was what she had ached for; this was what she wanted.
She breathed his name, arching against his hand, and he tightened upon her, his finger flickering over the tiny, slick nub that was the center of her pleasure. His tongue moved on her nipple in unison with his finger, heightening the pleasure almost past bearing. Alexandra thought that she might faint, but instead she let out a quiet scream as, suddenly, she was catapulted over the edge of her hunger into a pleasure more intense than anything she had felt before. She jerked, letting out little sobs, and Sebastian covered her mouth with his, taking her whimpers into his mouth, while his finger gently soothed and stroked until Alexandra was spent.
Alexandra looked at him dazedly. Sebastian gazed at her. Need raged in him so fiercely he could scarcely think. He wanted nothing but to be inside Alexandra, encased by her warmth, to drive to the glorious end that he knew waited for them.
He struggled to remember all the reasons he disliked and mistrusted Alexandra Ward, but none of them seemed very clear. What was clear, what was real, was the hunger that burned in him. When she had been kidnapped, he had been consumed by deadly fear and rage. Once he got her back, those violent emotions had turned into an ache to possess her that was equally fierce, exacerbated by her sensual aggression. Her beauty beckoned him like a siren’s call. Her desire made it almost irresistible. She wanted him; he wanted her. What was wrong with that?
She wasn’t thinking clearly, he reminded himself. She had obviously been drugged, not only into thinking poorly but also into feeling desire. Her sexual teasing had come not from true desire but from a false yearning created by the herb drink they had given her to make her “cooperative.”
Yet, as she put her hand on the flat of his stomach and ran it up to his chest, he wondered how he was supposed to remember that distinction. She had been playing havoc with his senses all evening, and he felt ready to explode. It wasn’t as if she were a maiden, the hunger inside him argued. She was, after all, an adventuress, not the young woman of quality she had pretended to be. And the way she had touched him this evening, the way she had kissed him, trailing her mouth all over his chest, had not been the action of an innocent.
Still, a small voice replied, that did not change the fact that she was drugged.
Sebastian closed his eyes, struggling to steady his breathing and bring his raging blood under control. Lying on the bed beside him, Alexandra watched him. She felt spent and satisfied, yet there was still something niggling at her, a feeling of incompletion. There was more, she was sure, judging from what she had seen during her stay with Madam Magdalena. The woman had told her she was going to start her education before the gentlemen arrived and had proceeded to have two men and women show Alexandra an astonishing array of things. Even though Alexandra had been hazy with drugs, she remembered them well enough.
She reached to Sebastian’s trousers, running her finger down the hard bulge there. Sebastian barely stifled a groan. “Bloody hell, woman, are you trying to drive me mad?”
“There’s more,” she began tentatively. “Don’t you want—”
“Of course I want!” he interrupted her savagely. “Do you think I’m made out of stone?”
“Then why did you pull away?” Alexandra asked, beginning to work on the buttons of his breeches.
“Because you are not competent to—to make the judgment that—” He broke off, his eyes glazing, as her fingers slipped inside his breeches and grazed along his flesh.
“What judgment?” Alexandra could feel the heat inside her that had been sated begin to stir again. Just the sight of Sebastian’s face going slack with desire was enough to arouse her.
She teased her fingers up and down the iron rod of his manhood experimentally, watching his face tighten, a flush rising from his neck. With every indication of his desire, her own built, too.
“No,” he whispered, his eyes closed, his entire being focused on the pleasurable sensations Alexandra’s fingers were creating.
“No, what?” she asked softly. His earlobe looked terribly inviting to her, and she raised herself off the bed to take it gently between her teeth. A soft grunt broke from Sebastian.
“Don’t do this….”
“Do what? This?” She snaked her tongue into his ear, and a t
remor ran through him. “Or this?” She curled her fingers around him.
He sucked in a sharp breath. For a moment he hung on the brink, uncertain whether he could stop the course of the passion that was sweeping through him like an avalanche. Then, with a muttered curse, he jerked away from Alexandra and stood from the bed.
“No,” he said harshly, his face as stony as if carved from granite. “This is wrong. I will not.”
He bent and grabbed his shirt from the floor, shrugging it on as he strode to the door. Alexandra watched, too stunned to speak or move. He yanked open the door and half turned back, not looking at her. “I shall send one of the maids to help you.”
“Don’t bother,” Alexandra retorted acidly. She would like to say a great deal more, but her brain, assaulted by drugs and recently washed with passion, would not work quickly enough to make sense of the hurt and fury that were pouring through her. He was out the door before she could say anything else.
So she had to content herself with throwing every pillow from the bed after him. Then she threw herself facedown on the velvet cover and gave way to tears.
ALEXANDRA WOKE LATE THE NEXT morning. Her head ached fiercely, and her mouth tasted as if she had been eating ashes. Letting out a groan, she sat up slowly. She rubbed a hand over her face. It felt strangely disconnected from her.
There was a knock at the door, and she realized that that must have been what had awakened her. “Yes?” She croaked the word out, pulling the sheet up to cover her naked front.
A fresh-faced maid opened the door and stuck her head inside. “Good, you’re up.”
Alexandra wondered how she could have been anything else with the woman banging on the door, but she managed to keep her sour mood to herself and nodded. The girl moved the rest of the way into the room, closing the door after her, and came to the bed. Her face was agog with curiosity, her eyes taking in every detail of Alexandra’s appearance. Alexandra suspected that the girl would be the queen of the servants’ hall at mealtime as she regaled them with her story of the strange woman in the master’s bedroom. No doubt they would relegate her to the realm of fallen women. If only they knew!
The maid carried a dress across her arms, with a small pile of undergarments atop it. “His lordship said I was to bring you these clothes and to help you dress. I wouldn’t have disturbed you, but he said that your aunt would be getting worried.”
“Yes, of course.” Alexandra experienced a stab of guilt at the realization that she had not even thought of her aunt and the poor woman’s state of mind. She remembered vaguely that Thorpe had sent Aunt Hortense a message that she was all right, but that alone would not be enough to keep her from worrying. And what about her mother?
She flushed with shame. She had asked Thorpe about Rhea, and after that she had not given her a second thought. She had been too consumed in her passion for Thorpe to devote any time to anyone else. Alexandra groaned, burying her face in her hands. She had been such a fool last night! How would she ever be able to look Lord Thorpe in the face again? He must think her a veritable doxie now, she thought. His opinion of her was low enough, and now she had thrown herself at him, practically begged him to bed her, indulged in the most wanton behavior. What must he think of her?
“Are you all right, miss?” the maid asked in some concern.
Alexandra raised her head to meet the girl’s gaze. “Yes. Well, I’ve felt better, but no doubt it will improve.”
She let the maid help her dress—although she would have preferred to be alone, it was difficult to do up the buttons down the back without help—but then she sent her away, telling her that she would deal with her hair herself. She brushed her hair quickly, ignoring the pain that jerking through her tangled curls brought to her already beleaguered head. It seemed, somehow, just punishment for her foolish behavior the night before. She had thrown herself at a man who clearly did not return her passion—indeed, he thoroughly disliked her, thinking her a lying swindler.
It would have been nice, she thought, to have blamed her actions on the drug that Madam Magdalena had given her, but Alexandra was too honest for that. The drug had certainly taken away her inhibitions, allowing her to act in ways that pride and embarrassment would never have allowed her to normally. However, Alexandra knew that the desire upon which she had acted was very real, indeed. She had felt the passion and was sure she would have felt it without having taken the slightest thing. All the drug had done was make her act out what she really felt.
She remembered with a deep, burning shame the way Thorpe had left the room last night, turning her down flat. He had obviously not felt the sort of raging desire she did. No doubt it had been very embarrassing for him to have to deal with her advances.
She drew a shaky breath. Well, there was nothing she could do now except go on. She would thank Thorpe for his help and try to ignore what had happened.
Alexandra finished brushing her hair and pinned it up with hairpins brought by the efficient maid. It was not the best arrangement, she thought, but it would have to do. She looked in the mirror, her eyes going to the dress she wore. She smoothed down the rose pink skirt. It was slightly out of fashion, but the color was good on her, complementing her complexion. It was a woman’s color, not the insipid white that made up almost the entire wardrobe of the young, unmarried British girls. In all likelihood it had belonged to someone in her twenties or older, probably a married woman—and someone shorter and smaller than Alexandra, given the length of the skirt and the tightness of the fit across the bust. Who could have left a dress in Thorpe’s house?
She grimaced at her reflection, reminding herself that he could have sisters or other female relatives—and besides, it was really none of her business to whom the dress belonged or why it was there. She turned from the mirror.
Another knock sounded on the door, and she called to the visitor to enter, assuming it was the maid again, but the door opened this time to reveal Thorpe. Alexandra could feel a blush rising up her throat into her face, and she looked away quickly, feeling unbearably awkward.
“Good morning. I took the liberty of bringing you tea and toast,” Thorpe said stiffly, setting down the small tray he carried.
“Thank you. That is very kind of you.” Alexandra twisted her hands together, still not looking at him. “I am very aware, my lord, of how much I owe you my thanks for coming to my aid. I realize you have no obligation to me. It was generous of you to find me and bring me out of there.”
“There is no need to speak of obligation. I could hardly let you be kidnapped without making some effort to intervene.”
Alexandra felt every cool, formal word falling like a rock into the heaviness that pervaded her chest. “Still, I must offer you my gratitude and—and my sincerest apologies for my behavior last night. It was inexcusable.”
“No.” Thorpe spoke sharply and quickly, raising his hand as though to stop her. “There is no need to apologize. You were not yourself. I am the one who should apologize for not handling it better.”
Alexandra felt a spurt of anger at his talk of handling her, as if she were a difficult horse or a recalcitrant child. However, she was aware of how much she owed him for rescuing her. With the drugs they had given her, she knew she would have been able to do little to avoid the fate that Madam Magdalena had in mind for her.
Thorpe went on, “It was unpardonable of me to—” He paused and cleared his throat and went on. “To, uh, take the liberties I took. I regret it sincerely, and I promise you that it will never happen again.”
Tears stung Alexandra’s eyes at his words. Thorpe was obviously horrified at what they had done. No doubt he was glad he had managed to escape her clutches eventually. She swallowed her tears and forced herself to speak calmly.
“Please, there is no need. Let us not speak of it anymore. Tell me, how is my mother? We spoke of it last night, I think, but…”
“She is alive and does not seem to be in any pain,” he said, his voice filled with relief. “But she
is unconscious and has been since she was attacked the other night. I took the liberty of sending my doctor to see her, but he was able to give us little information. She is in a coma, and he has no idea when she will wake up.”
“If ever,” Alexandra added softly.
“You must not think that way. I have known of others who have recovered from a coma. One of my cousins was thrown from a horse and did not awake for two weeks, but after that he was all right—at least, as all right as he had ever been,” he added, with a wry smile.
“Thank you. I hope you are right. I am sure that my aunt has been taking excellent care of her.”
“She seems a very capable woman,” he agreed dryly.
“I cannot fathom why anyone would try to harm my mother,” she went on, frowning. “I would have said that it was merely a theft gone awry, but the idea of another attack upon someone in my family is too much of a coincidence for me to swallow.”
“No, he meant to harm your mother.”
Alexandra turned to him sharply. “How do you know?”
“I spoke with the man who kidnapped you. That is how I tracked you down. His name was Peggoddy, and my man Murdock managed to locate him.”
“How did you persuade him to talk to you?”
“He had little choice.”
Alexandra was somewhat taken aback by the steel in his voice. “Are you saying you threatened him?”
Thorpe cocked an eyebrow. “He wasn’t the sort with whom to use gentle persuasion.”
“I see. And what did he say—besides where I was, I mean.”
“That he had been hired to take care of your mother.”
Alexandra stared at him. “Hired! But who—”
Thorpe shrugged. “I don’t know. At that point I was more interested in finding you than in digging any more information out of him.”
“You mean you let him go?” Alexandra asked in dismay.
“Hardly. He accompanied us to the bordello. I could hardly trust that he was telling me the truth, after all. I left him with Murdock in the carriage while I went inside to get you. He was the man who ran away as we were going to the carriage.”
