Wild Wind (11 page)

“Then why are you doing this?” he roared.

“Alex, please!” She darted an anxious glance toward the door.

Resting his hands on his hips, Alex stared into the rushes and concentrated on slowing his breathing. In a more subdued voice he asked, “Are you hoping he’ll transfer his affections from Violette to you? If so, you’re deluding yourself. He’ll love her till the day he dies.”

She turned away from him slowly, her arms wrapped around herself. “You’re so young, Alex.”

“I’m only two years younger than you.”

“Aye, but there are so many things you don’t understand.” The back of her long neck, revealed by the braids draped over her shoulders, was graceful and perfect and luminous as white marble. Oftentimes he’d been tempted to kiss it.

He took a step toward her. “I understand more than you think. I know you set your sights on Milo, encouraged him even as you spent every afternoon with me...”

She pivoted to face him. “That’s not true, Alex.”

“I may be young, but I’m not a fool either, Nicki.” He stalked toward her and she backed up, eyes wide. “Milo is a man—a man of learning—and I’m just an uneducated boy. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Nay!”

“A harmless puppy who follows you around slavishly, lavishing you with attention—”

“Nay!” she cried, stumbling backward. “Alex, please—”

“Desperate for some morsel of affection. Irritating, but slightly amusing. Is that how you think of me?”

She tried to sidestep him, but he seized her by the arms and backed her roughly against the wall. His heart drummed in his ears; his chest heaved.

“Is that what I am to you?” His gaze traveled from her face downward, lighting on the thick plaits of golden hair resting against her chest. Letting go of her arms, he wrapped one hand around each braid, high up, and slid them down slowly. The slick ropes felt heavy and cool against his palms; the white satin ribbons tickled slightly, making him shiver.

“A harmless, smooth-faced boy?” he murmured, stroking the braids downward. Against the backs of his hands, he felt the birdlike racing of her heart, the soft rise and fall of her breasts. “A boy who’s content to merely hold your hand...who would never think of doing more...”

His knuckles grazed her nipples through the sleek tunic. Her indrawn breath stirred a quickening in his loins. Moving fractionally closer to her, he glided his hands upward, back over the little crests, and down again, feeling them stiffen as he stroked them.

She closed her eyes; her throat moved as she swallowed. “Alex...”

“I think about it all the time.” Releasing the braids, he closed his hands over her breasts, all the while watching his actions from above, as if it were not he, but another man, taking such scandalous liberties with the undefiled Nicolette de St. Clair. He felt the weighty resilience of warm flesh through silk, the rigid peaks so sensitive that she gasped every time he touched them.

It was a kind of panic driving him, he realized, a frantic dread of losing what he’d shared with her—and the bitter awareness that what had been the fiercest passion to him might only have been a summer’s diversion to her. Panic turned to hunger as he fondled her—a primitive hunger, a desire to possess her, make her his.

“I lie awake at night thinking about it,” he said gruffly, lowering his head. “About you.”

“Please go,” she whispered raggedly. “You shouldn’t be here. Mama’s right—I’ll be ruined if anyone knows that you’ve been—”

Alex silenced her by closing his mouth over hers, his hands trailing upward to hold her head still when she tried to evade him. He kissed her hard, not knowing or caring whether he was doing it right, just needing the hot, sweet pressure of her mouth against his. The time for gentleness was over.

She shoved his chest. Grabbing her wrists, he pinned them against the wall. “I love you,” he breathed against her lips. “As a man loves.” He pressed himself against her, aching with need. Let her feel what she’d done to him; let her know.

She grew very still and quiet, in that way she had. “You want me. It’s not the same thing.”

“I want you and I love you.”

“Alex, I...” She shook her head. “I’m not the woman you think I am. There are things about me you don’t know. You’re better off without me.”

Alex backed away a bit, his grasp on her loosening. Rubbing her wrists, she stepped cautiously away from him and crossed to the big bed, where she sat with her head in her hands. He thought he heard her say, “And I’m better off without you.”

“How can you say that?” he asked incredulously as he approached her. “How can you possibly think it? We belong together.”

Kneeling on the floor front of her, he lifted one of her braids and untied the white ribbon woven through it. Sliding it out, he tossed it onto the bed, and then he did the same to the other braid.

“You belong on the battlefield,” she said.

“You’ve been listening to your mother.” He combed his fingers through the heavy satin tendrils, crimped from having been plaited. Lifting a handful of hair, he stroked his face with it, inhaled its scent.

“I’ve been listening to you,” she countered. “Soldiering is in your blood. You love your sword above all else.”

“You’re in my blood.” Cupping the back of her head, he pulled her head down, kissing her thoroughly but taking his time, trying to do it right this time. His other hand stole to her breast. “I love you.”

She looked earnestly into his eyes. “Don’t say that.”

“I do. And you love me, too.” He kneaded her breast, rubbed his fingertips over the pebbly little nipple.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she said breathlessly, “I can’t afford to love you.”

“You love me.” Reaching down with his other hand, he slid it under her the hem of her skirt.

Her eyes flew open. “I’m going to marry Milo.” She scrambled backward on the bed in an effort to get away from him. He pounced in a blur, leaping onto the bed and trapping her beneath him. Her hair sprayed out around her in a breathtaking halo of gold.

Taking her face in his hands, he said, “I know you’ve got your heart set on being Milo’s wife, but he’ll never love you. You’ll never steal his heart away from Violette. It can’t be done. He doesn’t love you and you don’t love him. You love me.” He shifted his weight on top of her, nestled his hips against hers. “You belong to me.” Compelled as before by a primal need—the urge to take her, to claim her as his—he moved against her in an intuitive rhythm.

“W-what are you doing?” she asked.

“What I should have done long ago.”

She pushed futilely against his shoulders. “I belong to Milo now.”

“He can’t have you.” Whipping her skirt up, he wedged a knee between her legs and reached between them. She cried out softly at his first light touch on her most sensitive flesh.

“He’ll never have you,” he vowed, his voice low and rough. “You don’t want him. You want me.”

Alex lowered his mouth to hers as he explored the hidden mysteries he’d so often imagined during long, sleepless nights alone on sheets damp with sweat. He knew his touch was awkward, inexperienced, but he didn’t care, driven as he was by brute instinct. He was rigid as a sword beneath his tunic.

“Oh...oh, God, Alex...” She closed her hands over his shoulders, gripping him tightly.

Her breathing became erratic as he caressed her, his fingers growing marvelously slick. From things Luke had told him, he knew this was a sign of her arousal. “You do want me,” he murmured into her ear. “Say it.” He thrust against her, never pausing in his intimate caress. She moaned, her hands skimming down to press against the small of his back.

“Say it.” Kneeling between her legs, he tore off his belt and threw it on the floor. “You want me.” She shook her head, her face stained with a feverish flush of excitement. “Admit it.” Yanking off his tunic, he threw it aside. “You want me. You love me.”

Holding himself stiff-armed over her, he pressed himself against her, letting her feel how hard her was through his thin shirt and chausses. She lifted her hips with a defenseless little whimper. “This isn’t fair.”

“I don’t care.” He fumbled beneath his voluminous white shirt to untie his chausses. “Say it.”

“Don’t make me,” she begged him breathlessly.

“Say it. Say you want me. Me. Not him. Say it!”

“I...please, Alex.” She writhed beneath him, her expression of anguished desire mirroring what was in his heart. They both wanted this. And by laying rightful claim to her, he was rescuing her from a calamitous mistake. She’d be miserable with Milo.

And she was his. His.

Freeing his straining shaft, he lowered himself on her, investigating her tentatively to locate the place of entrance. “Yes,” she whispered when his finger probed the tight little passage, so wet and ready. He groaned, his body pulsing with the need to drive itself into hers. He hoped he’d last long enough to do the job properly. Luke had always counseled him to avoid virgins in general, but in the event he felt impelled to take a maidenhead, to be exceedingly tender and patient. On the verge of release even now, all he wanted was to ram himself into her and explode.

“Say it, Nicki.” Reaching between them, he positioned himself for entrance.

“I...I want you.” Her arms went around him. “I do, Alex...”

Rising onto his elbows, he flexed his hips, pressing her open, just slightly. “And you love me. And you’re mine, and you won’t marry him. Say it.”

“Alex, please.” She arched upward, her body closing around him, hot and damp.

Summoning all his strength at his disposal, he withdrew from the snug embrace. “Say it!” he commanded, his cock on fire, every muscle in his body tight.

“I can’t,” she cried, her eyes shimmering. “Alex, please.” With a trembling hand she caressed his cheek, whispering hoarsely, “We’ll never have another chance. Please.” She tilted her hips again, slowly, drawing him into her intoxicating heat. He fisted his hands in her hair, searching within himself for the strength to resist her until she said the words he needed to hear. “Please,” she whispered, “just—”

Hurried footsteps sounded on the flagstone outside, followed by the frantic rattling of the door handle.

“Mama!” Nicki clambered off the bed with breathless speed, yanking her skirts down. “She’s got her own key!”

“Christ.” Alex knelt on the bed with his back to the door, frantically tying his chausses, arousal plummeting as he heard the metallic snick of Sybila’s key in the lock.

“Nicolette!” Sybila burst into the cottage, key in hand. “Phelis is on her way...” The words died in her throat. Looking over his shoulder, Alex saw her take in her daughter’s state of dishabille—the loose, disheveled hair, the rumpled tunic, her tell-tale flush. Then she turned her frigid gaze on him, crossing herself at the sight of him adjusting his chausses and pulling his shirt down. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”

“Mama,” Nicki began.

Sybila slapped her daughter’s face, a sharp open-handed blow that made Nicki’s head whip around. “Have you learned nothing?” She aimed her hand to strike again, but Alex jumped down from the bed and caught her wrist in a solid grip.

“Are you all right, Nicki?” he asked.

She nodded, rubbing her reddened cheek, her chin quivering. He despised Sybila for having the power to reduce her daughter to this sorry state. If only Nicki could be as stalwart with her mother as she was with everyone else.

He released Sybila’s hand. “Leave her be, my lady. If anyone deserves a beating for what happened here, ‘tis I.”

“I daresay that’s true.” When she raised her hand to him, he did not attempt to stop her. She dealt him a stinging crack across the face, which he accepted passively, determined to deprive her of the satisfaction of a response.

“Mama, stop it!” Nicki beseeched tearfully as her mother struck him again, and yet again.

Alex calmly turned toward the bed. Sybila rained frenzied punches on his back as he gathered up his tunic and belt, stuffing them under his arm. “So you just wanted to talk to her, eh?” she spat out. “I should have known you couldn’t be trusted. You brazen young knights are all alike. No woman is safe around any of you.”

“Mama, for pity’s sake,” Nicki said, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

Sybila let off beating on Alex and turned to her daughter. “How could you give yourself so cheaply, Nicolette? Does it mean nothing to you that you’re to marry Milo tomorrow morning?”

“She won’t,” Alex said. “Not if I can help it. I won’t let you marry him, Nicki. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop the wedding.”

Sybila sputtered in outrage while her daughter shook her head slowly, her face tearstained, her eyes red. “It can’t be stopped,” Nicki said quietly. “I have to marry him. Go, Alex. Please!”

“She’ll be ruined if you’re found here,” Sybila declared. “If you cared about her, you would leave, and you wouldn’t be threatening to interfere with the wedding. It’s what’s best for her.”

Desperate, Alex seized Nicki’s arm. “Come away with me.”

“What?”

“Meet me at dawn at—” He eyed the lady Sybila warily. “At our secret place. I’ll take you away.”

“And make her your whore?” Sybila demanded. “You’re not free to marry. Nicolette, he’s a landless soldier. He can offer you naught but shame.”

A knock came at the door. “Nicolette?”

“Phelis!” Sybila whispered, and shoved Alex toward the window. “Go!”

“I’ve brought my wedding tunic for you to wear tomorrow,” Phelis said through the door. “May I come in?”

“Alex, go!” Nicki pleaded, tugging on his shirt.

“I won’t always be landless, Nicki. I love you. Come away with me.”

Sybila made a sound of derision. “And what do you propose to do with her while you follow Duke William from Brittany to England to God knows where?”

Alex tried to ignore Phelis’s knocking as he groped for a solution that would give him the two things he most desperately wanted in life, the only things he truly cared about: Nicki and soldiering. “There are convents...”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sybila muttered.

Nicki regarded him mournfully, clearly sobered at the prospect of cloistered life.

“Oh, God, Nicki,” he moaned, alarmed at the possibility of losing her, “I know I’m doing everything wrong, but I love you, and I’ll make everything right. Come away with me. Meet me at dawn.”