Yet it was a battle he could not lose.
Glancing across the darkened room, he watched Alicia, sitting at her dressing table, brush out her long hair.
He couldn’t even contemplate conceding a minor skirmish; there was too much here that was now too precious to him.
Yanking his shirt from his waistband, he looked down, started sliding buttons free. Beneath the loosening linen, he shifted his shoulders, aware of muscles subtly easing in one way, tensing in another. A primitive want welling as the civilized screen fell.
I want him.
Dalziel’s tone had been lethal, yet no more than an echo of his own resolve. Whatever it took, he would find A. C. and ensure he was brought to justice. The villain had focused on Alicia, struck at her not once but multiple times; for him, there could be no rest until A. C. was caught.
Yet they did not, after weeks of searching, even know his name.
He shrugged off his shirt and felt the last shreds of social restraint fall from him. For a long moment, he stood, his shirt bunched in his hands, staring unseeing at the floor, inwardly watching the volcano of his emotions surge and swell.
The scraping of wood on wood snapped him out of his state. Alicia stood, pushing back her dressing stool.
He dropped his shirt on the chair; unbidden, he padded barefoot across the room to help with her laces.
She glanced at his face, then gave him her back. He could feel his need building; rapidly, with far less than his customary languid sophistication, he unpicked the knots, hooked the laces free.
He glanced up, met her gaze in the mirror.
Saw that she’d sensed the change in him.
She searched his face, then looked down.
Normally, he would have stepped back, given her space to remove her gown…he didn’t move.
Nor did she. Instead, she looked up, again met his eyes.
Her gaze was direct, questioning, waiting.
He dragged in a slow, deep breath, and reached for her.
Stripped the gown from her, let it and her chemise pool about her feet. Murmured darkly as he stepped close and wrapped his arms about her, locking her silken back to his bare chest, spreading his hands and claiming her glorious bounty. He shifted evocatively against her. Bending his head, he whispered, half in French, half in English, asking her to put her foot on the stool and remove her ruched garters and silk stockings.
Her breath shuddered as she breathed in, and complied.
While she did…he let his hands roam. Let them take and claim as his need willed, set his senses free to wallow and seize all she surrendered to him, would surrender to him, in that moment, and the moments to come.
One arm crossing her body, his palm covering one breast, fingers evocatively kneading, with his other hand, he lightly gripped her nape; as she bent forward to roll the first garter and stocking down, he traced her supple spine, possessively stroking down, over the back of her waist, through the indentation below it, smoothly stroking over the swell of her bottom, down and around to caress the soft, slickly swollen flesh between her thighs.
With one foot on the stool, she was open to him. He parted the soft folds and found her, flagrantly caressed, then worked two fingers deep.
By the time she’d paused, gathered herself, changed legs, when she finally dropped the second stocking to the floor, Alicia was hot, wet and quivering with need.
Her foot still on the stool, her body riding the repetitive probing of his fingers, she looked into the mirror, from under heavy lids met his gaze.
Breasts swollen and full, peaks tight and aching, her skin heated, her breathing already ragged, she waited.
Withdrawing his hand, he grasped her waist; the instant she straightened and her foot touched the floor, he turned her.
She’d expected something else. Instead, he stepped back, drawing her with him, with one hand unbuttoning the flap of his trousers, the only clothing he still wore.
The backs of his thighs hit the bed. He paused only to free his fully engorged staff from the folds of his trousers, then he lifted her. Ignoring her smothered gasp, he sat and brought her slowly down, setting her on her knees astride his hips.
With the broad head of his staff nudging into her body.
She could feel him there, throbbing, sense the promise of all that was to come. The hot, aching emptiness within her swelled.
She looked into his face, into his black, fathomless eyes. Raising her hands, she framed his face as his hands closed hard about her hips. Under mutual direction, their lips met. Clung, held.
Beneath his control she sensed all he held back, sensed the power, the desperate need.
She shifted fractionally on him. He caught his breath, broke from the kiss. Screened by their lashes, their eyes met.
He whispered against her lips, his breath a hot flame. “Take me. Give yourself to me.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “Be mine.”
Gravelly, rough, another seduction, a dark temptation to a deeper level of giving.
She didn’t hesitate. Drawing in a breath, tightening her hands about his face to anchor her, she angled her head, set her lips to his, and slowly eased down.
Inch by slow inch, she took him inside her, gloried in the feel of him filling her, stretching her. She’d never before been so aware of how her body closed about him, enclasped him. Took him in.
His hands were hard as iron about her hips as he ruthlessly guided her down; he let her set the pace only until he was fully seated within her, then he took the reins, took control, and the giving began.
Hard, hot, and complete.
Without restrictions, limits, or reservations.
Their bodies merged deeply, compulsively riding a wave of sensual desire higher than any before, a tide of need more desperately urgent, more powerful. More addictive.
Their tongues tangled, their mouths feeding in frenzy. He took her as he would, seizing and claiming every sense she possessed, demanding more even as she gave him all.
In the end, on a gasp, she surrendered completely, opened her body, her soul, her heart, and let him plunder.
Let him capture, take, and make her his.
Beyond all thought. Beyond all denial.
Beyond this world.
She was his. Forever. He would never allow anyone to take her from him.
When he slumped back on the bed, drained, replete, to the very depths of his soul sated, the darker side of his nature for the moment wholly satisfied, as he tumbled her down with him, then kicked off his trousers and wrapped them in the covers, those were the only thoughts to cross Tony’s mind.
They were the only thoughts that mattered.
SIXTEEN
IN THE DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN, ALICIA STIRRED.
Awareness slunk into her brain. Her body still thrummed; her hair was a wild tangle, a fine net ensaring them, wrapped about the muscled arm lying protectively about her. Eyes closed, she lay still, safe, secure, warm. Freed by the night, by the silence, her thoughts crept from the corners of her mind, dwelling on the strange twist her life had taken—the deception she’d never intended to practice, not on so many, not to this degree.
The role of her own making now haunted her.
Not in her wildest dreams had she expected to rise to such social prominence, never imagined calling so many of the powerful friend. Yet in her and her family’s time of need, they’d come to her aid—how could she now draw back from them, from the protection they’d so generously offered?
Thanks to A. C. and his latest attempt to cast all suspicion on her, she couldn’t even slip away, fade from the scene. She had to remain, head high, and face down his rumors, at least for the next weeks.
Had to continue to pretend she was the widow she was not, while parading through the haut ton, the subject of the latest on-dit, the central character in the most amazing, attention-getting story.