by Bec McMaster
Chapter 11
Hours ticked past, and her gaze kept shifting to the clock impatiently.
Gideon’s heated gaze lifted to hers as he took his king and set it directly to the side of her queen. He seemed to be enjoying making her wait. “King takes queen.”
Alexandra swept her palm across the board, letting all the remaining pieces tumble to the floor. “I think the issue is clearly that this king is not taking this queen.”
He smiled faintly as he poured himself another glass of cordial. He knew her abstemious nature and refused to drink in front of her. “I wouldn’t presume. I am no king, my dear.”
“You seem remarkably unambitious for someone who has a queen waiting upon him.”
Gideon paused as he picked up the chess pieces. “To be named consort has never been my ambition.”
The words made her falter.
“No?” She gave a careless shrug, but she felt the blow.
He looked up from where he knelt beside the small table. “I have never desired power for power’s sake. You know that.”
“So, you’re the only man in England who does not desire to marry me?”
“I didn’t say that.” He dumped all the chess pieces in the box and snapped it shut. “You are an amazing woman. Despite all that you have lost, you have always sought to give your people the best you could manage. You have fought for them, suffered for them, and all because you see yourself not as subjugator but as subject, bound to serve your people. I have long been in awe of you. Any man would be honored to be your husband. Not because of what you could offer him, but for what you gift him with your mere presence.” He paused, then growled under his breath. “Your husband will be a lucky man.”
She couldn’t quite meet his gaze.
“If I can bring myself to take one.”
Moving toward her, he knelt on the edge of the divan, the neat pressed line of his slacks tightening over his thigh. Alexandra sucked in a sharp breath, a little thrill shivering over her skin.
“I would say you are progressing nicely,” he murmured. “You nearly stole my virtue against the door of the drawing room.”
“You’re hardly an innocent, Gideon.”
His lashes lowered in a dark curtain over his eyes as his gaze dropped to her lips. “I’m forty-three. I have learned a trick or two in my time.”
“Such an old man,” she teased.
“A wise man who knows you should be wooed.”
“Your definition of the word appears to be dissimilar to mine.”
“Does it?” He captured her hand, his thumb rasping across the delicate skin on the back of it. “You fear physical intimacies. Why, then, would I force them? I merely meant to allow you time to relax.”
Alexandra swallowed. “Does not my desire speak for itself?”
“Is it desire that drives your urgency? Or fear? Fear you will never be able to allow yourself physical surrender?”
His words struck her to the core.
“I do not want you desperate,” he said. “I want you to be certain. I want you to be comfortable. I want you to feel cherished. I can wait, Alexandra.”
But could she?
“If I cannot bring myself to bear such intimacies now,” she whispered, “then will I ever be able to? My physicians are already concerned about my advanced age.”
He kissed her palm, pressing her hand to his cheek for a long second while she swallowed down the pain.
“Curse your physicians. There are nearly ten years between us. You make me feel old, at times.”
“Wise,” she teased, stroking his cheek. Her smile faded. “You always know my mind, even before I myself know it.”
“I know you. I know your fears, because I want to protect you from them. I know your worries, because I want to share them.”
Alexandra took in a deep breath. “Has a queen ever known such fealty?”
Gideon slowly looked up. “It was never fealty, Alexa. Fealty implies a debt, and what I would give you is everything, and willingly.”
She looked away. His confession was too much. “Even if….”
“Always,” he promised. “No matter what may come, you will always have my heart. It was gifted to you long ago, and I may never take it back.”
She pressed her forehead to his. What she would not give to be able to look the council in the eye and tell them she had made her choice.
But what would the cost be?
A human queen with a human consort? And not only human, but one of the progressives, pushing for more rights for those of his species. The very thing that made her love him was the thing that separated them. Malloryn would have no truck with it. The Echelon would be furious. She’d only barely managed to pull London back together after Lord Balfour’s reign of terror, and the last thing she needed was the blue blooded aristocrats rising up in force again.
There would be riots. There would be blood in the streets.
If she married Gideon, then more of her people would die.
“You have never made me resent my country so much,” she whispered.
He had no reply to that.
Only the knowledge in his dark eyes that echoed hers. This was all they could have. Stolen moments. Stolen kisses. Secret confessions.
And she’d wasted enough of their short time together as it was.
Tilting her face to his, she closed her eyes and surrendered to the kiss he promised. Their lips met. A gentle brush. Alexandra clasped his face between her hands, leaning into the embrace. He kissed her softly, reverently. He kissed her as if their days weren’t numbered, long and lazy and slow, until she was barely breathing.
The fire crackled behind her.
Gideon pushed up onto his knees, tumbling her back onto the divan. Pressing one knee between her thighs, he crawled over her, resting on his knuckles.
“Does my queen wish to be taken?” he whispered, brushing the edge of her gown off her shoulder.
Good lord. The barest touch and it set her on edge as nothing else might. “Your queen wishes for you to stop bloody talking and use that mouth for good cause.”
Another smile. Curse him.
“Does she?” He leaned down, turning his face into her ear as he brushed the backs of his fingers across her bare shoulder. “But my hands do marvelous things too.”
The words whispered across the sensitive skin of her throat as he brushed his face against her cheek. The rasp of his stubble earned a gasp from her. Gideon was kind and thoughtful in all matters, but she hadn’t expected to gain such pleasure from his slow, gentle restraint. It felt like an exquisite sort of torture.
“Lie back,” she ordered.
He surrendered to her request, reclining against the daybed. Every inch of him was ruffled, from his hair to his shirt to his trousers. But there was still some mysterious sense of command he never truly seemed to lose.
She plucked at his buttons, baring inch by erotic inch of him and looking her fill. The sight of all that hair shocked her. His skin was almost olive in comparison to her husband’s, and a thick thatch of hair decorated the heavy slab of his chest and the smooth barrel of his abdomen. In all her imaginings of him, she’d never quite pictured this.
She didn’t know where to put her hands.
She didn’t know what to do next.
“Why stop there?” he purred.
“Because—” Shyness consumed her.
Reaching up, he tugged a lock of hair free from her chignon, sliding it over and around his fingers.
Gideon reached down and flipped open the placket of his trousers. His cock surged erect behind it, though he left the fabric tented over the suggestion of him. “I ache for you. It aches for you.” Taking himself in hand, he slowly pumped his fist up and down the full length of himself. “Don’t make me beg.”
“What do you want of me?”
“Touch me.”
And so she did.
At first it was a gentle exploration. More curiosity than anything else. But the soft sounds he made d
rew her into the act, and she found herself watching his face. Gideon always seemed so in control of himself, but she could sense the fine tremors beneath his skin as he tried to hold himself back.
And that would not do.
She leaned down to kiss him, and he met her mouth eagerly. Cupping a hand around hers, he showed her how to work his body, and Alexandra found herself melting against him. A languorous heat slid through her veins like molten honey. Power. This was power. And he’d surrendered himself to her. It seemed an aphrodisiac like no other.
She kissed his chin, and he tilted his head up, revealing his throat.
Another little display of vulnerability, and she found she liked it.
“More,” he demanded, and she bit him, her blunt teeth sinking into the muscle where his neck met his shoulder.
Gideon’s eyes darkened as she kissed her way down his abdomen, pausing to explore. Hands and mouth and tongue…. He liked that best, she thought. And he liked her mouth upon him, she was swiftly learning.
“Alexa.” His hands tangled in her hair, and he tried to tug her up.
“No,” she said, shaking his hand away.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want to not be afraid of this,” she whispered, and then she lowered her head and kissed the smooth skin just above his trousers.
She could have sworn Gideon stopped breathing.
“I think I’m afraid you’ll stop.” He tried to sound teasing, but he didn’t dare move, she noticed.
“I do recall someone teasing me almost to the point of mindfulness, and then ceasing.” Alexandra looked up, reveling in this small role as temptress.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Beg me,” she whispered.
His arms quivered, and the muscles in his abdomen tightened as he lifted his head off the daybed to watch what she was doing. “If you think that I’m—”
She trailed her tongue across the ridge of his pelvic bone, her passion-loosened hair dragging across his erection.
“Fuck.” Gideon collapsed back on the daybed. “Curse you. Don’t stop.”
She shook her head, dragging her lips across that sensitive strip of skin. Back and forth. Back and forth. “So demanding, Gideon.”
It was easy to feel relaxed with such gentle banter. Her nervousness washed away, and she nudged the flap of fabric out of the way. Gideon sucked in a sharp breath, his entire body splayed for her view.
Good lord. She’d thought the size of him excessive in her earlier explorations, but this….
The first brush of her lips to his swollen cock stole a gasp from him.
“Hell and ashes,” he gasped, writhing before her.
What a strangely delightful act.
“More,” he demanded, and thrust his hips up so that the tip of him breached her mouth.
This was new territory, but she set out to conquer it as one did when one was queen.
“Alexa,” he gasped, his hands trembling on her head. “Alex, damn it. I can’t— I’m going to—” His fingers curled into her hair. And then his hips were thrusting up, and she almost choked. “Oh God. I can’t stop.”
And then his hands were pressing her down, encouraging her to swallow more of him.
It didn’t bother her. Indeed, she relished the feeling of power, the quiver of his body as he gasped and begged for mercy. She could feel him shaking with the need to surrender, feel him fighting it.
And failing.
“Alexa,” he warned, throwing his head back on her mattress. “I can’t stop.”
In answer, she dragged the full length of her tongue up him and sucked the swollen head of his member.
Hot seed spilled into her mouth as he bucked beneath her. His hands curled into fists in her hair, and an utterly un-Gideon-like cry echoed.
“Dear God,” he breathed as he collapsed back upon the pillow. “Dear God.”
Gideon lay flat on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes.
Alexandra sat up, wiping her lips. The experience had been both heady and fulfilling, but she didn’t know what to do now.
You just pleasured him like a bawd.
And she’d enjoyed every moment of it.
“Gideon?” she whispered, for he wasn’t moving, and he hadn’t said a word beyond “Dear God.”
He swatted her with one of the cushions. “I cannot believe you just did that.”
“Nor can I.”
Capturing her in his arms, he rolled her onto the daybed. Alexandra caught at his shoulder, momentarily startled, and it took her a moment to realize she felt no fear at the sudden move.
Not with him.
She landed flat on her back, drowning in a spill of her skirts.
“My turn,” he said, in a smoky voice as he lowered his head to her bodice.
She could feel the press of his thigh between hers, forcing her knees to part, and the weight of his body. It no longer unnerved her—this was Gideon, after all—but she still felt unsettled.
His lips brushed against her breast, and then his hand was in her skirts, sliding them up. Tension warred in her belly, the yes and the no twisting her into knots, and then the roughness of his stubble was marking her skin and his hot mouth found her nipple.
Too much.
Far too much.
That hand slid up her thigh, and a part of her wanted him to continue—a part of her desperately wanted to be able to lie back and surrender, but there was also that tiny, tremulous piece of her that quavered at the thought.
“No,” she said, pushing him away.
Gideon froze. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She scrambled out from beneath him, her breath coming in faint hitches. “No, it’s not…. It’s…. It’s not necessary,” she told him, shaking out her skirts as she stood.
“Not necessary?” Shock reigned rampant in his voice as he sat up, his trousers unbuttoned and his shirt in disarray.
Alexandra strode toward the doorway. “You’ve done as I asked. I no longer find myself frightened of the male physique. Anything else is… simply excessive.” She paused by the door, taking one last look back at him. “Thank you.”
“Alexandra!”
But she was already gone.
Gideon watched the doors slam shut behind her, his heart thumping into the bottom of his rib cage like lead before he shook off his stupor.
Not necessary, my ass.
Launching to his feet, he swiftly buttoned his trousers and then went after her.
The queen had not yet made her escape when he barreled through the doors to her drawing room.
The second she heard the doors slam behind her, she flinched, whirling on him with her fists balled. A flash of fear darkened her eyes before she tipped her chin up, but it made him slam to a halt as nothing else would.
“This discussion is over,” she told him.
“Because you say it is?”
“I’m the queen,” she told him imperiously. “So, yes, it’s over because I say it is.”
“Hogwash,” he said, taking a step toward her. “You’re afraid, and you’re running away from whatever it is that frightens you. Talk to me, Alexa. Please. Help me understand.”
Emotion warred upon her face.
She never liked to be vulnerable, he knew.
“Did I frighten you?” he pleaded. He moved, blocking her escape but not putting hands on her. “Why will you not let me pleasure you? Was it my touch?”
The queen’s face flushed. “Because I don’t need that. An heir does not require that I be touched. It’s just… thrusting. And if I’m no longer afraid, then I can manage that. It’s not your touch. It’s too much. I used to… I used to imbibe milk of poppy before he came to me. And I could tolerate it, if I could drift through it. But when you touch me, it feels as though my nerve endings are alight. As though I’m on the verge of losing control.”
Violence spilled through him, inarticulate and furious. If the bastard wasn’t dead, he’d have murdered the prince consort with his
bare hands.
Instead, he pressed a hand to the side of her hip. “No, begetting an heir doesn’t require pleasure, but you should demand it. You should know it at least once in your damned life.”
Her eyes snapped fire. “Who are you to deem what I should and shouldn’t know?”
No one. I am no one. His lips pressed firmly together. “I thought we were in this together? I thought this was a partnership?”
“You’re complaining because I will give you pleasure but won’t accept it?” she scoffed. “What sort of man are you?”
One who loves you.
One who wants every piece of you, even as you deny him.
But again, he could not say it.
Instead, he was forced to yield, lowering his forehead to hers. “I am not the sort of gentleman who leaves a lady wanting. You damn me to be selfish, Alexandra, and I will not have it.”
“Will not have it?”
“Will not,” he said sternly.
The breath came out of her in a rush.
So. Not as unaffected as she claimed.
He brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “Let me, Alex. Let me love every inch of you. Let me worship you and show you what it can be like between a man and a woman.”
Closing her eyes, she slowly nodded.
Gideon kissed her. Soft, gentle kisses that stoked and stirred. He sensed the moment she began to kiss him back, surrendering to her fate.
Pressing her back against the door, he trailed his lips down her throat. Her breasts lifted as she inhaled, her hazel eyes glittering with suppressed need as he worked his way down her body. Finally he was kneeling on one knee at her feet, his hands sliding beneath her green skirts. Looking up, he slowly slid his hands up her stockinged calves.
Alexandra shivered.
But she did not look away.
Every inch of her looked regal, but there was a sense of vulnerability about her. A woman daring to pursue passion for the first time. Lifting her foot, he braced it on his thigh. Her skirts tumbled over the pair of them as his hands began their slow caress.
“What are you doing?” Her voice rose.
“Kneeling as supplicant,” he told her. “So I can worship my queen.”
“Gideon!” she gasped.
“The first time I saw you, I could not look away,” he whispered, toying with the silk ribbon of her garters. He tugged one loose. “You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. You stared the prince consort in the eye in the middle of court and told him to damn his blood taxes. They were not going to rise.”
