My Lady Rival (26 page)

She didn’t feel fragile. She felt a mistress of pleasure, given to complete abandon as her lover knelt between her legs, her ankle lifted high to his chest as he bent his head with the greatest attentiveness. Willa’s hands had fallen from his head the lower he descended, and she raised her arms above her head, exposing herself from the tips of her fingers to the soles of her feet. Her cheeks were heated, flushed, as she watched him place a final kiss on her foot, then slide up again to start with the other leg.

A s he performed the same attentions to that leg, the flush in her cheeks began to travel downward. It burned her chest and left her breasts even fuller, her nipples even harder. The flush heated her belly, pulling low in her abdomen. She knew it slicked the flesh between her thighs. She could feel herself aching, wanting, there. It ran down her legs like twin streaks of flame, causing her thighs to quiver, the ankle he held to jerk in his hands.

His gaze flew to hers, and she wondered if he felt the same flush. His eyes were hot, his brows lowered as he lowered her leg, as though he’d been so consumed in touching her that he’d forgotten she watched. “Turn over,” he rasped.

Willa obeyed, and she was more graceful in that one fluid motion than she’d ever been in her life. She was powerful, confident, invincible, seductive. She was everything he believed her to be.

She held herself on her hands and knees, and he groaned behind her. “No. Lie flat on your stomach.”

Willa slid up the bed, like a cat stretching, the simple cotton fabric of the sheet beneath her suddenly like a silk or satin caress. A ir surrounded her where the bed did not; she was fully naked, fully exposed, and fully unashamed. She was wanted.

He wanted her.

There was a long, silent moment once she lay down on her stomach. He didn’t stir or make a sound, but she could feel his regard on her skin, like the prickling, stir or make a sound, but she could feel his regard on her skin, like the prickling, heart-stuttering awareness from a lion’s stare.

She swallowed. “A lex?”

Willa trembled. She could hear him breathing behind her, hard and fast, and she closed her eyes. Endlessly needing, endlessly aching.

“Please,” she said, even though it wasn’t allowed. “Please take me, A lex.” Only the slightest pause came before: “On your hands and knees again.” She quickly complied, no longer worrying with grace when she burned so hotly.

The blood hummed in her veins, and her heart felt like it might burst from her chest at any moment. The waiting, the patience, would kill her.

His hand moved to her back, resting upon her hair before sweeping it to the side. It fell in a curtain past her shoulder, obscuring half her vision. Willa looked up; she had been looking down before, at the mattress. Before her was nothing more than a headboard—a plain, dark wooden headboard. It held no ornamentation, no scrolls or fancy work. It would lay smooth and cool beneath one’s palms . . . hard and unforgiving against one’s head.

His hand—hot against her spine, callused and large—smoothed down her back.

Both hands settled at her hips and pulled her backward, urging her toward him and away from the headboard.

His cock brushed against her buttocks, then was gone, replaced by the firm muscles of his chest as he leaned over her and pressed his mouth to the vulnerable skin right below her spine and above her buttocks. Willa nearly cried out—both from the disappearance of his cock and the sensual touch of his kiss.

She hissed with pleasure when his fingers stroked between her thighs.

He hissed, too. “You’re so wet. So fucking wet.”

His finger plunged deep inside her and she screamed, pushing against him and arching her back. He must have lost all patience then, too, for after this reaction he pulled his hand away to settle on her hips once more and she felt his cock at her lips.

Her arms shook beneath her. There was a silent, unspoken question.

“Now, A lex.”

She’d taken over control again; she suspected it had been when he asked her to roll over. A t her command, he drove his cock inside.

“Oh, God. Oh, please,” she begged, gasping.

He reached around her thighs and stroked her again, and the flush which had been building since he’d kissed down her body exploded from the inside out, sending heat shuddering through every nerve and vein. Willa’s head hung limp between her shoulders as her muscles clenched and trembled, as A lex pounded against her again and again, building more ecstasy upon an already peaked crescendo.

His fingers dug into the flesh at her hips, holding her tight and steady for his own pleasure as he drove in and out, groaning, every few seconds moaning her name.

Don’t leave me.

Don’t leave me.

It was a foolish thing to think, an even more foolish thing to say. So she didn’t.

A nd when he suddenly thrust away from her, leaving her naked and alone on her hands and knees as he poured himself on the bed behind her, she simply collapsed to her stomach and stared at the lamp.

A wetness slid down her cheek, and she reached to quickly swipe the tear away, before he could see.

Soon he was beside her on the bed, his arm wrapping around her as he tried to pull her against him. He nuzzled her neck. “Everything and more than I dreamed.” His arm tightened around her waist. “Shall I hold you again?” Willa nodded, then tried to get up. “Let me extinguish the lamp.”

“No, let me look at you.”

“A ll right.” Settling back against him, she listened to the sound of his breathing near her ear, concentrated on the circles he traced beneath her breasts with the pads of his fingers.

A nd in that moment as he held her, Willa realized she had never felt so happy.

Or so immensely desolate.

Miss Willa Stratton: Greedy. Impatient. Very, very hopeless.

Alex sat in the main room of the Three Crowns the next morning, waiting for Willa to descend from her chamber. He’d watched her fall asleep, then rose quietly so he wouldn’t wake her as he returned to his own room. It was difficult to leave her. It shouldn’t have been.

The pair of men at the table beside him stopped discussing the various issues with their sheep’s dung—thankfully—and began whispering. “Well, look’ee there.”

“Now, that’s a sunrise I wouldn’t mind waking up to each morning.” A lex’s gaze jerked toward the staircase. Willa walked down the last few steps, her hand gracefully sliding along the banister, her back straight like a queen’s, and her chin held high. She was as common as any street rat, as common as he, and yet with her bearing and confidence it was no wonder she mingled among the aristocracy well. She appeared born to marry a lord, to breed an heir and multiple other ladies and honorables.

God, he’d made a mistake. He should never have kissed her again, never written those letters, never gone to her bedchamber, not even if he’d discovered the secret of alchemy. If he’d simply forgotten and ignored her as best he could, it was possible he wouldn’t now be burning for her again or desperately desiring to maim and mutilate her future unnamed, faceless husband.

She is not for me.

She had money but not the connections or influence needed to grow the business of Laurie & Sons. Even with the nonsaturation process working, he needed the aristocracy to fulfill his vision of its success. She couldn’t give his family legitimacy and help his other siblings make aristocratic marriages. Not to mention the fact that she was her father’s daughter, his greatest rival. She’d proven her loyalty three years ago when she’d stolen his secrets in Italy. That truth, if nothing else, removed her as a choice for anything beyond one night in a bed at an inn in a small village in Northamptonshire.

He’d been her lover, but he couldn’t marry her. He couldn’t even be her friend.

A t that moment Willa turned toward him, the most beautiful, open, lovely smile upon her face. The men at the table beside him stared, speechless, and for a moment A lex did the same, his chest tightening, every pore soaking in that smile as if she truly were the sun and her smile the sun’s rays.

He couldn’t blame himself for wanting her; any man with breath in his body would. But he should have stayed away despite the temptation. She might be his rival, but she deserved better. She deserved a man who would throw everything at her feet and desert all just to make her happy.

at her feet and desert all just to make her happy.

Sprawling back, A lex hooked an arm over the back of his chair. “Good morning, dear sister.” He couldn’t be charming—she might think he was encouraging a relationship. He couldn’t banter with her as before—the heat between them turned to fire too quickly. But he could be negligent. He could pretend like she meant nothing at all.

“Good morning, A lex,” she replied, her smile still as bright.

“Did you eat breakfast?”

“Yes, thank you for having it sent up. That was very thoughtful.” He’d done it deliberately. More time for them to spend apart. The question now, of course, was why he’d waited for her at the inn instead of going to the factory to work more on the nonsaturation.

They stared at each other, memories of the previous evening exchanged in their gazes. Knowing they couldn’t return to where they’d been before, but also knowing they had no future together. It should have been a relief that she understood the role she would play, and yet he was inexplicably disappointed that she didn’t ask for more, that she didn’t even hint at marriage. A s if he meant nothing to her, either.

“Well.” A lex planted his hands on the table. “Shall we go?” He helped her inside the carriage he’d had waiting for their short journey to the mill, then climbed inside after her. If he sat beside her rather than on the opposite side as he should have, it was only because he truly did despise riding backward—

not because he took any pleasure from her nearness.

A s soon as the groom closed the door behind him, A lex turned his head to stare out the window on the carriage door.

“You’re very quiet,” she said.

A lex tensed. He didn’t reply. He barely breathed. But he did begin to hum.

“Is this how it’s meant to be, then? A couple of romps and then we ignore each other?” Her voice wasn’t harsh; it wasn’t even judgmental. Hell, he wished it had been. Instead, she was quite, quite cheerful.

She laughed, a merry, pleased sound—as if he’d done something greatly amusing. A lex shifted his gaze toward her, wary.

“Come, A lex, do not believe me to be one of the young debutantes. I am six and twenty, an old, wise woman. We had our fun, didn’t we? There’s no need to act as if I mean to throw myself at your feet at any moment, begging for a pledge from you. A lthough, if you were so inclined to beg at my feet, that should be something I’d like to see.”

She grinned at him, teasing him for his fears, his anxiety. She wouldn’t ask for more from him; she didn’t want to give him anything, either. With her jaunty yellow hat perched at an angle on her head, a smart yellow-and-white pinstriped walking dress showcasing the tiny circumference of her waist and the creamy-white skin at her throat, she was happy sophistication, optimistic and without a care in the world.

He should have felt relieved that she knew him so well and saw through him so He should have felt relieved that she knew him so well and saw through him so easily. Instead he wanted to kiss that happy, content, I-don’t-give-a-damn smile off her face.

Without a word, he leaned forward and took her face between his palms.

“A lex? What are—?”

He ravished her mouth, sealing his lips to hers, battling her tongue with his, giving her no quarter, no space to breathe, seeking to brand her so that she would never be able to dismiss him so easily again. She didn’t fight or stiffen as he might have expected. Instead, her hands clutched at the front of his coat and little moans issued from her throat, urging him on, speaking for her pleasure.

A lex tore his mouth from hers, unable to catch his breath. No other woman had ever made him feel so demanding, so possessive, so desperate. He’d always been able to enjoy the moment and charm the woman, then walk away. Not now. Not with her.

Forcing a smile to his face, he pulled his hands away only with the greatest amount of discipline. “You’re correct. You don’t taste like a debutante, either.” She blushed, lifting her hands to right the hat he’d set askew. “Thank you for the appraisal. I’m almost afraid to ask what that means. Do I taste old and wise?” His gaze lowered to her lips, and when he spoke, he spoke to seduce, to arouse.

It came easily now, his intention not to manipulate but to show her his desire. He could give her that, at least. “On the contrary. You taste like the sweetest nectar, beautiful and ripe. I believe you could quickly become an addiction, Willa, if a man weren’t careful.”

He slid closer to her. Deftly removed the pins of her hat and laid both hairpiece and accessories at his other side. Lifted her from the seat and settled her over his lap, one arm braced around her back and the other settled across her thighs. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, and I’ll let you go,” he said, noting the flutter of her pulse at her throat. He rubbed her back in small, soothing circles.

She stared at him with her large blue eyes, stray wisps of hair floating above her head where the pins had once helped to tuck them down. She sat rigid in his arms, so different from the woman who’d opened herself to him last night with such generosity and desire. “I don’t want you to kiss me,” she said.

“Liar.”

He kissed her, anyway.

There was, Willa decided, such a thing as an A lex kiss. Whether he was slow or savage, passionate or teasing, whether it was a peck, a brush, or a long, consuming kiss, he made her feel that she’d been nothing more than a dry piece of kindling waiting for his touch, then set aflame and burning as soon as his mouth touched hers.

I need you.

Thank God she didn’t say that aloud. Neither did she tell him how she resented him for the need. Nor how, after more than two years of trying to escape from the loneliness presented when her brother finally became a man and her father the loneliness presented when her brother finally became a man and her father began to depend on him instead of her, A lex’s arms finally felt like a place she could stay. She was tired of traveling, tired of trying to impress her father when she could never measure in his eyes as a son could and . . . tired of running. The only honesty she’d allowed herself recently was that she’d rather have a family, a home. Not because her brother had one of his own, but because she remembered her mother stroking her hair at night with her fingers and singing her lullabies.