A Stolen Heart (22 page)

Alexandra had disrobed and was standing beside his bed, utterly nude, the flimsy white dress lying in a frothy pool at her feet.

He tried to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I meant for you to go behind that screen.”

Alexandra glanced toward the carved screen in one corner of the room. “Why?”

“Never mind. Just put this on,” he said gruffly, tossing the dressing gown onto the bed.

“But it’s so heavy.” Alexandra picked it up, making a face. “I don’t want to. I’m hot.”

“Just do it!”

Shrugging, Alexandra put her arms into it. The sleeves hung ludicrously over her hands, and the hem fell in a sort of train behind her. She did not close and sash it. A wide swath of white skin was exposed down the front, which was, perhaps, even more provocative than her entirely nude state had been.

Clenching his teeth, Sebastian walked to her and wrapped the robe around her, tying the sash with quick, jerky movements. When he was finished, the robe was closed, but the lapels gaped, offering a shadowy glimpse of her breasts and leaving a line open all the way down to her waist. He wished he had something better to put over her—like a tent, perhaps.

There was a knock on the door, and Sebastian opened it to his butler. Punwati, his usual imperturbable expression unchanged, set the tray on a low table and bowed, then left the room, all without casting a glance in Alexandra’s direction. Sebastian poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Alexandra.

She looked at it. “I don’t want it.”

“Drink it anyway. It will help you.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I can see that those drugs certainly did nothing for your stubbornness. Drink it.”

She set her jaw. “I’m hot, and I don’t want to drink something hot. I don’t like this thing I have on, either. I’m stifling.” She wriggled a little inside the large dressing gown.

Sebastian ground his teeth and muttered a few heartfelt curses.

“Oh, all right,” Alexandra acceded grumpily. “I’ll drink it.” She took the cup from him and drank from it. “But you have to do something, too.”

She set the cup aside and came to stand only inches from him. She looked into his face. Sebastian could feel the heat of her body; he could not get out of his mind the picture of her slim body, naked before she had slipped on his dressing gown. He imagined the satin lining of his robe against her skin, caressing her with each movement.

He took a step back, reminding himself that she would not be looking at him this way or standing so close if she were not drugged. “All right.” He cleared his throat. “What do you want me to do?”

“Kiss me.”

He stared. It felt as if all the air had been suddenly sucked out of his lungs. “Alexandra, no. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do. You want something. I want something.”

“Alexandra, this is mad. You’ll—we’ll both regret it.”

“Why?” She went up a little on her toes, lifting her face toward him.

“I—I forget.”

Alexandra put her hands on his stomach, and his skin twitched beneath his shirt. He could remember with great clarity the way her hands had felt on his skin in the carriage. He knew he ought to pull back.

Instead, he kissed her.

A
LEXANDRA’S LIPS MELTED AGAINST HIS
,
their breaths mingled, and with a shudder, Sebastian pulled her to him, his mouth grinding into hers. His hands slid down her back and cupped her buttocks, lifting her up and into him, moving her against the thick ridge of his desire. Alexandra groaned and dug her fingers into his hair, moving erotically against him. Sebastian made an inarticulate noise deep in his throat and squeezed his fingers into her full, firm flesh.

Her hands came between them, and she started on his buttons. Again his brain registered hazily that he should not allow this, but the thought did not spark any action. Sebastian was too consumed with kissing her. He reveled in the tastes and textures of her, in the scent of her skin and the silken softness of her hair against his cheek.

She opened his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, and he paused long enough in his caresses to rip it the rest of the way off. Alexandra’s busy fingers went next to the dressing gown and undid the sash; then she shrugged out of the heavy gown in a single smooth gesture. It crumpled to the floor, and then it was Alexandra’s satiny skin beneath his hands, her heat searing his fingertips.

“Touch me,” she murmured, pressing herself into him. “Please, touch me.”

He could no more have resisted her plea than he could have walked away from her at that moment. His hands came around to her stomach and slid up to cup her breasts. Alexandra gasped and jerked, and her fingers dug into his hair.

“Yes. Please.”

Alexandra felt as if she were on fire. Her breasts ached for his touch; her nipples pointed and thrust toward him. And between her legs was a fierce throbbing, an unmistakable, undeniable hunger that she knew only Sebastian could satisfy. She whimpered as his fingers found her nipples and caressed them, gently squeezing and rubbing until they were as hard as pebbles, aching for something more.

He lifted her and carried her to the bed, laying her gently upon it. Then he lay beside her, propping himself on one elbow, and bent to run his tongue in a lazy circle around one nipple. Alexandra let out a choked noise, and her fingers dug into the cover beneath her. The velvet was soft upon her bare skin, unbelievably erotic as she moved upon the bed. She could not stay still as his tongue worked its magic upon her. Lightly, it teased the bud of her nipple, licking and stroking and lashing until she was digging in her heels and arching off the bed, her breath ragged in her throat. Then his mouth came down around her nipple, enclosing it in wet heat, and she shuddered in response. He began to suckle her nipple, pulling in long, lazy movements, while his tongue continued to play with the hard button.

While his mouth was busy on one creamy breast, his hand slid to her other nipple and teased it. Then he moved, trailing kisses across her chest to the other breast and took that nipple into his mouth. Alexandra moaned, feeling the pull of his mouth all through her, as if some cord ran straight from her breast to the center of her loins. His hand roamed down her body, smoothing over her flat stomach and down the sides of her legs, then up, drawing ever closer to the hot seat of her desire, until finally his fingers tangled in the thatch of hair and slid into the slick, wet folds of flesh. Alexandra groaned and began to tremble as he found her most intimate, neediest spot. Slowly he began to stroke, separating and caressing the folds, pressing and rubbing and gently arousing her. Alexandra writhed, panting, consumed by a fire she had never imagined. This was what she had ached for; this was what she wanted.

She breathed his name, arching against his hand, and he tightened upon her, his finger flickering over the tiny, slick nub that was the center of her pleasure. His tongue moved on her nipple in unison with his finger, heightening the pleasure almost past bearing. Alexandra thought that she might faint, but instead she let out a quiet scream as, suddenly, she was catapulted over the edge of her hunger into a pleasure more intense than anything she had felt before. She jerked, letting out little sobs, and Sebastian covered her mouth with his, taking her whimpers into his mouth, while his finger gently soothed and stroked until Alexandra was spent.

Alexandra looked at him dazedly. Sebastian gazed at her. Need raged in him so fiercely he could scarcely think. He wanted nothing but to be inside Alexandra, encased by her warmth, to drive to the glorious end that he knew waited for them.

He struggled to remember all the reasons he disliked and mistrusted Alexandra Ward, but none of them seemed very clear. What was clear, what was real, was the hunger that burned in him. When she had been kidnapped, he had been consumed by deadly fear and rage. Once he got her back, those violent emotions had turned into an ache to possess her that was equally fierce, exacerbated by her sensual aggression. Her beauty beckoned him like a siren’s call. Her desire made it almost irresistible. She wanted him; he wanted her. What was wrong with that?

She wasn’t thinking clearly, he reminded himself. She had obviously been drugged, not only into thinking poorly but also into feeling desire. Her sexual teasing had come not from true desire but from a false yearning created by the herb drink they had given her to make her “cooperative.”

Yet, as she put her hand on the flat of his stomach and ran it up to his chest, he wondered how he was supposed to remember that distinction. She had been playing havoc with his senses all evening, and he felt ready to explode. It wasn’t as if she were a maiden, the hunger inside him argued. She was, after all, an adventuress, not the young woman of quality she had pretended to be. And the way she had touched him this evening, the way she had kissed him, trailing her mouth all over his chest, had not been the action of an innocent.

Still, a small voice replied, that did not change the fact that she was drugged.

Sebastian closed his eyes, struggling to steady his breathing and bring his raging blood under control. Lying on the bed beside him, Alexandra watched him. She felt spent and satisfied, yet there was still something niggling at her, a feeling of incompletion. There was more, she was sure, judging from what she had seen during her stay with Madam Magdalena. The woman had told her she was going to start her education before the gentlemen arrived and had proceeded to have two men and women show Alexandra an astonishing array of things. Even though Alexandra had been hazy with drugs, she remembered them well enough.

She reached to Sebastian’s trousers, running her finger down the hard bulge there. Sebastian barely stifled a groan. “Bloody hell, woman, are you trying to drive me mad?”

“There’s more,” she began tentatively. “Don’t you want—”

“Of course I want!” he interrupted her savagely. “Do you think I’m made out of stone?”

“Then why did you pull away?” Alexandra asked, beginning to work on the buttons of his breeches.

“Because you are not competent to—to make the judgment that—” He broke off, his eyes glazing, as her fingers slipped inside his breeches and grazed along his flesh.

“What judgment?” Alexandra could feel the heat inside her that had been sated begin to stir again. Just the sight of Sebastian’s face going slack with desire was enough to arouse her.

She teased her fingers up and down the iron rod of his manhood experimentally, watching his face tighten, a flush rising from his neck. With every indication of his desire, her own built, too.

“No,” he whispered, his eyes closed, his entire being focused on the pleasurable sensations Alexandra’s fingers were creating.

“No, what?” she asked softly. His earlobe looked terribly inviting to her, and she raised herself off the bed to take it gently between her teeth. A soft grunt broke from Sebastian.

“Don’t do this….”

“Do what? This?” She snaked her tongue into his ear, and a tremor ran through him. “Or this?” She curled her fingers around him.

He sucked in a sharp breath. For a moment he hung on the brink, uncertain whether he could stop the course of the passion that was sweeping through him like an avalanche. Then, with a muttered curse, he jerked away from Alexandra and stood from the bed.

“No,” he said harshly, his face as stony as if carved from granite. “This is wrong. I will not.”

He bent and grabbed his shirt from the floor, shrugging it on as he strode to the door. Alexandra watched, too stunned to speak or move. He yanked open the door and half turned back, not looking at her. “I shall send one of the maids to help you.”

“Don’t bother,” Alexandra retorted acidly. She would like to say a great deal more, but her brain, assaulted by drugs and recently washed with passion, would not work quickly enough to make sense of the hurt and fury that were pouring through her. He was out the door before she could say anything else.

So she had to content herself with throwing every pillow from the bed after him. Then she threw herself facedown on the velvet cover and gave way to tears.

A
LEXANDRA WOKE LATE THE NEXT
morning. Her head ached fiercely, and her mouth tasted as if she had been eating ashes. Letting out a groan, she sat up slowly. She rubbed a hand over her face. It felt strangely disconnected from her.

There was a knock at the door, and she realized that that must have been what had awakened her. “Yes?” She croaked the word out, pulling the sheet up to cover her naked front.

A fresh-faced maid opened the door and stuck her head inside. “Good, you’re up.”

Alexandra wondered how she could have been anything else with the woman banging on the door, but she managed to keep her sour mood to herself and nodded. The girl moved the rest of the way into the room, closing the door after her, and came to the bed. Her face was agog with curiosity, her eyes taking in every detail of Alexandra’s appearance. Alexandra suspected that the girl would be the queen of the servants’ hall at mealtime as she regaled them with her story of the strange woman in the master’s bedroom. No doubt they would relegate her to the realm of fallen women. If only they knew!

The maid carried a dress across her arms, with a small pile of undergarments atop it. “His lordship said I was to bring you these clothes and to help you dress. I wouldn’t have disturbed you, but he said that your aunt would be getting worried.”

“Yes, of course.” Alexandra experienced a stab of guilt at the realization that she had not even thought of her aunt and the poor woman’s state of mind. She remembered vaguely that Thorpe had sent Aunt Hortense a message that she was all right, but that alone would not be enough to keep her from worrying. And what about her mother?

She flushed with shame. She had asked Thorpe about Rhea, and after that she had not given her a second thought. She had been too consumed in her passion for Thorpe to devote any time to anyone else. Alexandra groaned, burying her face in her hands. She had been such a fool last night! How would she ever be able to look Lord Thorpe in the face again? He must think her a veritable doxie now, she thought. His opinion of her was low enough, and now she had thrown herself at him, practically begged him to bed her, indulged in the most wanton behavior. What must he think of her?

“Are you all right, miss?” the maid asked in some concern.

Alexandra raised her head to meet the girl’s gaze. “Yes. Well, I’ve felt better, but no doubt it will improve.”

She let the maid help her dress—although she would have preferred to be alone, it was difficult to do up the buttons down the back without help—but then she sent her away, telling her that she would deal with her hair herself. She brushed her hair quickly, ignoring the pain that jerking through her tangled curls brought to her already beleaguered head. It seemed, somehow, just punishment for her foolish behavior the night before. She had thrown herself at a man who clearly did not return her passion—indeed, he thoroughly disliked her, thinking her a lying swindler.

It would have been nice, she thought, to have blamed her actions on the drug that Madam Magdalena had given her, but Alexandra was too honest for that. The drug had certainly taken away her inhibitions, allowing her to act in ways that pride and embarrassment would never have allowed her to normally. However, Alexandra knew that the desire upon which she had acted was very real, indeed. She had felt the passion and was sure she would have felt it without having taken the slightest thing. All the drug had done was make her act out what she really felt.

She remembered with a deep, burning shame the way Thorpe had left the room last night, turning her down flat. He had obviously not felt the sort of raging desire she did. No doubt it had been very embarrassing for him to have to deal with her advances.

She drew a shaky breath. Well, there was nothing she could do now except go on. She would thank Thorpe for his help and try to ignore what had happened.

Alexandra finished brushing her hair and pinned it up with hairpins brought by the efficient maid. It was not the best arrangement, she thought, but it would have to do. She looked in the mirror, her eyes going to the dress she wore. She smoothed down the rose pink skirt. It was slightly out of fashion, but the color was good on her, complementing her complexion. It was a woman’s color, not the insipid white that made up almost the entire wardrobe of the young, unmarried British girls. In all likelihood it had belonged to someone in her twenties or older, probably a married woman—and someone shorter and smaller than Alexandra, given the length of the skirt and the tightness of the fit across the bust. Who could have left a dress in Thorpe’s house?