“I love you,” she said, tilting her head back to look at him. “I won’t let you go. I’m too selfish, and I need you too much.”
“I am going to remove that dress from your body with my teeth.”
“And here I had hopes you would like it.”
His eyes gleamed wickedly. “If I liked it any more, it would be hiked around your waist.”
Her grip tightened on his. He smelled delicious. Of virile male and sandalwood, with the faintest hint of citrus. She hated the gloves between them and the hundreds of people around them. She could live alone with him for the rest of her days. Working in companionable silence, listening to him coax haunting notes from the violin, talking with him about her thoughts and feelings until nothing separated them …
The music began in earnest. His mouth curved in a lazy smile, then he spun her about in a vigorous turn. She laughed breathlessly, awed by how she fit in his arms as if they’d been made to hold her. He danced the way he made love—intimately, powerfully, with exquisite control and aggressive moves. His thighs brushed against hers with every step, his hold tightening until there was scarcely any space between them. He flowed with the music, embraced it, claimed it as his own. Just as he claimed her with his gaze, his look fraught with such intensity and focus, his eyes so soft and warm.
She hadn’t realized how deeply she’d craved that look of love from him until now. “They can see how you feel about me.”
“I don’t care, as long as you see.”
“I do.”
They weaved around the other dancers at a slightly faster pace, her crimson skirts swirling around his trouser-clad legs. She became aroused, flushed. She ached for the feel of his mouth on her skin, whispering heated erotic threats and promises that made her hot and wet and very, very willing.
“How is your sister?” he asked, the rasp in his voice betraying his returning desire for her.
“Improving every day. Confinement and bed rest is just what she needed.”
“It’s just what I need, too. With you.”
“But we do not rest when we’re abed, my lord.”
“Will she be well enough to make do without you four weeks from now?”
She smiled. “By the time the banns have been read, she should be strong enough to need me only occasionally.”
“Good. I need you, too.”
Jess did not inquire after his mother or Masterson. She’d seen the look on the duchess’s face and watched as Alistair said something to her. Whatever it was, his gaze hadn’t wavered, but Jess had seen the strength of his conviction. It was a mien he was infamous for—recklessly determined and boldly challenging; the countenance of a man who fearlessly accepted any challenge. When he wore it, all knew he would not be swayed. However his mother reacted to his choice, he was committed and his mind would not be altered.
“I cannot stay much later tonight,” she said. “I’ve no notion of what occupies Regmont so completely, but he comes home long after we’ve all retired and leaves before we make an appearance at breakfast. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was avoiding me. Regardless, someone needs to be with Hester at night, and Acheron needs me, too.”
His head lowered farther, until their lips were too close. “This was enough for now. I needed to see you, to hold you. If you have no further objections, I will begin courting you publicly.”
“Please do.” She felt giddy, intoxicated by his nearness and affection in a way no claret could ever match. She hadn’t had a drink in days, and though the ill effects of her abstinence had been heinous at the onset, she was beginning to feel better. Stronger. “I will be ruined otherwise. Labeled a brazen hussy. You must make me respectable, my lord.”
“After I went to such lengths to lure you to sin?”
“I will always be sinful for you.”
He slowed as the music stopped, but her heart still raced. He stepped back and lifted her gloved hand to his lips. “Come. Let me introduce you to my mother and Masterson before you go.”
She nodded and, as always, followed his lead.
Alistair collected his hat, great coat, and cane from a footman, then headed toward the door to wait for his carriage. When Jessica had departed a half-hour before, all the light had left the room with her, giving him no reason to linger.
“Lucius.”
His stride faltered. His back went up, every muscle tightening. He turned around. “Lady Trent.”
She approached, her hips swaying gently, her tongue darting out to lick her bottom lip. “Wilhelmina,” she corrected. “We are much too intimate to stand on formality.
He knew the lascivious look in her eyes. She remained lovely and lushly curved. Wasted on a man far older than she was.
His stomach knotted with shame. He no longer possessed the walls he’d once shielded himself behind. Jessica had torn them down, one by one, opening him to a precious understanding of his own worth. The choices he had made … the things he’d done with women like Lady Trent … They sickened him now.
“We were never intimate,” he said. “Good evening, Lady Trent.”
Alistair left the Treadmore manse in a rush, striding out the door and feeling relief at the sight of his carriage waiting for him. He vaulted into the softly lamp-lit interior and settled against the leather squab. The whip cracked and the equipage lurched into motion, rounding the circular drive. They slowed when they reached the open wrought-iron gate, their way blocked by the clogged lane. It would be this way the entire route home, he knew, as the streets filled with Society carriages conveying their passengers from one event to another.
He exhaled and relaxed, his mind returning to the moment he’d introduced Jessica to his mother and Masterson. All three were so consummate and adept in the social graces that he had no notion of what any of them thought of one another. They’d been smoothly polite, exchanging platitudes and worthless observations, and parting ways at precisely the right moment to avoid even an instant of awkward silence. It had all been far too easy.
The carriage drew to a halt beside one of the brick gateposts bearing a sculpted lion on the top. A dark form emerged from beside it and opened his carriage door. The figure was met with the tip of the rapier hidden within his cane.
A gloved hand moved aside the shield of a cloak’s hood and revealed Jessica’s wry smile. “I was hoping you’d impale me with something more pleasurable.”
The unsheathed weapon hit the floorboards, and he pulled her inside. The door was shut behind them, earning the footman responsible a raise in pay.
“What in hell are you doing, Jess?”
She tumbled into him, pushing him back into the squab. “The dance may have been enough for you, but it wasn’t for me. Not nearly.”
Pushing off his chest, she stooped and tugged the curtains closed. She hunched over him, yanking up her blood-red skirts with frantic impatience. He caught a glimpse of the lacy hem of her pantalettes, and then she was climbing over him, straddling him.
“Jess.” He breathed her name. His skin felt too hot, his chest too constricted to allow him sufficient air. The feelings he had for her were too volatile to contain. She overwhelmed him. Surprised him. Seduced him with ridiculous ease.
“I have to tell you … you have to know … I am s-sorry.” The cracking of her voice broke him as well. “I’m sorry I was afraid. I am sorry I caused you even an instant of pain or doubt. I love you. You deserve better.”
“I have the best in you,” he said gruffly. “There is no one better.”
Her gloved fingers fumbled with the placket of his trousers. He laughed softly, delighted with her eagerness. Staying her hands by covering them with his own, he said, “Slow down.”
“I’m dying for you. The way you dance …” Her eyes were fever bright in the muted glow of the carriage lamps. “I thought it would ease when I parted from you, but it only worsens by the moment.”
“What worsens?” he asked, wanting to hear her say it.
“My hunger for you.”
His blood thickened along with his cock. “Then I must take you home with me.”
“I can’t. I can’t leave Hester that long, and I can’t wait that long.”
The thought of Jessica planning his ravishment in a carriage almost stole every shred of his reason. Alistair was tempted to shove her beneath him and give her the hard, pounding ride she was desperate for, but the circumstances were not ideal. Just outside the curtains, coachmen shouted to one another. Pedestrians laughed and conversed on the street. He and the passengers in the equipages passing them were close enough that their fingers could touch if they reached out to one another simultaneously.
“Shh,” he soothed, his hands stroking the length of her spine. “I’ll make you come, but you must be quiet.”
She shook her head violently. “I need you inside me—”
“Christ.” Alistair’s grip flexed into her waist. “We are moving at a snail’s pace, Jess. Too slowly to disguise any rocking of the carriage. And we are surrounded on all sides.”
Jessica arched into him, her graceful arms encircling his shoulders. “You can think of something. Be inventive.” She brought her mouth to his ear, her tongue tracing the curve. “I am wet and hot and aching for you, my love, and you made me this way. You cannot leave me in this condition.”
A hard shudder shook his frame. She could not have displayed her trust in him more clearly than this, yet her haste and frenzy told him more was at stake than her physical pleasure. Perhaps this was the ramification of meeting his mother and Masterson, who couldn’t accept him, let alone the woman he loved. His familial situation was far different, he knew, from what she’d had with Tarley. Michael’s protectiveness was ample proof of that.
Alistair was infuriated by her disquiet and the possible root of it. She was a brilliant social diamond, her facets perfect in every respect aside from the one she couldn’t control. After all she’d suffered to become a faultless wife for any peer, she did not deserve to be diminished by anyone.
Alistair caught her face in his hands, urging her to lean back and meet his gaze directly. “Jess.”
She stilled, registering the somberness in his tone.
Angling his head, he pressed his lips lightly to hers and breathed the words “I love you.”
Chapter 24
Jess didn’t move for a long moment following Alistair’s fervent pronouncement, then the tension left her in a rush, the driving need to connect with him receding to a softer, sweeter craving. “Alistair.”
“I was afraid, too. So, you see, you and I are even.” Her eyes stung. Her throat clenched too tight to allow speech.
“Surely you knew,” he murmured, bringing one hand to his mouth. His even white teeth caught the tip of the middle finger of his glove and tugged.
“Yes, I knew,” she whispered. “But it still means a great deal to hear the words aloud.”
“Then I will say them often.” The glove slipped off his hand, and he released it from his teeth. It dropped to his lap between them.
To her surprise, she found the uncovering of his hand impossibly erotic. He switched his attention to his other glove, tugging on the fingertips one by one until it slid free, his gaze heavy lidded and filled with sensual intent. The sight of his bite gripping the short white glove roused some primitive instinct inside her. There was something primal about disrobing with one’s teeth, which brought to mind the promise he’d made to utilize a similar method on her dress.
The second glove fell to his lap. The carriage made a slow turn.
Lifting her hand, she extended it to him. His bared fingers went to the buttons at her wrist, deftly releasing each one. When her skin was bared, he lifted it to his mouth. The flutter of his tongue over her pulse made her gasp. Her sex rippled with appreciation.
The glove caressed the length of her arm as Alistair drew it off. By the time he’d removed the other one, Jess was breathless with anticipation. He pressed a kiss to her knuckle above his ruby ring, then licked between her fingers. If that stroke of his tongue had been between her legs, it could not have aroused her more.
Boldly, she reached between his legs and stroked the rigid length of his erection. He made a rumbling sound very much like a purr. She loved the way he lounged without affectation, every inch the voluptuary and perfectly willing to let her have her way with him.
“It will take more than a lifetime,” she said, “to have my fill of you.”
His hands slid under her gown and gripped her thighs. She loved that, too. Alistair always began each touch with a firm, possessive squeeze, as if he needed that brief moment of fierceness to attain the control that followed. He watched her as he reached around to cup her buttocks in his hands, then pushed through the slit in her pantalettes to find her slick and scorching.
“You are indeed wet and hot,” he murmured, parting her and stroking a fingertip over her clitoris. “And you make me so damned hard.”
She felt how hard he was. It gave her a wild thrill to be responsible for arousing such a magnificent sexual animal to the highest degree. No longer hindered by her gloves, she freed him with a deftness born of practice. He fell heavily into her waiting palms, so broad and long. His penis was a brutal instrument of pleasure. The wide head stretched her to her limits, while the thick veins coursing the weighty length rubbed every tender nerve inside her.
Jess fisted him with both hands and pumped, priming him to proceed to the point where he lost all restraint and bared himself to the soul.
He groaned, his head falling back into the high back of the squab. Two long fingers pushed inside her and began to thrust, preparing her for the deep slide of his cock.
She was ready. Had been from the moment he’d turned around in the ballroom and looked at her as if she were an oasis in the desert and he’d been lost in the dunes for days. She had been just as parched for the sight of him, withering with every day that passed without his presence.
