Memories of why he sought comfort in this particular room assailed him. It was in this very room he’d so often found solace—oblivion—at the bottom of a glass of rum. When all the rum was gone, he’d start on the whiskey. He had spent hours in a day—days on end sinking deeper and deeper under its spell. But not anymore. But damn, he needed a drink.
Damn her!
Tugging off his necktie, Alex pushed himself back into the sloping pocket of the high backed chair. His mouth curved into a cynical smile. The duke would think he’s been handed heaven on earth when he learned about Nicholas. A living replica of his late beloved son would be like a dream come true. His mother, in her own dramatic fashion, would clutch her hands to her chest and cry copious tears. The ton, of course, would not only relish the scandal, they’d all but wallow in it. Something else to befall the future Duke of Hastings whose misfortunes had begun even before he’d been jilted at the altar. They’d practically rub their hands in glee.
Damn her!
This time, Alex refused to allow it to get that far.
“Alfred!”
Seconds later, his butler appeared in the doorway. “Yes sir?”
“Where is Conrad?” Alex inquired of his steward.
“He’s—”
“Never mind that. Instruct him to arrange a meeting for me with Mr. Reynolds on the morrow. Tell him the matter is urgent.” Bloody hell, at the moment not only did he require the counsel of a solicitor, he needed a vicar. Not to mention a constable to prevent him from wringing her deceitful, lying neck the next time they met, which would be soon enough. Sooner than she could ever imagine.
“I shall inform him directly, sir,” Alfred replied, but made no move to leave.
Alex shot him an arched look. The last time his butler had worn that particular look of consternation was two and a half years ago, during one of Alex’s more memorable drinking binges.
For failing to monitor the inventory of the rapidly diminishing alcohol closely enough, Alfred had suffered the indignity of having his capabilities, and worse yet, his hearing called into question. Didn’t you hear me when I told you I needed more rum? If you weren’t so quick to run off, you’d take heed to half of the things I ask of you. Sober, Alex had apologized for his tirade. That had been three days later.
Now, Alfred never missed a word or a syllable, always fastidiously awaiting a nod of dismissal before departing. Alex curtly obliged him.
~*~*~
Charlotte’s chemise was not removed but caressed from her trembling body. Cotton linens woven so tightly, she thought it was satin or silk against her skin as she lay spread like a wanton on her back, her hands kneading and caressing sinewy muscles and damp flesh.
His fingers traced her nipple in slow, delicious concentration. Her back arched as her fingers bit deeper into his shoulders. Heat ripped a fiery path from her breasts, down the dip in her belly, and then set fire to the notch between her thighs. The wanting was excruciating madness, yet she knew she would die if he stopped.
“Does it feel good? Do you like it?” he asked, his voice rough with desire, his gray eyes dark with passion.
His breath fluttered on her nape and his finger continued its erotic dance with her nipple, reducing her to inarticulate gasps and moans.
She yearned. She writhed. So desperate was she to find surcease from the ache building and spiraling inside her, she was ready to beg for completion.
“Open for me,” he said, before lowering his head, and drawing a pink, beaded nipple into his mouth. His cheeks hollowed as he began to suckle. The chamber echoed her cry of delight and her moan of satisfaction. With knees bent and her feet flat on the mattress, her legs fell open in eager anticipation and welcome.
Easing his finger into her opening, he found her slick, hot and tight. Soon another finger joined. Charlotte thrust her fisted hand into her mouth to muffle a scream. His withdrawal caused pleasure to scorch every inch of her sensitive inner flesh. Then he plunged back in. Helplessly, her hips began to move in counter point to his sumptuous thrusts. Soon his fingers weren’t enough for either of them.
While he suckled her breast, pausing often to nip at her tip with teeth and tongue, he replaced his fingers with his erection. There was no easing or inexorable push, just a hard thrust, seating himself as far as he could go. Overwhelmed by the force of his possession, Charlotte whimpered, and then let out a gusty sigh of relief, of unadulterated pleasure. Her inner muscles clamped down on him hard.
He groaned low and long. “God, don’t move.” He wore an expression that ran the line between exquisite pleasure and torture. But Charlotte couldn’t halt the undulation of her hips as she urged him deeper, hotter. Her soft pants filled the sex-humid air. His ragged groans joined hers as he set a rhythmic pace, thrusting heavily into her with long, smooth strokes. His tongue occupied her mouth like a lusty invader, kissing her until he learned all the hidden crevices of her hungry mouth and she did his.
For endless minutes, they mated with the intensity and avariciousness of new lovers, or old lovers who’d been too long apart. The chamber walls echoed their whimpers, moans and the hard slapping of damp flesh, intent on the climb to satisfaction.
As the precipice grew closer, he tore his mouth from hers, panting and making guttural sounds deep in his throat. His hands made forays around her breast and belly, roamed down further and found the hidden nub between her moist folds, and flicked it as he continued to pound into her, obliterating her every thought but the need for more. More of him. More of his touch. More of everything.
He shifted his hips, and the new angle and his finger on the source of her desire catapulted her up until she was soaring and exploding in a shuddering mass. She convulsed and heaved while he found his own release, before her glide back down to earth.
“Oh God, Alex. Alex,” she chanted into his neck when he slumped atop her, his chest heaving for his next breath. Her hands clutched his muscled shoulders, and slid down to the sweaty expanse of his back to pull him close.
And then he was gone.
Her arms lay empty on the tangled white bedsheets. Charlotte reached out again with an urgency that bordered on desperation, endeavoring to stop the panic from consuming her. Again she found nothing. That’s when the pain came and she embraced it with harsh, desolate sobs.
“Alex. Alex. Alex,” she cried out in the dark.
Charlotte came awake with a start, her heart a stampede of horses thundering over America’s wide-open plains. It took her a moment to get her bearings and catch her breath. She was in England in her old bedchamber. Tears wound their way down across her temples and settled into the cavity of her ears.
She had dreamed him again. Alex and their last time together. The tears rolled their course faster. The dream now came with a frequency that frightened her. For two weeks now, it had made its nightly sojourn into her sleep.
She’d woken up hot, her senses acute and overwrought, but now the coldness seeped into every pore despite the warmth of her bedchamber. The dreams always left her this way, chilled and dissatisfied. But tonight there was something else, a prickly uneasiness. It was then she realized the source of her disquiet wasn’t the residual effects of her dream but something based firmly in reality.
Charlotte heard a slight movement to her right. She bolted upright, her hands clutching the counterpane close to her chest. In the darkened chamber, she could only make out the shape of someone—a man—reposed in the chair close to the fireplace.
Fear so effectively gripped her by the throat, all she could manage was a gurgled exhalation, not the bloodcurdling scream that would bring in the cavalry.
“Don’t scream,” a male voice instructed her softly.
For a moment Charlotte was convinced her ears were playing some sort of cruel trick on her. Had she conjured his voice up from her dream? Was she that bad off?