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“Drake …” she cried out, digging her nails into his back.
Drake groaned as her contractions clasped him, pulling at his frantic, engorged manhood. But, unwilling to relinquish the moment and the sheer joy of watching his wife, he determinedly held himself back, forced himself to wait.
She was breathtaking in her utter, abandoned ecstasy, her face bathed with pleasure, her voice calling his name over and over in soft pants of release. And all Drake could think in that final moment of sanity was that this beautiful, sensual angel in his arms, this unspoiled and giving woman who had known no man but him, this gentle healer of his lifelong wounds, was his wife and would soon be the mother of his child.
Drake closed his eyes, his entire body tightening … waiting. He was dangling at the precipice of a peak that towered so high, fell so far, that it demanded all of him, left none of him untouched. And he gave himself to it willingly, gladly, for Alex was beside him, with him … always.
The eruptions began deep inside him, growing stronger and stronger until he helplessly surrendered to the wildness of his climax, shouting Alex’s name, desperate, yet unable, to convey to her all that she made him feel.
And afterward, as he held his wife in his arms, he again whispered the words he had never said to another woman, the words that he hoped would begin to explain what was in his heart … the only words Alex ever needed to hear.
“Alex … I love you.”
Chapter 30
“I NEVER INTENTIONALLY KEPT my identity from you. Circumstances thwarted every opportunity to tell you the truth.”
Drake lay on his back, Alex cradled against his chest. Their bodies temporarily sated, the need to talk, to understand, and to be understood moved to the forefront.
Alex raised her head, giving Drake a slightly disgruntled look.
“You certainly did not try very hard,” she reminded him, thinking of the months at sea when he had plagued her about her noble birth.
He grinned. “Not in the beginning, no. I was having far too much fun with our cat-and-mouse game.”
“At my expense.”
“At your expense,” he agreed, tenderly stroking her back. “But remember, princess, that I was not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone, least of all a woman. Worse, a woman who touched my emotions, made me vulnerable.”
“A woman who was everything you loathed,” she added softly.
“Everything I needed,” he corrected, wrapping his arms more tightly around her. “By the time I realized you had the right to know, it was too late. You already thought of me as Drake Barrett, a simple sea captain. If I had told you the truth, that I was a member of the peerage, prisoner to the same hollow world as you, you would have hated me for lying to you. The ironic thing is that I never really lied, except about my titles. Everything else I told you, my whole jaded life, was true.”
Alex rested her chin on his chest. “I cannot dispute your words. I’m sure I would have flown into a rage if you had told me who you were.” She gave him a questioning look. “Why did it matter to you how I felt, whether I accepted you or not?”
Drake traced the line of her nose with a gentle finger. “Because, my beautiful, foolish princess, I was in love with you.”
Alex’s head came up. “Even then?”
He gave her a roguish grin. “Even then. Before then. From the moment I saw your impudent little self clad in a dusty muslin dress, glaring at me in my own cabin, I wa
s lost.”
“You despised me,” Alex contradicted him, thinking back to that fateful meeting.
“I resented you like hell,” he amended. “I thought you were the most arrogant, outspoken, patronizing chit I had ever met in my life.” He paused, his eyes darkening to a deep, forest green. “I also never wanted anything in my life the way I wanted to be inside you. This”—he brought her hand down to the hard, hot arousal pulsing against his belly—”has been a permanent condition since last March.”
“I’m flattered,” she murmured, stroking softly, “and delighted that I render you so insatiable.”
“Care to prove it?” He tangled his hands in her hair, drew her up to him for a bone-melting kiss.
“Gladly … after we finish our talk.” Alex withdrew her mouth and her teasing hand, determined not to be sidetracked—at least not yet.
Drake settled himself back with a resigned sigh. “All right, princess. You win. But I have already told you everything.”
“Not quite.” Alex gave him an accusing look. “You overlooked one small detail.”
“Which is?”
