He didn’t turn around, but bent forward.
She frowned. “What’s going on?”
Her whisper floated out through the room.
He didn’t immediately answer; instead, she heard a thud.
Realized with a sudden clenching of nerves that he’d pulled off one shoe.
He shifted and reached for the other. “You made me promise to come and tell you the instant I learned anything significant.”
Those had been her exact words. She shifted, wondering…“Yes? So what—” A sudden thought took precedence over everything else. She stared at the back of his head. “How did you get in?”
His second shoe hit the floor. “I slipped the lock on the drawing-room window. But you needn’t worry.” He stood and faced the bed. “I locked it again.”
That wasn’t what was worrying her.
Eyes widening, mouth drying, she watched as he shrugged out of his coat, glanced around, then flung it over her dressing table stool. Then his fingers rose to his cravat, smoothly tugging the ends free.
“Ah…” Good heavens! She had to…had to…she swallowed. “Did you learn something from your friend?”
She had to distract him.
“From Jack?” His tone was flat, his accents clipped. “Yes. As it happened, I learned quite a lot.”
He had the cravat undone; dragging it free, he flung it on his coat, then his fingers went to the buttons of his shirt.
It was getting harder and harder to think, to swallow, even to breathe. Had the moment really come? Just like that, without warning?
Panic inched higher and higher.
She clutched the edge of the coverlet. “So…what did you learn?” She tried to recall what had passed between them earlier—had she inadvertently issued some sexual invitation?
“Jack investigated Ruskin’s background. In Bledington.” Tony followed the line of buttons down, then glanced at her, yanked the tails from his waistband and stripped off the shirt. His eyes had adjusted; he could see how wide hers were. Wondered, cynically, intently, just how far she’d go before she broke.
He tossed the shirt aside, set his hands to his waistband, his fingers on the buttons of the flap. “Ruskin’s estate amounts to little more than a few fields—he inherited his liking for gambling from his father. The income he enjoyed could not in any way derive from his ancestral acres.” He slipped the buttons free. “If anything, the upkeep of the house in which his mother and sister live was a drain on his purse.”
She didn’t shift, made absolutely no sound as he removed his trousers and sent them to join the rest of his clothes. His determination hardened; it was an effort to keep his emotions—the mix of incredulity, anger, and hurt, and so much more he didn’t want to examine—from his face.
Clothed only in shadows, he turned to the bed. Silent-footed, he prowled down its side; it was a large, canopied affair. He was aroused but, apparently stunned, she was following his face; she’d yet to look down.
She moistened her already parted lips. “Ah…so… what does that…” She made a valiant and quite visible attempt to focus her mind. “I mean, why is that important?”
“It’s not.” He heard the harshness in his tone. Watching her closely, primed to smother a shriek, he reached for the covers. “But there were other facts Jack discovered that were far more startling.”
Her knuckles turned white as he grasped the covers, but when, jaw setting, he lifted them, her grip eased; the silky quilt slid through her fingers as he raised the sheets.
“Oh. I see…”
She was looking straight at him, but he would have sworn she wasn’t seeing him. Her tone seemed distant, as if she was thinking of other things.
His temper, held in tight check until then, flared. He slid onto the bed, dropped the covers, and turned to her.
His plan—what plan he had—was to force her into admitting the truth, the truth Jack had uncovered. The truth she’d so artfully kept from him, her protector and would-be husband. He’d intended to shock her, to use that truth itself to chastise her, to embarrass her into admitting all; he’d imagined she’d succumb to virginal fluster long before now.
Still convinced she would, that at any second she’d panic, call a halt, and admit all, he reached for her. Closing his hands about her slender shoulders, feeling the fine silk of her nightgown slide over the soft skin beneath, he drew her to him.
Slowly, steadily, totally deliberately.
He looked into her face.
No hint of fear, of panic—of anything remotely resembling the frantic, embarrassed fluster he expected— showed in her features.
Quite the opposite. She was finally looking at him, studying his eyes, his face; her expression seemed almost serene, almost glowing.
Her eyes searched; her hands slid up to frame his face, then slid farther, her arms twining about his neck.
Abruptly losing patience, he pulled her to him.
Fully against him, body to body with only a fine layer of silk between.
He hadn’t counted on the shock affecting him.
For one instant, the world about them rocked, quaked, then settled not quite as it had been before. His lungs seized; every muscle tensed; every nerve came alive.
Impulses—powerful, primitive, and sure—rose and rushed through him; his head spun.
He heard her breath catch. He looked into her eyes. Saw something like wonder in her expression.
Their gazes touched, held.
For three long heartbeats, time stood still.
Between them, heat welled. Flames ignited, greedily grew.
Her gaze dropped to his lips.
Beyond his control, his dropped to hers.
Who made the first move he didn’t know. She lifted her head as he bent his. Their lips met.
And the fires leapt, then raged.
She pressed against him and he was lost. She opened her mouth to him, and he drowned in her bounty.
He sank against her, into her. In no way passive, she met him, her body firm and supple against his, her hands in his hair, her tongue dueling with his, inciting, inviting.
Wanting.
His control was gone before he even saw the threat. Vaporized by a need the like of which he’d never known. She was with him in want, in desire, in passion; her flagrant encouragement left no room for doubt.
Instinct claimed him, primal and unfettered. Unchained after being so long denied. He had to have her, all of her, had to have her beneath him, claimed and incontrovertibly his. It wasn’t lust that drove him, but something deeper, more powerful, something that dwelled in his heart and his soul and paid scant attention to the dictates of his brain.
Within a minute, the kiss turned ravenous; his hands hardened, fingers kneading possessively.
Alicia sensed the change in him and exulted. Her own needs unleashed for the first time in her life, she wanted all he did, wanted to experience all he and she together could be.
She’d made her decision. Or had had it made for her; she wasn’t sure, but either way she felt certain, confident beyond doubt, that this was meant to be.
The moment he’d turned to her, naked, aroused, yet somehow to her senses still unthreatening, she’d known. To her eyes, he was beautiful, incomparably male yet totally safe; never would she find another man she could trust as she trusted him—never with another would she feel the same certainty that she could go forward without fear, that she could surrender to him yet not lose herself.
That his victory would also be hers. That in his arms she would always be safe. Protected. Cared for.
Worshipped.
Despite the urgency that coursed through him, that hardened his body and shredded the veil of elegance that usually disguised his strength, that last was still apparent. His every touch was blatantly sexual, not rough but driven, forceful, demanding, even predatory, yet still each caress had only one aim, to awaken her senses and heighten their delight.