Darkest Dreams Read online

“I know.”

  “And you still wish to make a wager?”

  “Yes,” I said, moistening my lips with the tip of my tongue. His gaze dropped a moment.

  “What are you willing to lose?” he asked, his voice deepening as he moved in closer.

  “Who says I’ll lose?”

  He just smiled.

  “You have to grant me one request if I score a point. If I don’t, then you get one request of me.”

  “Only one?”

  “Just one, but there’s a stipulation.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Considering my inexperience, you can’t attack. You can only defend against my advances.”

  “Done,” he said, lowering his sword point to the ground.

  Smiling confidently, I moved into an en garde stance. I figured that after one or two inept moves, Alex’s guard would be down, and I’d try to disarm him with the maneuver Sean had shown me this morning. I lunged forward, aiming for Alex’s right shoulder with my sword tip. He didn’t lift his blade, but stepped sideways, moving toward me so close that my outstretched arm slid against his chest and his leg pressed to my thigh.

  He leaned closer still and brushed a fingertip along the side of my neck to the center of my collar bone, then moved downward to the top of my lace fichu and tugged it loose. I gasped at the heat and pleasure bolting through me as he exposed the tops of my breasts. “My point,” he said softly before he pocketed my fichu.

  He didn’t look as if he would listen to anything I had to say about him and his brother even if I did win the wager. His interest was on something else entirely. Good heavens, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but…

  Butterflies and a strange sense of anticipation fluttered deep inside me. I backed away, lifting the épée to the center of his chest, expecting to tap his chest at the point he’d touched mine, but he moved too quickly out of range. The gleam in his green gaze was akin to a pirate enjoying his stolen treasure and greedy for more.

  This time I circled around him, looking for a vulnerable moment. The frustrating trouble was he didn’t appear to be on his guard at all. He kept his sword pointed down, his sensual smile curved up, and his gaze centered on my breasts.

  After a moment, I feinted to the right but then swung the sword tip down and to the left, hoping to halt his countering advance. He merely ran the blade of his épée beneath mine as he advanced, forced my sword straight up between us, and popped open the first button of my dress with his fingers.

  “My point again, Andromeda.”

  Another few moves, and the man would have me near naked. I’d run out of time and needed to act. Inhaling to the point that my second button gave way, completely drawing his attention there, I didn’t retreat, but slid my blade down his until the bell of my hilt wedged beneath his. Then I shoved suddenly upward with all of my might, pulling his épée from his grasp. Unfortunately my enthusiastic upward thrust sent me plowing into Alex. He was clearly stunned that I’d managed to disarm him. Off balance, we fell. He twisted so that I landed on top of him.

  “My point,” I said, dropping my sword to the rug.

  “Your match,” he whispered, sliding me up his body until my mouth was but a breath away from his. “What spoils will you claim?”

  “You,” I said, pressing my lips to the sensual fullness of his, pushing aside the fact that I’d meant to speak to him about Sean. Talk could come later. Right now I wanted nothing but the feel of this man’s pleasuring touch, of his body against mine, of his mouth devouring mine. I wanted to let the fire he stirred in me loose.

  He met my kiss with passion, his tongue thrusting to mine as powerfully and as adeptly as he handled a sword. I cupped his face in my palms, feeling the clean-shaven edge of his jaw before I threaded my fingers into the silk of his hair. His hands slid down my back to grip my bottom and press me against the urgent heat of his hard arousal, kissing me harder and longer until I knew nothing but the taste of him and the rhythmic thrust of his need.

  I moaned, wanting more, meeting his thrust. Groaning, he rolled until I lay slightly beneath him with most of his weight on his right side, his left leg between mine and his left hand palming my right breast. Pressing my head against the soft carpet, I arched my back, lifting my breasts to him.

  Leaving my lips aching and swollen, he kissed his way down my throat, licking the tops of my breasts as he unbuttoned my bodice and chemise until I lay exposed to the waist. He leaned on his right elbow to gaze and me as he circled the tips of my tingling breasts with his finger. “Like Aphrodite must have been, you’re so perfectly lush in just the right places, that all I can think about when I am near you is tasting you, touching you, pleasuring you, feeling myself inside you. Is that what you want, Andromeda? Knowing everything you know about me, is that what you want from me?”

  My heart beat faster than my blood could race, leaving me lightheaded and breathless. We’d reached a point of no return, and yet he was still giving me a choice. “Yes,” I said, sliding my hand up the sculpted curves of his chest, across the tickling silk of hair until I reached the edge of his shirt. Then I tugged the material back and down, exposing the golden expanse of his broad shoulders and firm, muscled torso.

  He helped by shrugging his arm free, then he leaned down, taking my left breast into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the aroused peak until my hips lifted to his demanding rhythm. My eyes closed as waves of pleasure filled every part of my being. He made me want nothing more than having him taste me, touch me, pleasure me. I wanted him inside me. I wanted impossibly to be inside of him.

  “Watch me pleasure you,” he said roughly.

  I opened my eyes to meet his intent gaze that never left mine as he suckled my breasts until my nipples were hard points of need and so filled with a fire that I’d do anything to assuage the burning want.

  “I need all of you.” His breathing was as labored as mine as he unbuttoned my skirt and untied my drawers. Sliding to my side, he tugged my skirts down my legs and finished stripping off my bodice and chemise, leaving me wearing only my white silk stockings and my black kid boots. The carpet was soft against my back and buttocks, and the sunlight streamed a gleaming path across the room to bathe me in its warm light, turning the burnished gold curls covering my sex a fiery copper color.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, kneeling between my legs, spreading them further apart. I felt more vulnerable and more glorious than I’d ever felt before when he pressed the palm of his hand against the heat of my femininity and shut his eyes if he’d reached heaven. He brushed his thumb over a special place that seemed the very center of my being. I cried out with the sharp pleasure of it. Then he moved so quickly I didn’t even realize what he meant to do until his mouth replaced his hand and his tongue found the very spot his thumb had awakened.

  Shocked, I rose to my elbows, intending to stop him, but the pleasure was so great I could only gasp as my hips rocked upward for more. Eyes shut, he appeared as if he were dining on ambrosia as his tongue lapped. He opened his dragon-green eyes and met my gaze. The dark hunger burning there was as shocking as the fire he breathed into my loins. My entire being was caught up in the heat and lash of his tongue. White-hot pleasure spread over me in wave after wave, building a knot of unbearable tension inside me. I knew that in any second I was going to breathe my last. Then I felt something new and different and realized after he moved his hand against me that he’d slid his fingers inside, opening me even more to his seeking passion. It left me wanting more.

  A fever burned through me and I cried out. “I need…I need…please.”

  “You, Andromeda,” he said as he rose above me. Scooping me into his arms, he carried me into his bedroom and set me on his black satin counterpane. Untying his silk pants, he shoved them down his hips, freeing his arousal. Then he climbed into bed beside me. “I need you more than I have ever needed anything my entire life,” he whispered to me just before he kissed me again, gently, with a tenderness I’d yet to know
from him.

  “And I you.” I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the supple strength of him, the smooth warmth of his skin. The trembling of his body reached deeply inside of me, and I thought I saw directly into his mind. He was in such deep emotional and physical need that he was scared to continue, and he was concerned for me as well. His desire for me fought desperately against this fear, causing him to tremble.

  “Love me,” I told him.

  Groaning, he deepened his kiss, sliding between my legs, pressing the hard heat of his sex against my weeping, intimate flesh. Looking into my eyes, he slid inside of me a little. I gasped and tensed at the unexpected fullness of him and the pain.

  “Easy. I’m going to come all the way inside and then I won’t move until you say.”

  “You mean you aren’t already there?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Are you sure? I feel quite a bit of you already.”

  “I’m sure. Are you changing your mind about this?”

  “Certainly not. But—”

  He kissed my words away. Then he flicked his tongue over my nipple as he cupped my other breast in his hand and brushed my burgeoning nipple with his thumb. My hips rocked against him, and the discomfort I felt eased.

  “Relax into the motion of it, let yourself go, feel me,” he said softly, and drove himself deep. My initial pain eased to an unfamiliar yet strangely fulfilling fullness in the very center of my being. He slid back and thrust again, rippling a hot wave of pleasure though me. I arched to him, asking for more. He moved deeper and faster, catching me up in an escalating, drumming passion that had every part of me focused on moving my body to the demanding rhythm of his and the hot fire he breathed into my soul.

  My entire world narrowed to the very points where my body connected to his. Nothing mattered but him and the pleasure he built higher and higher until I cried out and shuddered as white stars burst before my eyes and heaven swept me away.

  His body shuddered against mine, and I saw his stars, felt his throbbing pleasure so deeply within me that another consuming peak of pleasure rippled through me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Having Alex intimately inside me seemed to open his mind to me, and I knew the minute his pleasure had ebbed and the world began to intrude. His thoughts were a jumbled mass of conflicting things. More than anything else he wanted to make love to me again. Though thoroughly satisfied, he was strangely hungry for more and saw himself thrusting into me again and again. This intense hunger made him want to get me dressed and out of his home as quickly as he could so that he wouldn’t do just what he wanted to do. He’d yet to focus on the worry of pregnancy or if he would allow me to seduce him again, but those thoughts were there. And I wasn’t about to lay around until he decided whether or not he was glad he’d made love to me.

  I pressed against his chest and he rolled to the side. The minute he slipped from me, his thoughts were gone, but I’d seen enough. “That was quite lovely,” I said. Leaning up, I brushed my lips against his cheek and rolled from the bed. Since he was lying on the counterpane and scarcely had anything else in his room, I had to pick up his silk pants and wrap them ineptly about my person before I went for my clothes.

  “Andromeda! What in the bloody hell was that?” he said.

  Turning slightly in the doorway, I found him sitting on the edge of his bed, looking dazed and confused.

  “What was what? Surely you know that we just…well…you know.”

  “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the ‘quite lovely’ thing.”

  “Well, it was. Would you feel better if I lied and said it wasn’t?”

  “No. Hell and damnation, you sounded as if we’d just had tea!”

  “It was a bit more than tea, I’d say. Wasn’t it lovely for you too?”

  He stood, a thundercloud of frustration darkening his brow. It was the first that I’d seen him head to toe in all of his naked glory, and he was magnificent…everywhere. I smiled brightly, still feeling the burn of his thoughts, but my steam of outrage was slowly cooling to misty tears that stung the backs of my eyes. I’d expected his thoughts would have been different after making love to me. I thought that in the very least he would have been awed, or felt stirrings of love, something similar to the emotions consuming me. He hadn’t. “Speaking of tea, I promised Cassie I would be home for tea today. So I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  Dashing into the other room, I gathered my clothes, wondering if I could chance running down the corridor to the water closet to make myself presentable.

  Alex caught my shoulders from behind and pulled me back against him. “What is it?” he whispered softy. “What did I do to upset you? Did I hurt you in some way?”

  Oh, God. I fought back the tears. My seeing into his thoughts in an unguarded moment wasn’t fair to him. I didn’t ask for promises of love, nor did I give any. He would never marry because of the life sentence he’d given himself, and I would never marry because of what had just happened now. “No,” I whispered. “I’m just overwhelmed. It was so much more that I ever imagined it being, and I need time alone to think about what happened.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me back against his chest. He kissed the top of my head. “I feel the same way. Do you really need to be home for tea with Cassie?”

  I shook my head, unable to speak. He turned me to face him.

  “Then why don’t you refresh yourself and have tea with me?” The earnest need in his eyes and in his voice for my company surprised me. It didn’t quite fit in with the thoughts I’d read. Confused, I nodded.

  “Good.” He exhaled softy and bent down, kissing me gently. “You’re right, it was a bit more than tea. And it was a bit more than lovely. It was amazing. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Just in case you’re wondering. There’s a back way to the bathroom through my bedroom.” Why did what I had seen in his mind not match up to how he was acting now?

  I followed him, clutching my clothes against me with one hand and holding his pants I’d wrapped around me in place with the other. Passing through his room, I glanced again at the black silk counterpane, remembering its softness and the feel of being in his bed, wishing I hadn’t seen into his thoughts and that I was still blissfully lying there next to him and he was saying that what he’d felt was amazing.

  Opening a door, he led me into the water closet. “Would you like a bath? I’ve hot water that runs through the pipes so there’s no need to disturb the servants.”

  “A bath would be good,” I said, finding my voice. This all felt very strange, but as he crossed the room to the resplendent white tub I didn’t argue. I looked for a place to set my clothes. Then, locating a towel, I wrapped that around me and set his pants aside as well. At the vanity, I sat down and began unbuttoning my boots. I’d made it half way when Alex, wearing a towel wrapped around his waist, knelt at my feet and brushed my hands away. “Let me,” he said.

  He deftly slipped the buttons loose from their moorings and slid off my boot, doing the same to my other foot. After that, he eased his hands up my legs to untie my garters and to slide off my silk stockings, his every touch becoming more sensual and lingering just a little longer than the last. Already I could feel my desire for him stir again. Glancing down at him, I saw the heat in his gaze had rekindled as well. He stood, holding out his hand to me, and I knew it was more than just a request to lead me to the tub. It was a request to touch him, to trust him to touch me, and I placed my hand in his after hesitating but a moment. I realized in that instant that it didn’t matter what he felt or thought. I’d wanted to know him, I’d wanted the opportunity to love a man fully before I spent my life alone, and Alex was that man. I’d chosen him. Fate had chosen him.

  He led me to the immense white porcelain tub that was still filling with steamy water and the scent of sandalwood and spice. Loosening the towel from around me, he let it drop to the floor and kissed me, gently at first, then hungrily.

  He stepped
back, searching my gaze. He must have found what he wanted, for he dropped his towel and stepped into the tub. Sitting with his back against the smooth, comfortably curved porcelain, he tugged me into his lap. I landed with a splash and a gasp. Wrapping his arm beneath my breasts, he slid me against him so that I sat in his lap with his legs stretched out beneath mine, even though the tub was large enough that we could have sat side by side. He cradled my head between his chin and shoulder and stretched his arm out alongside mine, twining his fingers with my own. Sunlight filled the area, making the room even steamier than the heat rising from the water.

  I shut my eyes, enjoying the intimacy of the moment, thinking that if marriage had been in my future, I would have wanted things to be like this. He traced his finger over the serpent ring curling around my finger.

  “What’s sailing like?” I asked.

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he brushed his lips against my head and spoke. “At the bow of a ship, facing the elements with the sun beating upon your face and the wind at your back? It is like racing over rough terrain on a huge horse one has little control of against wild wind. Sailing the seas is a wager with God and nature that a man has no assurance of how the journey will end, but he will take every chance he gets because feeling the power of the wind carrying him across the sea is worth every risk. It makes a man feel more alive and more human than anything else, except for one thing.”

  “What is that?” I asked, wondering if I had read Alex wrong. What if he raced his horses at breakneck speed not because he was trying to end his life but to make himself feel alive?

  “You just shared that one thing with me. Care to sail again?” he said softly as he slid his fingers over the tips of my breasts and kissed my nape.

  I gasped, arching toward him, feeling the press of his hardening arousal against my back. One word, one look, one touch and I wanted to feel everything I had just felt all over again. “How often do people…go sailing?”