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Alec’s smile grew. He needed to think of a way for her to saytitillatedagain. “I haven’t the faintest. I’ve always preferred a good mystery myself. But in this case, I say we indulge the masses. And don’t leave any room for doubt.”
There was no need for them to actually kiss, of course; it merely needed to appear that way to Marta. But before he could clarify that little detail, Lottie spoke up.
“Fine. You may kiss me,” she said flatly. Then her gaze sharpened. “But it had better be good.”
Alec managed to keep his cavalier expression while internally his reaction was nothing short of pathetic. He had never been one to back away from a challenge, or turn down the chance to kiss a beautiful woman. A tiny voice inside his head suggested that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to kissthisbeautiful woman in particular, but the half-hearted warning was easily dismissed.
“As my lady commands,” he said with a dramatic sigh. Best not to look too eager.
In one swift movement, his hand laced around her nimble waist while the other cupped her nape and gave it a little squeeze. She let out a gasp as her head tilted back but didn’t offer any protest as he gently set his lips to hers.
One could almost believe she was enjoying this.
As if it wasn’t enough for Alec to come strolling in and upend all of Lottie’s plans, now he was trying to further unnerve her with a kiss. No doubt he assumed she would be positively shocked by the mereideaof kissing him, but Lottie had been kissed before. Three times, actually. Ceril Belvedere had even pressed her against the wall of Lady Arlington’s balcony. It had been rather exciting, at least in the moment, but this…
Once, for a very brief period, Lottie had spent untold hours imagining what it would be like to kiss Alec. And even she could not resist the chance to see if her dreams lived up to the reality.
Apparently her imagination had beendecidedlylacking.
Yet it wasn’t only the feel of his lips on hers, so firm, commanding, and confident. It was the way he held her close and cradled her in his arms. As if she really did belong to him.
As if he really did want her.
Alec squeezed her neck a bit more and her mouth opened slightly. Then he gently parted her lips further with his own. That hardly seemed necessary for Marta’s sake, but then one would expect him to be fully committed to his duty. Uncle Alfred had made that plain years ago when Alec left.
He will do whatever is necessary. That is not the kind of life for a man with a family. The Crown must come first. Always.
Lottie had never once spoken to anyone about her feelings for Alec, as she hardly knew what to make of them herself. Alec’s friendship had always been invaluable to her, and yet at times she had ached for something more. More than she could ever put into words. More than she ever dared act upon. But her uncle seemed to understand. There was little use trying to have secrets from a man who had spent much of his life either ferreting them out or keeping them safe. And if Uncle Alfred had known, it stood to reason that Alec did as well. Perhaps for longer than she realized. Lottie had once deluded herself into thinking that Alec had morals, a sense of common decency, and, dare she think it, a fondness for her. But he had done a very fine job of divesting her of all those pesky illusions. Completely. Alec wouldn’t think twice about exploiting anything he could in order to bend her to his will. Even something as innocent as her girlhood affection.
No,especiallysomething like that.
Well, she wasn’t a girl anymore, and he wasn’t the only one who could be shocking. Lottie pressed her tongue to his, determined to show himexactlyhow little this meant to her—but Alec immediately froze. Her cheeks, already flushed from his attentions, burned even greater at this misstep. Rejection wasn’t humiliating enough on its own; no, she must also resemble an overripe tomato. But before she could pull back and recover what little remained of her dignity, Alec hauled her against his chest so close she could feel every thudding heartbeat. With each rhythmic pulse the kiss seemed to grow only more fierce, more desperate, and more dangerous.
Lottie gathered what little remained of her frazzled nerves and raised a hand to push him away, but the appendage had other ideas. Instead, her fingers sank into his hair, mussing those thick waves, while her nails gently scraped his scalp. Alec shivered and gripped her harder, which only further weakened her already feeble resolve. Just as her knees began to tremble, Alec splayed one large palm between her shoulder blades while the other moved close to her backside and firmly anchored her against his form. Every inch radiated heat, strength, and undeniable maleness.
Unlike the other gentlemen of her acquaintance, Alec did not fritter away the daylight hours in private clubs before spending the evening enjoying more shallow entertainments. His body was a weapon, and he treated it like one. She grazed a sizable biceps, and he immediately flexed beneath her fingertips. An appreciative moan rose from her throat, and Alec only kissed her more deeply. The insidious whisper in the back of her mind suddenly grew very loud:Perhaps thisisreal.
Alec tore his mouth from hers, as if he had heard it. After a moment Lottie’s eyes fluttered open. She was flushed. Breathless. But Alec seemed as cool and collected as before. He was staring past her with a sharp, calculating look in those fathomless hazel eyes.
“There,” he murmured. “That ought to do it.”
Chapter Three
Once again Alec had underestimated Lottie while vastly overestimating his own self-control.
That hadn’t been an issue in years—if anything, his control had been a point of pride—but Alec didn’t dare look at her now. He heard her sharp, surprised inhalation as he pulled away, but if he caught just one glimpse of a pliant, kiss-drunk Lottie in his arms, he wouldn’t let go. Alec kept his eyes trained on a corner of the house’s stone facade as he drew his hands away from her deceptively devastating curves. She hadn’t been made of marble at all but was warm and supple, with an enticing figure that could lure men to their deaths; a land-bound siren. A temptation that would most certainly drive him insane.
But far more unnerving was her reaction tohim. Alec had felt that barely contained fire inside her. That passion simmering at the very surface, a breath away from boiling over. It might not all have been on his account—there was still the possible suitor to consider—but he sure as hell wanted to experience Lottie unbound, even if just a part of her, however small, had melted for him.
It was one thing to want a woman madly, but nothing compared to being madly wanted in return. Except to be wanted by her was an impossibility.
Thanks to your parents’ shame, a match between the two of you would be a disaster for her, Sir Alfred had rightly pronounced.You’ve more sense than this, Alec. And if you don’t, I will take great pains to remind you.
Now there was far too much about himself, both his past and the man he had become, that she could never know. Alec strode over to the other side of the terrace, desperate to smell something besides damned rosewater, hear something other than that soft, sultry moan, fill his hands with something other thanher. He swung back around. She stood in the same spot, but all traces of the stubborn, frustrating she-devil had vanished. Her shoulders were slumped and her head was bowed while she nervously twisted her hands. The stark pain in her face hit him harder than any blow.
She might as well have been that cherubic girl again, appealing to every protective instinct he ever had, while he was the same surly eleven-year-old rejecting her affection in a desperate effort to maintain the impenetrable wall around himself. Until the day she finally managed to scale it. From then on he vowed to do her no harm, and to keep that damned look off her face, but now he was the cause. Alec moved to reach for her, to call her name, to soothe her, but the housekeeper chose that moment to arrive with their long-overdue tea.
Lottie immediately straightened at the sight of Marta stepping onto the terrace with a heavy tray. She ignored Alec as she walked toward the housekeeper; that cool marble facade had reappeared once again, destroying any trace of vulnerability.
