Page 85 of A Stolen Heart

His eyebrows soared upward, and he grinned roguishly. “I might have met the gentleman,” he admitted, his tone leaving little doubt that their meeting had ended with Moore in possession of the Earl’s purse.

“He is not a pleasant man,” Alexandra confided. She realized that the wine was loosening her tongue; she was not accustomed to drinking. She looked at Sebastian, who was watching the other man with a guarded expression. He did not seem to be at all affected by the drink.

Moore chuckled. “No, I did not find him to be so, either. But tell me, how came you, an American by your speech, to be related to Exmoor? Or to marry Lord Thorpe, for that matter.”

“The vagaries of fate,” Sebastian suggested.

“Mm.” Moore’s dark eyes went from Sebastian to Alexandra consideringly, and Alexandra had the impression that he did not completely believe in their marriage.

After the last course, Alexandra gratefully retired to the bedroom that Moore had ordered prepared for them. She was tired, and the wine had made her a little groggy, but, more than that, it was getting to be a strain to conceal the desire that throbbed beneath the surface. Her nipples were full and aching, and there was a yearning emptiness between her legs.

She looked at the bed and wondered what was going to happen tonight. They could not ask for separate rooms, not when Sebastian had assured the highwayman that they were married. But Alexandra could not imagine how she and Sebastian could spend the night in a bed together without touching. Just thinking about it, her nipples tightened.

Alexandra undressed and washed, but since she had no change of clothes, she had no choice but to slip on her chemise and an inner petticoat to sleep in. She looked at herself in the small mirror above the dresser. The pink-brown circles of her nipples showed through the material, the points thrusting against it. Lightly she touched them with her fingertips, remembering the way they had responded to Sebastian’s touch.

She sat on the side of the bed, listening to the men’s voices downstairs and wondering how long it would be before Sebastian came to bed. They were drinking, she supposed, and now and then she could hear a sudden bark of laughter. She wondered sourly if Sebastian planned to spend all night drinking with the man in order to avoid her. She curled up on the bed to wait.

It was there that Sebastian found her, sound asleep, two hours later when he came up to bed. He closed the door behind him and turned the lock, relieved to find that they had a key. He walked to the bed, swaying a little under the effects of the highwayman’s brandy, and stood looking at her.

Alexandra was lying on her side, her breasts pushing out of the top of her chemise. The thin material did little to conceal their size and shape or the saucily pointing nipples in their center. Her petticoat had slid up in her sleep, revealing her legs from the middle of her thighs down. He stood for a moment, looking at the curve of her calves and the long, slender line of her thighs. Her legs were long. He supposed some men might have found her too tall, but all he could think about was those legs wrapped around him, locking him against her. The barely dormant desire that had been thrumming in him all evening rose to a pulsating level.

He ran his finger slowly up her leg, stopping at the hem of her petticoat. He knew that he wanted to move onward, to slide between her legs and seek the hot center of her femininity. He had drunk too much, trying to keep up with Moore, he told himself; he hadn’t his usual control. But he suspected that even if he had been stone cold sober, he would have been aching for Alexandra. He had wanted her from the moment he met her, and the past few days, since the night she had slept in his bed, he had been driven by desire. He could not get her out of his mind, could not stop wanting her.

But it would be the act of a cad to take her, he knew. Losing her virginity without marriage was the ruin of a woman. He could not be the reason for her reputation being dragged through the mud. He knew Alexandra well enough to know that she would scoff at the idea that he must protect her; she would say that she made her own decisions. But he could not live with himself if he did not protect her in every way he could. She was too dear to him, too—

He paused, struck by a new thought. He wondered why it had not come to him before. Slowly a smile spread across his face. He sat on the bed beside her and gently circled one nipple with his forefinger, watching it harden temptingly. Then he bent to kiss her into wakefulness.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ALEXANDRA CAME SLOWLY, DELICIOUSLY awake, awash in a sea of pleasure. Her flesh tingled, and there was a melting heat between her legs. Sebastian was kissing her, his lips warm and gentle on hers. Even as she came to a dazed awareness, she was yielding to him, her lips opening beneath his. Was this a dream? It seemed so unreal. Yet at the same time, the pleasure, the warmth, the velvet touch of his lips, were vividly real. Finally, his lips left hers, and he sat up. Alexandra’s eyelashes fluttered open, and she gazed dazedly at him.

He was looking at her as his hand caressed her body, moving over her breasts and down to her stomach, coming at last to rest at the V between her legs. Alexandra drew a quick breath at the intimate touch.

“Sebastian,” she murmured, unable to say anything else.

“You are so beautiful,” he told her, and the sound of his voice, husky with passion, was enough to stir her.

His hand slid up her body to the top of her chemise and untied the drawstring there. He pushed the top down, exposing the creamy orbs of her breasts, his face slack with hunger. Alexandra’s breasts ached for his touch, her nipples thrusting out. He brushed his fingertips over one nipple, teasing and arousing. Alexandra arched toward him, her breath rasping in her throat. With every touch, her desire burned hotter, wilder, more out of control.

Reaching up, she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his face to hers. Their lips brushed; their breath mingled. For a moment, they held off, anticipating the kiss, until they could stand the exquisite torture no longer. They kissed, their lips grinding into each other’s, their tongues thrusting and twining in a passionate dance. His hands swept over her body, caressing her legs and buttocks and back, coming time and again to cup her breasts.

Sighs turned into moans. Bodies clung and twisted. Legs intertwined. They rolled across the bed, kissing as if they would consume each other, their suppressed hunger of the past days rising like a storm inside them.

With frantic hands, Sebastian pulled her chemise up and over her head. Alexandra worked at the buttons of his shirt, and finally, with a low oath, he ripped the thing off, popping a button and losing a stud in the process. She ran her hands over his bare skin as she had wanted to earlier this evening, then followed the path of her hands with her mouth, tasting his skin and laving it with her tongue, taking the flat masculine nipples into her mouth and bringing them to hardness. He gasped at the pleasure of her questing mouth, his hands knotting in the sheets, struggling to hold on to the control she threatened to destroy.

Finally he rolled over, putting Alexandra on her back, and began to work the same tingling magic on her. His tongue circled her nipple, caressing and lashing it, teasing until she was almost sobbing, then pulling it deep into his mouth and sucking. She groaned as the sensation ran through her, bursting in her loins like molten fire. She was past all thought, a being of pure feeling and desire. His fingers fumbled at the drawstring of her petticoat, and he pulled it from her. His hand delved between her legs, divided from her flesh only by the thin cotton of her undergarments. The cloth was damp from her passion, and he rubbed his fingers over it, delighting in the evidence of her need for him.

But soon he could not stand even that barrier between them, and he rolled them over her hips and off her legs. She lay naked before him, her hair a lush backdrop to the white, glimmering beauty of her body. He stood for a moment, looking at her. His manhood throbbed, hot and thick with desire, pressing against his breeches. He felt as if he might explode, and yet there was still so much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to feel and give to her.

Alexandra raised her arms to him, and Sebastian could wait no longer. He fumbled at the buttons of his trousers, peeling them down and kicking them aside, then climbed into bed with her. Alexandra caressed him, taking his turgid member into her hand and stroking it. He let out a muffled groan and buried his face in her neck.

“Come inside me,” Alexandra murmured into his ear, and desire shot through him like lightning.

He could wait no longer. He moved between her welcoming legs and eased inside her, moving gently despite the need that raged in him. Alexandra gasped at the slash of pain as he entered her, and sank her teeth into his shoulder. Sebastian groaned and paused, then began to stroke slowly in and out. Alexandra moved in rhythm with him, the knot of pleasure deep within her growing and tightening until she felt as if she would scream. Then it burst in her like a tidal wave, and she did cry out. Sebastian groaned, thrusting into her in his own paroxysm of pleasure. Together they plunged into the deep, mindless realm of passion, their souls melded together as surely as their bodies, lost for the moment in a pleasure so fierce and so pure that nothing else existed.

Afterward, they lay clinging to each other like survivors of a storm, and just as Alexandra drifted off to sleep, Sebastian heard her breathe something that sounded to him like love.

ALEXANDRA’S EYES DRIFTED OPEN lazily, and she found herself looking at a strange ceiling. She felt sore and incredibly happy and a little strange.