Dangerous Lover, page 25
“I know.” He stroked her palm with his fingertips. “I will enjoy having more children. With you.”
Ahead of them, her bedchamber door seemed to be lit up like a beacon, at least in his mind. Perhaps she imagined it, too, for he heard the change in her breathing. Desire, powerful and overwhelming, fought with gentlemanly instincts and common decency, and yet he needed her to know how he felt. She needed to know.
“I want you,” he murmured, almost conversationally. “More intensely than I have ever wanted any woman in my life.”
“That is good,” she said, not quite steadily.
“It is also mightily inconvenient when you are under my roof, alone with me in the dark of the night, only hours after you watched me disarm your father before the police hauled him off to gaol.”
He meant to break the mood, give her a reason as well as the will to make him wait. But she did not drop his hand.
“My father will go to prison, and rightly so, for what he has done. I will not desert him. But more than ever, you and my love for you are all that I have. I want you to frighten the dark away, to show me the goodness, the joy in life. In making life. Please don’t leave me.”
He halted by her bedchamber door, his heart thundering. Surely no one had ever borne tension like this, conflict like this. His breath came too fast, but he could not slow it as he raised his not quite steady hand to her cheek.
“Do you want me to hold you?” he whispered.
She turned the handle and pushed open the door before wrapping both arms around his neck. “I want you to love me.”
He dropped his head in massive relief, finding and devouring her urgent mouth. They almost fell into the room, and he kicked the door shut with his heel. He swept both hands through her hair, sending pins and combs flying in all directions. But this was how he had first seen her with her hair tumbled about her face and shoulders, beautiful, alluring, devastating…
And wearing a lot less clothes. The fastenings were the work of mere moments before the gown fell around her elbows, and he could push it to the ground and lift her out of it. Of course, there were still a ridiculous number of petticoats to deal with, but at least that slowed him down, reminded him of his manners, of her virginity, and of the pleasures of unwrapping so wonderful a gift.
He gentled his kisses, forced his hands to sensual rather than demanding caresses as he undressed her. Her eagerness delighted him as with trembling hands, she pushed at his coat and pulled up his shirt.
And then she was naked in his arms, and his mouth went dry all over again.
“I have no words for your beauty,” he whispered, crushing her in his arms once more. “But I worship it. I worship you…”
Her eyes seemed to sparkle with enchantment beneath the mists of desire. She clung to him, and when he lifted her, carrying her to the bed, they seemed welded together, skin to skin almost close enough.
He laid her beneath him, sweeping his hand down the length of her body to rest between her legs, and watched her fall apart in wonder from his touch.
“What…what…” she gasped, reaching for his mouth. He gave it and slid inside her at last, like coming home. And then, though he sometimes shook with the effort of restraint, he loved her with gentle, adoring passion until they gave each other the ultimate physical joy.
*
When Alexandra woke, it was light. He had left her at dawn to preserve her reputation, and returned to his own room. She longed for the day he didn’t need to, but that only strengthened her happiness in the new day.
The wonders of last night still astonished her. She had wanted his closeness, to bask in his happiness, but she had never expected to feel anything so intensely sensual, so uniquely joyful. And this would be hers again when they were married.
No wonder people kept having more babies.
She giggled at the thought and threw off the covers. There was sadness in every life, including her own. There were responsibilities, pleasant and unpleasant, and she accepted those, too. But she would not let them spoil her happiness. This was her new life.
A life full of love and wonder, but also full of purpose. As they had lain together in a quiet moment, his head on her breast, he had told her his idea of taking another house in a better area and turning this house into a school that would accept children from all walks of life. The wealthy would pay for the poor, and so education and care could be provided for families like the one Evelina had discovered in Covent Garden. Children did not regard wealth or class, and so he hoped they would grow up understanding each other, with more and different opportunities.
“Would you object to that?” he had asked her sleepily. “Evelina would go, too.”
“Of course, I would not. I would like to help.”
“It will take time… And maybe you are right, and I should look into politics, too.” He had raised himself up on his elbow, tousled and devastating. “I feel we can do anything now we are together.”
“So do I,” she had whispered, and then the hot desire had closed in again, spinning her off into new, heady pleasures that made her tingle just to remember.
Singing to herself, she washed and dressed and pinned her hair in the new, loose style that suited her best. Then she threw the curtains wide and went downstairs to greet her family.
About Mary Lancaster
Mary Lancaster lives in Scotland with her husband, three mostly grown-up kids and a small, crazy dog.
Her first literary love was historical fiction, a genre which she relishes mixing up with romance and adventure in her own writing. Her most recent books are light, fun Regency romances written for Dragonblade Publishing: The Imperial Season series set at the Congress of Vienna; and the popular Blackhaven Brides series, which is set in a fashionable English spa town frequented by the great and the bad of Regency society.
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Lancaster, Mary, Dangerous Lover
