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“I love you,” she breathed into his damp hair, feeling his hardness pulsing in her hand.
With a guttural sound he raised his hips, pulling up her night rail in one frantic motion and tearing open his own robe to free his rigid arousal. He separated her legs with his knees, slid his hands beneath her buttocks, and drove into her with a wild, powerful lunge that made them both cry out.
And then he was moving, his thrusts hard and fast and so deep that he swore he could touch her womb.
And Alex was with him, wrapping her arms around his back, bending her knees to hug his flanks, loving him to the very depths of her being. Her body was vitally alive, aware of the sensuous feel of his silk robe rubbing against her bare thighs, the crushing weight of his body on hers, each shudder he gave as he thrust into her wet warmth, the broken love words he could not contain.
She loved him. The Duke of Allonshire … Captain Drake Barrett; they were one and the same. And she loved him.
She sobbed out his name as her body contracted in unbearable pleasure.
Drake raised his head and stared down into her face to watch her as the spasms swept over her, his face contorted with pain.
“Damn you, Alex,” he panted, closing his eyes as the explosion of his own release erupted within him. “Damn you for doing this to me.” He gave an agonized groan, as waves of ecstasy crashed down upon him, submerging him.
He crushed her against him, molded her to him, and poured his entire being into hers, the tormented words torn from his heart and his soul.
“Damn you for making me love you.”
Chapter 28
“DON’T YOU THINK IT is time we talked about it?”
Smitty stood beside Drake on the polished quarterdeck of the newly completed merchant ship. The vessel was larger than La Belle Illusion, more lavish in detail. She was also, as yet, nameless.
The two men had set sail on the Thames the morning after the ball. Yet, three days later, Drake had yet to discuss his turbulent encounter with Alexandria. The men had spoken mostly of the unsolved mystery behind the attempts on Drake’s life. They had spent the remainder of the daylight hours acquainting themselves with their new ship, but there were freq
uent silences filled with unresolved tension.
Now Drake stared moodily out into the sunset, his features haggard with strain, dark circles beneath his hollow eyes. At Smitty’s reminder of the night prior to their flight from Allonshire, Drake’s hands tightened reflexively on the wheel.
“I have no desire to speak on that subject, Smitty. I am here to forget.”
“And have you?”
A haunted look shadowed Drake’s face. “No. I have forgotten nothing.”
Smitty studied Drake’s anguished expression and asked the question that had plagued him for days. “Did you hurt her, your grace?”
Drake closed his eyes at the accusation, seeing Alex as clearly as if she still lay before him. Her cheeks had been streaked with tears, her expression filled with pain, which she made no attempt to disguise, as she had silently watched him stagger toward the door, leaving her crumpled and alone on her bed. How many times had she told him that she loved him? Over and over, and yet he couldn’t accept it, hadn’t wanted to hear the words. Instead he had taken her in rage and in a frantic attempt to free himself from the emotional bond that she had forged between them. His only sane act had been to declare his love for her. But even that revelation had been disguised by anger and uttered at the very height of passion.
Had he hurt her? The answer to that was an unequivocal yes. He had hurt her … in more ways than one.
“How could you harm her?”
Drake’s eyes snapped open at Smitty’s angry tone.
“Because I am a bastard.”
“Not a bastard, your grace, but a damned fool.”
Drake nodded in agreement, the need to share his agony suddenly more than he could bear. “She told me she loved me. And I know it to be true. But damn it, Smitty, when I saw her with all those men, flaunting herself, flirting openly with them, all I could think of was—”
“The worst,” Smitty finished for him. “And without even speaking to the duchess first, you retaliated. Tell me, does your heart feel that your wife would openly seduce a roomful of men? Knowing her as you do, do you think she would show so little respect for your feelings as to acquire a string of paramours right before your eyes?”
Smitty didn’t wait for Drake’s response, but continued, determined to make his friend see the truth. “It is time to put the old scars behind you,” he stated simply, placing his hand on Drake’s shoulder, for despite Smitty’s outrage at the thought of Drake causing Alex pain, long-standing loyalty and love made him sympathetic to his friend’s internal torment.
“Hasn’t your wife proved to you by now that she is unique? That she is interested in no man other than you? Try for once to think objectively, your grace, to see things as they really are, not as you imagine them to be. Lady Alexandria has forgiven you for your deceit, for the chaos you have made of her life, for the near-impossible adjustment she has had to make these last months. And why? Because she loves you, because she has always loved you. Now, are you going to nurture that feeling, revel in the beauty that it offers, or are you going to throw it all away because of the immoral women who have tarnished your past?
