“Oh God, Lexie.” He kissed her neck and was delighted when she shivered. He had never felt this way with any other woman, never had a woman respond to him with the abandon he found in Lexie’s arms. “I need you,” he groaned against her neck. “I need you so much.”
“I’m here.”
The woman who had stolen his heart was here, warm and alive and responding to his touch. Somehow, she had sneaked under his defenses, found a place in his heart, and made it hers. Now that he had her in his life, he would never be the same.
He would never let her go.
He thought vaguely of the box upstairs containing the condoms, up in the room where he’d been loving her for nearly a month. But he couldn’t wait to take her upstairs and make love to her properly. He needed her now, needed to be inside her body and inside her heart. Never had his bedroom seemed so far away.
“Love me, Lexie,” he said, unbuttoning her blouse and pushing it from her shoulders, running his thumb over the taut bud of her nipple. Nothing else mattered except for her acceptance, right here, right now.
She tugged on his hair and captured his mouth with hers, her passion and need meeting his own. “Yes,” she breathed against his mouth. “Make love to me, Nicholas.”
He unbuttoned her skirt and untied her bustle. He bent close to her and captured her nipple in his mouth through the thin fabric of her camisole, and was awarded with her gasp of pleasure. He reached under her petticoat and slid his hand under her knickers, cupped her bottom, and hauled her up against him and rubbed his aching shaft against her. She was perfect, her body warm and supple and yielding to him.
Pushing her drawers down, he slid a knee between her thighs, his hand sliding between her legs to finger her soft folds. She was hot, wet, and ready. He slid his finger down her cleft and inside the moist heat of her body, and she gasped at his abrupt invasion but arched her body to meet his.
“Nicholas,” she breathed.
“Take me here, Lex,” he whispered, his voice barely more than a growl, and the desperation he heard in his own voice shocked him. He glanced up at the door to his study, standing slightly ajar. Anyone could come in and find them. Yet that door, like his bedroom, seemed so far away. He couldn’t bring himself to close the door, let alone do the proper thing and take her to their room.
He delved his fingers deeply into to the haven of her body, and rubbed the heel of his hand against her swollen nub, and her sharp cry of pleasure was his reward. Bucking her hips against his hand, she met his gaze, and he was surprised to find her eyes, while wreathed with passion, were startlingly clear.
She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close to her, giving him a hot, open-mouth kiss. Her tongue slid between his lips to tangle with his, sliding in and out, her mouth as warm and wet as her sex. Sitting on the corner of his desk, she rocked against his hand and reached between her legs to unbutton his trousers, her hand skimming his cock. And then she palmed him, cupping his aching manhood in her hand.
“Yes, here,” she whispered, her thumb smoothing the small bead of moisture she found on the head of his shaft, and his entire body shuddered at the deliciousness of her touch.
“It’ll be a rough ride,” he said with a groan as she slid her hand down the hard length of him.
His arousal seemed to spur hers, and she rocked more insistently against his palm, her body weeping and ready for him, the tight bud of her clitoris swelling beneath his hand. Breathless, she said, “However you need me. Just take me, Nick.”
His control dissolved into nothing in the face of his lust. She made a small sound of protest when he removed his hand from between her legs, wrapped an arm around her waist, and picked her up to settle her on his desk. He pushed her petticoat up to her waist—God love her, she actually helped him—stepped between her thighs and thrust his body into hers.
He was nothing but seething need, primal and searing. His shame ceased to exist as he drove himself into her. The only thing that existed for him was Lexie, and the gift of her acceptance. He pulled her head back and buried his face in her neck, feeling the frenetic pounding of her heart. She grasped at his shoulders, clinging to him as he thrust into her again and again, her passion meeting his.
She accepted him with her heart as much as her body. She offered him forgiveness for his past transgressions, and now her body clung to his, encasing him in her warmth, her muscles tightening as she sought her own release. He reached between their bodies, his fingers finding his cock where it joined with her body, and he nearly came right then. Shuddering, he thrust himself deeply into her and was awarded with her keening wail, her body contracting and rippling around him as the climax ripped through her.
His own cry escaped him as his orgasm tore his seed from his body. Panting, he wrapped her in a tight embrace, holding her as she shuddered against him. His knees began to buckle and together they slipped to the floor.
He cradled her in his arms, his body still embedded in hers. He had been too rough with her, hadn’t given her time to adjust to his invasion. “I’m sorry, Lexie,” he whispered.
She stroked his back with a feather light touch. “For what?” she asked, moving her hips against him, and lust soared to life. Still inside her body, his cock began to stiffen again.
He shifted, and it took every ounce of control he possessed to stop himself from taking her again the floor of his study. “I should have been more careful.”
She moved her hips again, taking him more fully inside her, and he knew then her movements hadn’t been accidental. She gave him a sexy, throaty laugh, her body pulsing around his. She took his hand and placed it on the swell of her breast, and her nipple puckered beneath his palm before he even stroked it. When he did, she closed her eyes, savoring the sensation. “If you apologize for what just happened between the two of us, I will never speak to you again, Nicholas Wetherby. In fact, if you don’t do it again, I think I’ll be very angry with you. I might never speak to you again.”
He rolled her onto her back, shifting his hips and buried himself deep inside her. He withdrew and laughed at the look of disappointment she gave him. “Well, now, we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
He drove his body into hers, pleased by the satisfied smile crossing her features before lust bathed them. No one would ever compare to Lexie. She was beautiful in both body and spirit, her spirit pure and unblemished. She was his salvation.
And the love of his life.
Afterwards, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom, where he made love to her again, gently this time, taking his time to love her the way she deserved. As they found their climax together, he collapsed beside her, exhausted and spent. Lexie lay on her side, her backside pressed up against him, and she gave a contented sigh. He brushed her hair away from her face, and she graced him with a small smile before closing her eyes.
His heart ached just to watch her. His woman. He would do anything to make her world right. He wrapped his arms around her, and she snuggled into him. Pulling her close, he whispered, “Stay with me Lexie. Stay in this room with me. Don’t leave me like you always do.”
She said nothing, but she nodded in response.
It was good enough.
He held her for a long time, just listening to her slow, regular breathing. Just holding her soothed his spirit, healed the ache in his heart.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter if she said the words first. He loved her and that was what mattered. His lips in her hair, he whispered, “I love you, Lexie.”
It was the first time in his life he had ever said those words to another human being.
But when he brushed her hair away from her face, he realized she had already fallen asleep.
Lexie turned the words over in her head.
I love you, Lexie.
She had been half asleep when she heard Nicholas’s softly spoken declaration. She must have imagined it. Nicholas wasn’t in love with her. It had been enough when he said he needed her. When he’d said tho
se words, she was powerless against the pull he had on her heart. If he had asked her about her secret—and surely he knew she had one—she would have told him. She would have done anything for him.
But if he loved her? If those words were true and not the product of her overactive imagination, how would she ever be able to let him go?
Tell him, a voice whispered in the back of her head. Tell him everything and let him decide.
Folding her arms against her chest, she knew she couldn’t do that. Telling Nicholas would entail telling him the entire truth about the bargain she had struck. Not only the astronomical sum her father owed, but also what she had agreed to in order to alleviate the debt. Even a man like Nicholas didn’t have that kind of money just sitting around, and if she told him, he would know her for the woman she really was—a poor girl from the wrong side of town who’d been willing to bargain away the rest of her life in exchange for some easy cash. A man like Nicholas might dally with her, but he wouldn’t marry her. After all, he hadn’t made an offer yet, and if she came to him with her problem now, he would think everything between them had been nothing more than a manipulation and a lie.
Guilt knifed her heart. Even if she managed to get out of the bargain she had made to cover her father’s debts, she still owed her father. She may not like what he had become, but she owed him a debt she’d never be able to repay. If she told Nicholas, surely he’d understand why she had done what she had. After last night, Nicholas may be the only one in the world who truly would understand her guilt. Maybe he’d even forgive her for it.
But more than anything, she didn’t want him to look back on their time together and think it was nothing but a lie. Her entire situation was a debacle not entirely of her father’s making. She had made more than her fair share of mistakes. Falling in love with a man she couldn’t have while promised to another certainly hadn’t been her father’s fault. The decision to give herself to Nicholas had been hers alone, and she couldn’t even argue he had seduced her. She’d understood—or thought she did—the possible repercussions the day she agreed to accompany him to San Francisco. If she hadn’t agreed, if she hadn’t pushed him to invite her along, she would be in Sacramento and he would be in San Francisco, and her virginity would still be intact.
Their time together was coming to an end, and she knew it. If she told him, she’d look like a whore and he’d wonder if she had been manipulating him to get herself a better deal than the one she had with Buchanan. Or she could leave him, and he might hate her, which would be hard to bear, but at least he wouldn’t feel used. Because she wasn’t using him. She had wanted him, wanted to touch and be touched by the man she loved. Her motives were simple ones.
The cold, hard truth assailed her. She was in love with him, and probably had been from before that night in his library. Might have loved him from the first moment she saw him, standing on the stoop of her father’s house, so unexpected and handsome in his tailored clothes. He had looked like the type of man who could sweep her off her feet, and he had done just that.
What was she going to do? Buchanan wouldn’t let her go so easily. He had proven at the Governor’s ball what he was capable of. He thought of her as his, and she doubted he would be willing to part with her just because she loved someone else. She only hoped he would be willing to sell her for a reasonable price, and then hope Nicholas would be willing to pay the debt of a man he despised in exchange for her.
She turned the idea over in her head. She still had some time before Buchanan would demand his due. Time enough to gather her courage and share her secret with Nicholas as he had shared his with her. Tell him about her engagement, tell him why she had agreed to do what she had, and why she had to follow through with the marriage if the debt wasn’t paid. If he decided not to help her, her position was no more precarious than it had been before.
It would be difficult to destroy his vision of her. He thought her proud and noble, and overall, a virtuous woman. He thought of himself as fickle and faithless. What would he think of her when he discovered she had spent the last month cheating on her fiancé? What would he think when he learned the name of her fiancé? Lexie not only knew what Nicholas thought of Buchanan, but she understood Buchanan’s nature. She could hazard a guess as to what her life would be like when she married him. She didn’t labor under the delusion her duties as his wife would be gentle, or that he had ever intended a tender introduction into the ways of love. That knowledge was part of the reason she had chosen to give her virginity to Nicholas.
Nicholas had never made a woman any promises, yet he considered himself faithless. Of the two of them, she was the faithless one. She was the one lying to him and to her fiancé. She was the one who had lied to herself if she thought she would come out of her affair with Nicholas unscathed. Nicholas thought he was selfish because he pursued what he wanted. Well, the same could be said for her. But she hadn’t hurt just herself. She had betrayed Buchanan, and all of them—Nicholas, her father, Lexie—would pay for her indiscretion.
Everyone had a price, and Buchanan had found hers. If she could gather enough courage, the hard part would be telling Nicholas exactly what her price had been.
Chapter 14
She never got the chance to tell him.
The time was never right. Nicholas and James often worked all day, and when Nicholas would come home, late at night, she wanted to savor the sweetness of their time together and not mar it with talk to broken promises and faithlessness and debts. It was too hard to broach the subject with him and so easy to relish the warmth she found in his arms.
The day her perfect life was destroyed was hot and muggy. The romantic in her wanted to call it sultry—moist and warm, the sun shining in a sky clear and blue—but the day could only be described as muggy. Sultry suggested pleasantness.
There was nothing pleasant about this day.
She had taken the carriage and gone downtown to market. She needed to pick up some things, and Nicholas, away for the day attending to business, wasn’t expected home until evening. The heat had never bothered her before—Sacramento was far hotter than here on the coast—but today the air felt heavy and oppressive against her skin. Her stomach churned unpleasantly, probably from too much rich food the night before, and she had the beginnings of a headache.
No, not pleasant at all.
She wandered from storefront to storefront, looking in the windows at clothes, jewels, books, though nothing struck her fancy. She needed to go to the butcher, but the thought of meat made her stomach turn. As she stood outside of the butcher shop, she decided she would save this stop for last. Maybe the bakery first.
She had just made this decision when a voice said from behind her, “Having fun, little girl?”
Her heart sank at the sound of the voice she had prayed she had left behind when she left Sacramento. That he had found her here both surprised and unnerved her. Her stomach clenched painfully, and she thought she might retch.
Turning slowly, she came face to face with the owner of the voice. Buchanan.
She closed her eyes, wanting him to be a nightmare and willing him to disappear. She opened her eyes and found him glaring at her, all too real. Damn. “Mr. Buchanan. I’m surprised to meet you here.”
His mouth turned up in a small, cruel smile. “I’m sure you are, Alexandra, but a man must claim what is his.”
She closed her eyes again, and took a long breath she slowly released. “I am aware of the terms of our agreement, Mr. Buchanan. No ‘claiming’ necessary.”
Snarling, he grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her into the nearby alley. He pushed her up against the wall and sneered, “You are mine, yet you choose to run off to San Francisco with Nicholas Wetherby? Your father, God save him, swore to me you were an honorable woman, yet I find you here with him? You refuse my offer to pay your debt, and then I hear you’re living him, and not as his servant, and you expect me to not come here to claim you? Rumor is you are his mistress.”
C
heeks flaming, Lexie cried, “That’s a vicious lie!”
He regarded her carefully, his eyes half-lidded with anger. He looked reptilian with his eyes slit in such a fashion, his mouth nothing but a cruel slash across his face. A rich, well-dressed reptile. He reached out and traced the line of her jaw with his finger. “Is it, Miss Markland? All of my sources are mistaken, I suppose, and he hasn’t escorted you to some of the biggest parties in San Francisco?”
Heart hammering, she let out what she hoped sounded like an exasperated sigh. “I attended as his guest, Mr. Buchanan, not his concubine.”
Buchanan nodded slowly, his face perfectly blank, and she feared this particular look far more than she had feared his earlier wrath. Anger she could fight, but she could not fight cold, cruel reason.
“Let’s hope so, for your sake, no? Oh, and for his.”
Feeling like a fish on dry land, Lexie sucked in her breath. “What do you mean?” she demanded, pleased her voice did not betray her. At least she was able to maintain the façade that she wasn’t terrified out of her wits.
He looked at her as if bored, but just below the surface, she saw barely controlled anger boiling. “You are mine. If you do not proceed with this wedding, if you try to back out or betray me, you—and your father—will be thrown in jail for larceny.”
Such threats did not surprise Lexie. She had understood his intentions ever since the letter he had sent her right after the Governor’s Ball. Lexie wished she didn’t care what Buchanan did to her father—he would never change, and he was ultimately responsible for this entire mess. He deserved jail and so much more.
But she wouldn’t abandon him this time as she had before. She’d been too disengaged to save him before. Not this time. This was her punishment and her atonement. If she did this, she owed him nothing more for the rest of her life.
The Marker Page 18
