He held her to their kiss, tongues tangling, mouths merged.
Held her on his lap, naked and exposed, more vulnerable in the moonlight than she’d ever been.
More his.
All his.
When he finally released her lips and returned his attentions to her breasts, she let her head fall back, eyes closed.
Tensing as he again teased her nipples until they ached, then suckled anew, hard enough to make her fight to swallow a scream.
The next time, she lost the fight.
He was lifting her, working her on him, around him; simultaneously he was feasting at her breasts. She couldn’t take much more stimulation, more of the sensations he was ruthlessly pressing on her, heightened, made infinitely more powerful by their position.
She licked her lips, managed to gasp, “Take me to the bed.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “No. Here. Like this.”
His voice, all she could hear in it, very nearly made her weep.
With joy, with a pleasure that was far beyond the physical.
Need—simple, abiding, far deeper than she’d expected.
Never before had he been like this, never before had he dropped all pretence, every last vestige of sophistication, and allowed her to see so far, so clearly, to see that naked need. To know by her own experience so no lingering doubt could remain what truly drove him.
I love you.
She wanted to say the words. They welled in her chest, pushed up through her throat, but she swallowed them. If she told him that…
She had no wits left with which to think; instinct was her only guide. So she left the words unsaid, sobbed instead as her body started to convulse.
And he slowed.
Thrust harder, deeper, but slower.
So she felt every tiny slither as her senses unraveled, felt every last fraction of her helplessness as she climaxed more powerfully than she ever had before.
Tony raised his head and watched her, her ivory limbs silvered by the moonlight as she came apart in his arms. He drank in the sight, one he’d needed, one the prowling beast inside him had simply had to have.
Sunk to the hilt in her body, bathed in its scalding heat, he set his jaw and relentlessly drove her through the longest, most extended climax he’d ever forced on any woman. The soft strangled cries that fell from her lips were balm to his raging soul; the ripples of her release, the contractions that beckoned, her body helplessly gripping and releasing his erection, soothed that most primitive side of him.
It would be an easy matter to finish with her there, but that wasn’t what he wanted. Tonight he needed more.
He waited until her muscles relaxed, until she was limp, wholly pliant in his arms. Then he lifted her from him, simultaneously stood, and carried her to the bed. He laid her on the coverlet, then stepped back and stripped off his clothes.
Then he joined her.
Propped beside her, he ran a hand down over her back, over the smooth globes of her bottom. Slowly, surely, he roused her again, then positioned her curled over her knees before him. He entered her slowly, eyes closed, savoring every fraction of an inch as her soft, swollen sheath closed about him.
Then he rode her.
Slowly at first, then without restraint.
Until she was sobbing, hair threshing as she struggled for breath, incoherent in her need, totally wild, completely wanton.
She was usually neither; that last rein of restraint she’d not before released had snapped, broken.
He savored every second of her abandonment, of her complete and absolute surrender, listened to her cries as she fell from the peak—then found his own surrender beckoning.
This time he went willingly. He knew, in some dark corner of his mind, just what he’d been doing. Knew it wouldn’t work.
Didn’t care.
He’d had to do it—to show her all there was, to tempt that side of her he didn’t think she realized she possessed. She was a deeply sensual woman, but exploring her sensuality, opening her eyes to its true nature, had only more clearly demonstrated his own weakness, his own vulnerability.
This was one battlefield on which he was helpless. This was one fight in which there was no enemy.
Only surrender.
On a groan, he did, gave her all he was, all he could ever be.
Spent, he collapsed, then gathered her to him. He’d given her far more than his body. He’d lost his soul. And his heart. And perhaps even more.
TWENTY
HE LEFT ALICIA’S SIDE JUST AFTER DAWN, EARLIER THAN recent habit but after last night, he wanted nothing more than to have done with A. C.
After last night…he had even less idea what was wrong between them. Something, yes, but he’d be damned if he had a clue. If he pushed, twelve hours might result in them unmasking A. C., then he would be free to devote himself to the most important endeavor of his life—wooing Alicia, even winning her anew, if that’s what was required.
Frowning, he left his apartments. After last night, he could hardly have missed the fact that she was as he’d hoped, openly, generously, totally his. If that was so, then what else was there? From where did their problem, whatever it was, spring?
Confusion reigned. Reaching Alicia’s door, he determinedly put it from him, turned the knob, and entered.
She was still asleep. He sat on the bed and looked down at her, then gently shook her shoulder.
“Hmm?” She opened her eyes; he notched up her lack of surprise when she focused on him as a minor victory.
“I’m off to hunt down A. C. We’re breakfasting at the club to work out our best approach. We need to learn who owns Ellicot, then proceed from there, but whatever we do—”
“You have to make sure you don’t alert A. C.” She was wide-awake now, studying his face, her gaze earnest but watchful.
He hesitated; he wanted to say something about last night, about them, but didn’t know what, and couldn’t find the words.
“Stay on guard.” Squeezing her hand, he rose. “If we stumble and alert him, I’d expect him to run, but…he’s kept his head until now.”
“We’ll be careful.” She struggled up on her elbows.
“Good.” Backing, he raised a hand in farewell. She was naked beneath the covers, now sliding slowly down; he didn’t trust himself to kiss her, and stop at just a kiss. Last night had left them both with enough to think about.
“I’ll be back this evening, if not before.”
She nodded. “Take care.”
At the door, he glanced back and saw her watching him. He inclined his head, and left.
Closing the door, he turned. David, Harry, and Matthew stood shoulder to shoulder across the corridor staring unblinkingly up at him.
“I was just telling Alicia where I’d be today.”
“Oh.” David considered his reply to their unspoken question, then nodded and turned to the stairs. “Are you going down to breakfast?”
Harry and Matthew swung around and followed.
Drawing a relieved breath, Tony fell in in their wake. “No—I have to go out straightaway.”
Reaching the stairs, David and Harry clattered down.
Matthew stopped and turned to him. “Are you going to marry Alicia?”
Tony looked down into the big eyes fixed innocently on his face. “Yes. Of course.”
The other boys had stopped halfway down to listen; now they whooped joyously, and thundered on down.
Matthew simply smiled. “Good.” He took Tony’s hand and, with simple gravity, accompanied him down the stairs.
Two hours later, Alicia strolled the lawns in the park, alone but for Maggs, tactfully keeping watch from a distance.
All about her was quiet and serene. It was too early for the fashionable throng; a few latecomers were still exercising their horses on Rotten Row, but most riders had already clattered home while the matrons and their daughters had yet to arrive.