you're satisfied, if you think I'm incredible and interesting,
why not share your joy with your friends?"
"That's a low blow, Alex."
"No, it's honest," she countered, taking a narrow roll of
white cotton from the tin. Wrapping it around his hand, she
went on, saying, ''You wouldn't tell them because you
wouldn't want them to think poorly of me and thus, through
association, of you. They'd consider me less than a proper
lady. Proper ladies don't have such base desires."
He laughed softly. "Would you care to bet on that?"
"Oh? And just how many proper ladies have you ever
known, Aiden?"
"My mother," he instantly countered, "my grandmother,
my six sisters, Seraphina Reeves. And maybe Emmaline, although
I don't really know her all that well. Nine. With a
possible tenth."
"Family doesn't count."
"It does, too."
"All right, Aiden," she said, tying off the ends of the bandage
and squaring up to him with a smile and her hands on
her hips. "Just to avoid the argument I'll allow you all ten
and throw in Preeya for good measure. Eleven out of how
many women?"
"Alex, darling," he crooned, sliding his arms around her
waist and drawing her closer, "what's the point of this?
You've made the decision. I've seen it in your eyes. You've
been dancing on the edge with me all day."
Her arms slipped around his neck. "Humor me. I'm being
English. My decision notwithstanding, the point is that acting
on one's urges isn't a particularly wise thing to do.
Tempting? Oh, yes, most definitely. But it's not wise. The
consequences can be forever."
"Or not. If you're careful."
"Perhaps for a man," she allowed, smiling at him, playing
with the hair at his nape. "But for a woman there are always,
always consequences." .
"Such as?"
"Unexpected children."
"Sheaths are known to prevent them."
"Reputation."
"Discretion," he countered. "You don't make love in public
view and you don't send an account of it to the Times."
"A husband's outrage."
"Only if he catches you," he pointed out, grinning, enjoying
their game. ''A healthy dose of caution is usually sufficient.
And in your case, the point is moot. You don't have a
husband."
"I meant a husband who discovers that he isn't his wife's
first lover."
"If he came late to the dance, then it's his fault for tarrying.
But that concern's moot as well because you don't intend
to ever marry."
"I'm speaking in generalities, not about myself.”
Oh, yes she was and he was done playing. "Well, I'm
talking about us, darling. You and me."
"I won't deny that there is an us, Aiden," she conceded
after a moment, a curiously satisfied shadow in her smile.
"But I won't pretend that it's more than it is. It's of the moment
and won't survive time."
''True. But what's wrong with enjoying it while we have
it?"
"You have a point."
"I do?" he said, stunned that she'd so readily admitted it.
"Only from a decidedly Indian view of the world."
He'd take it and be damn grateful. "Will you be feeling
Indian or English tonight?"
"I don't know. Tonight's not here yet."
"Which are you feeling right now?"
"I'm not sure. Perhaps a little of both. Mostly, I'm feeling
terribly warm."
It wasn't an engraved invitation, but it was close. "I can
help you with that," he offered, reaching up between them
and slowly, very deliberately opening a button on her bodice.
Alex held his gaze, knowing that she should step away.
Or at the very least offer a protest, feeble and dishonest as it
might be. He opened another and she kept her silence, stayed
right where she was. Another and her blood was singing, her
pulse thundering. Another and she was struggling to pull air
into her lungs. Another and another and then he was done,
leaving her unbuttoned to the waist and trying to keep her
knees from buckling.
He eased the fabric to the sides and blew a soft stream of
air across the swells of her breasts. Twining her fingers
through his hair to anchor herself, she asked on a ragged
breath, "Do you honestly think that's helping?"
His smile was quirked and soft but no less rakish for it.
"I'll bet being warm isn't quite as distracting as it was."
"It's certainly not as unpleasant for some reason."
Devilment danced in his eyes and he lightly trailed his
fingertips along the edge of her corset. Sweet tendrils of
warmth swept through her and coiled into her core. He did it
again, his touch bolder this time, more deliberately inflaming.
She smiled and moistened her suddenly too dry lips.
And then his fingers slipped into the lacy confines to
tease her hardened nipples. "Oh," she breathed, swaying on
her feet, her head light as she leaned into his caress.
"Like that, do you?" he whispered, smiling knowingly up
at her.
"Far more than I probably should," she confessed, her
heart overfilling, her core going molten. "Far more."
"There are no shoulds to desire, darling. If you like it,
you ask for more."
It was a challenge, a dare, a plea. If she stepped back from
it, he wouldn't chastise her or think any less of her for the
timidity. If she accepted it, there would be no more hesitation,
no restraint, no thinking. He would give her the moon, the
stars, and all the pleasure she could bear. "More, please. Now,
if you wouldn't mind."
His grin was unholy and sent her heart soaring. "Not at
all," he murmured, slipping his hands to the underside of her
breasts. His thumbs scraping her nipples, he lifted them
from the confines of her corset and lowered his head.
"So luscious," he declared, kissing a swell, moving
slightly lower, kissing her again.
Alex closed her eyes, awash in the waves of potent sensation,
holding her breath, afraid she'd die of waiting. "Oh,
Aiden," she gasped.
Had any woman ever whispered such an earliest plea? It
thrummed over his senses, igniting his blood and fraying his
gentler intentions. He closed his eyes and paused, determined
to hold his course, to keep their progress under control. Alex
deserved tenderness and a slow, reverent hand. He couldn't
let the seduction go too far, too fast. Not here. Not right now.
"Please, Aiden."
The muscles in his loins tightened and grew hard. They
were in the kitchen, he desperately reminded himself. The
others were due back within minutes. He wanted to go
slowly enough to savor the little quivers of her pleasure, take
her low moans into his mouth and make her squirm with
wanting, make her whisper his name and plea for release.
But not now. He couldn't now.
She threaded her fingers into his hair and arched back to
boldly offer -his lips a dark, pebble
d treasure. Through the
pounding roar of his heartbeat he heard the rasp of his own
labored breathing, heard the high-pitched snapping of his restraint.
A glorious bolt of heat and desire shot through her, full
and wide and deep. Alex gasped in surprised delight, accepting
both the incredible pleasure Aiden gave her and the need
that drove her deeper into his arms. A second wave of pleasure,
far more powerful than the first, rolled over her, filling
her senses, propelling her into a realm of demanding hunger
and unrelenting need.
"Aiden!" she cried, her legs melting under the glorious
fire consuming her.
He pulled her up and, wrapping her tightly in his arms,
drew her full against him. The feel of her breasts against his
sweat-slickened chest, of heated skin against heated skin,
her hips cradled hard and close between his thighs, the fit
magnificently perfect. arousing ...
Driven by the promise of it, he kissed her-deeply, ravenously-
and intoxicated by the unstinted passion of her
welcome, the ache in his soul bloomed into overpowering
desire. There was only the throbbing hardness in his loins
and the desperate thundering of his heart, the aching need to
lay her down and lose himself in her.
His conscience weakly struggled against the tide, and in
the frantic heartbeat he took to tamp it down, the world beyond
them stridently intruded.
"Peacocks," Alex whispered, gazing at him, her breathing
ragged, her lips swollen from his kisses.
Someone was here. The realization brought rational
thought crashing back to the front of his brain. "They can
live after all," he proclaimed, abruptly setting her away and
solidly on her feet. He couldn't resist and kissed her
soundly, quickly, one more time as he stepped around her.
Snatching up his shirt, be rammed his arms into both sleeves
at once, saying, "I'll distract and delay while you put your
clothes back together."
She didn't say anything and he looked over at her while
frantically buttoning up. She stood there, watching him, a
dazed, contented smile on her face; "Dress, darling," he
commanded, jamming his shirttail into his waistband. He
snatched up his coat and her smile slowly grew.
Jesus, she was too delicious to leave. He was too damn
tempted to go anywhere near her. but if he didn't jolt her out
of her reverie ... “Alex!"
With a slight start, her gaze came to his, focused and
aware. He backed toward the door, feasting on the sight of
her for as long as he could. "I'll see you at dinner." With a
wink, he added, "Preferably not that much of you. Not then,
anyway."
She covered her breasts as best she could with her hands
and laughed.
Exhaling long and hard, he turned around and walked out
before she shredded what little of his common sense she'd
left him.
Chapter 15
Aiden stood in the shadows just outside the carriage house,
letting the afternoon air cool his blood and draw his senses
down from the heights. Inside Mohan and Barrett talked,
their voices made low and their words made indistinct by
their distance and the stable wall. He didn’t care what they
were saying. What they were doing and where they were in
the stable wasn't important unless they started toward the
door.
Until they did, though, he needed the time to close away
the delicious memories of Alex, to let the hardness in his
loins ease. The last thing in the world he wanted was to have
to deal with Barrett before he had the mask of cool composure
firmly in place. His relationship with Alex was private
and personal, intensely so, and was going to remain that
way. It wasn't something he was willing to share with Barrett.
Or anyone else for that matter. Alex would die of mortification
if she thought anyone knew.
Aiden narrowed his eyes and stared absently at the back
of the house, considering his squirming conscience. All
right, so dying of mortification was a bit of an overstatement.
She'd be embarrassed and then in the way that was so
stunningly, uniquely her, she'd move past it, smile wickedly,
say something about experiencing the divine, and leave him
standing there blushing and breathless.
himself, it wasn't any abiding concern for Alex's reputation
that motivated him to keep what passed between them a secret,
either. If he'd cared all that much about it, he'd have
kept his wits about him and wouldn't have let their interlude
in the kitchen go as far as it had. They were damn lucky that
no one had walked in on them. If it weren't for the peacocks'
warning ...
He shook his head to dispel the image and raked his fingers
through his hair. No, how badly he'd wanted her - craved
her - had been his overriding thought as he'd
unbuttoned her bodice. And at her first gasp of pleasure...
He hadn't deliberately abandoned control; he'd lost it. And
that was the problem, what he didn't want Barrett or anyone
else in the world to know.
Yes, it was selfish. Yes, it was self-centered. And it was
most definitely shallow. But it was the unvarnished truth.
Alex was so very different from any other woman he'd ever
known. Being with her was so very different. And if he had
to, he'd sell his soul to make love to her. Somewhere along
the way, he'd become a desperate, starving man. One of
those pathetic males for whom other men-rational, self-possessed
men-felt acutely sorry. One of those men that
other men considered an embarrassment.
And the truly pathetic thing was that he didn't really want
to stop hungering for her the way he did. As odd and inexplicable
as it might be, there was a kind of rightness to it.
And if the pleasure in the foreplay was so magnificently intense,
then Lord knew the culmination probably would be,
too.
Probably? Hell, there wasn't any doubt. Alex was going
to reduce him to a heap of sated, grinning cinders. He wasn't
about to walk away from the chance for such soul-searing
ecstasy. Not just to avoid the risk of male social censure. He
was selfish-and maybe a little vain, too-but he wasn't stupid.
All he had to do was carefully, deliberately manage the
impressions of everyone and he could have all his fantasies
come true and avoid the pity of his peers.
Barrett's would be the most important and most difficult
impression to control, he knew. The trick was to keep their
conversations focused strictly on business and well away
from the personal. Barrett had an uncanny ability to see
through denials and attempts to camouflage the truth. That
and absolutely no restraint when it came to asking pointed,
probing questions.
Which is what made him a good investigator, Aiden had
to admit And a worthy friend You didn't lie to Barrett. Not
about the big things, anyway. If you did and got away with it,
it was only because, for one reason or another, he'd let you
for the time being. Eventually there'd be a reckoning.
Aiden stood up a bit straighter and rolled his shoulders.
Thankfully, there was a great deal they needed to talk about
and all of it revolved around his professional concerns for
Alex's safety. He'd delayed long enough to be able to focus
on it, too.
Stepping out of the shadows, he strode toward the open
carriage house door. Barrett and Mohan were just on the
other side of it, heading his way.
"I thought it might be you the peacocks heralded," Aiden
began, stopping them at the threshold. At his friend's half smile
and cocked brow, he continued, "Good news, Barrett.
On the seat of your coach, you'll find the Westerham silver
service for twelve. Less one butter knife. And you'd better
still have it because if you think I'm going back out in search
of a replacement, you're out of your mind."
"You actually found it? How much did it cost you?"
''Alex found it," he corrected. ''All two hundred. And that
took work. The old woman was vicious."