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"What is it, Princess? Why are you afraid?"
She drew a shaky breath. "There was no time to think, before. It's why everything was... Travis. I'm not—I'm just not—"
"What?" he whispered, and kissed her, slowly, gently, his lips coaxing hers to soften and cling.
Alex gave a choked laugh and buried her face against his shoulder. "You'll laugh."
Travis gathered her closer. "Tell me."
"I'm not ... experienced. I know that sounds silly, after the way I acted with you, but—"
"I don't believe you."
She shut her eyes in misery. "I didn't think you would. But what I told you is the truth. I've never—I've never been with any man except for my husband, and you."
"I believe that, with all my heart." He smiled and stroked his thumbs along her cheekbones. "But I don't believe you acted when we were together last time."
"Acted?" She drew back and looked up at him. "No. Oh, no. Everything I did and said was—"
"Real."
"Yes. But this isn't going to be the same. I can feel the difference already. I'm all the things I've always been when it comes to—to bed."
Travis gritted his teeth. Alex's husband really had been a bastard but he didn't want to think about that now. He wanted to think only of Alex.
"Yes," he said calmly, "you are all the things you've always been. You're beautiful." He feathered kisses over her face. "Desirable." He smiled. "And incredibly sexy, even without that red dress."
Alex shook her head. "That dress! I can't believe I bought it, or that I wore it. Carl used to say—"
"I don't give a damn what Carl used to say." Travis shut his eyes, told himself to take it easy. Pretending the wall was her ex's face and putting his fist through it was not going to make things better. "Listen to me, Princess. If you've changed your mind about making love with me, tell me so. But if your ex is lodged inside your head, I know exactly how to get rid of him."
Alex's smile trembled. "I don't think you can." "Will you let me try?"
She looked up at him. "I'd like to. But—"
Travis took her into his arms. "Do you hear the music, Princess?"
She did. It was drifting in through the open windows, along with the soft, sighing breaths of the sea.
"Dance with me," he said, and he began moving to the slow, romantic tune.
She felt silly, at first, dancing in a darkened bedroom. Dancing was something you did in a ballroom, each of you with one arm outstretched, your hand on your partner's shoulder and his placed lightly in the small of your back. It was what Miss Mallory had taught her in Etiquette class, when she was a girl.
But Travis had broken those rules the first night they'd met, when he'd held her hard against him as he'd whirled her around and around the ballroom of the Hotel Paradise.
Now, he was breaking them again. Both his arms were around her, his hands low on her spine. And this was no dance that took a couple around the floor in light, graceful movements as Miss Mallory had taught. It was a dance a woman could only learn from a man who desired her.
"Relax," he whispered, "and feel the music."
What she felt was him. His heat. His breath. The tightly leashed power of his body, the steady beat of his heart.
Alex closed her eyes and put her head on Travis's shoulder. His arms tightened around her. One hand dropped lower, to spread across her bottom; the other slid slowly up her spine. He curled his fingers around her nape and toyed with her hair.
"I like your hair this way," he murmured.
"Tied back? It's the way I always..."
"I like it because it's kept me thinking, of how it would be to take it down." He drew back and looked down at her. "Shall I undo your hair, Alex?"
His voice was low, rough as raw silk. She felt a tightening in her breasts, and in the pit of her belly.
"Yes," she said, her eyes on his. "Yes, please. Undo—"
Her breath caught as he unclasped the barrette at the back of her neck. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, and over his hand. He lifted a handful of it, brought it to his lips.
"Beautiful," he said softly, and kissed her.
They swayed with the music. Mouth to mouth. Breast to breast. His thigh just between hers. Alex sighed. Travis kissed her hair, the shell of her ear.
"Look," he whispered.
She blinked, opened her eyes. They were in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, locked in each other's arms, bathed in the soft light of the moon.
"Do you see how beautiful you are?" Travis said.
Alex flushed. "Travis..."
He moved behind her, lifted her hair and let it sift like gold over his fingers. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to her neck, and then he began undoing the tiny buttons that ran down the back of her silk blouse. He opened them slowly, pausing to kiss each bit of newly exposed skin. At last, when they were all undone, he slid the blouse from her shoulders.
