“He was a fortune hunter,” she went on in a dispassionate voice. “He came to Venice looking for some wealthy woman to swindle or some heiress to marry. I am not even certain if Barrett Howard was his actual name. When he saw me, he thought he had found the perfect victim. Local society was not aware of my exact origins; there were various colorful rumors about me. I believe he thought I was the granddaughter of some wealthy merchant or banker who had been sent abroad to acquire polish and an aristocratic husband. He had no desire to shackle himself to a wife, but I was a more appealing prospect, apparently, than some raddled old widow. He had thought that once he was married to me, my money would all be in his hands as my husband. And then, he said, he had planned to take my money and leave.”
Alec turned her in his arms, pulling her in and bending to
lay his head against hers. “The man was a scoundrel,” he said fiercely. “And a fool.”
Damaris breathed out a little humorless laugh. “
I
was the fool. I didn’t see him for what he was.”
“How could you? You were seventeen, and he took great care not to show you what he was. You can scarcely be blamed for believing his lies.”
“I found out soon enough. Barrett told me he refused to live with me for the next thirteen years until my trust came to me, begging for scraps from my trustees. The morning after Carstairs visited us, I found that Barrett had disappeared during the night. He had taken my jewels and all the money Carstairs had given us to set up household. I suppose he thought that would somewhat make up for not getting all my money.”
Alec let out a ripe curse. “He should have been horsewhipped. I’d like to get my hands on him for a few minutes.” His hands knotted into fists at his side.
“Thank you for the sentiment. But I am afraid that has been taken out of your hands. He was caught in a fire in an inn a few days later and burned to death.”
“Good,” Alec responded unsympathetically. “It is the sort of death he deserved. Though I am sorry he is not still around so I could show him what I think of him.”
Damaris smiled, leaning back a little to look up into Alec’s face. “You are a fierce man.”
“No doubt that’s true.” His face softened and he raised his hand to brush her cheek. “But not to you. Never to you.” He
took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and leaned down to kiss her.
His mouth was gentle on hers and tender. Yet it caused heat to rise in her, filling her belly and spilling out all over her body. Damaris wrapped her arms around him, rising up on her toes to kiss him back. In an instant, the kiss changed, turning hot and needy. Alec slid his hands around her beneath his jacket, pulling her up and into him as his mouth moved against hers greedily. His skin flared with heat, and his body grew taut as he pressed her to him, his hands roaming her back.
Damaris’s body responded to him reflexively, her breasts heavy and aching, and a fiercer, hotter need sprang to life deep inside her. She dug her fingers into Alec’s back, pressing her body into his as if she could melt into him. The fire he had started in her the other morning, banked since then, roared to life. She knew how it had felt to have his hands caressing her, and she wanted it. She remembered the pleasure rippling through her, the breathless burst of delight. She wondered what it would be like to lie under him, to have him inside her, to hear his labored breath, to feel his damp, hot skin sliding over hers.
Perhaps it was wrong to want him this way; maybe her nature was truly wanton, and she was a wicked widow. Right now Damaris did not care. All she cared about was him—the taste and sound and feel of him.
Alec broke their kiss. He raised his head, gazing down at her, his eyes glittering fiercely in the dim light, his breath rasping in his throat. “We should not. Anyone could see us.”
“I don’t care.”
He let out a little groan, tipping his head down to rest his forehead against hers. “You make it very hard to act the gentleman.”
“I don’t want a gentleman,” Damaris replied boldly. “I want you.”
Alec let out a breathy chuckle and pressed his lips against her head. “You should go below.”
Despite his words, his arms did not loosen around her, and Damaris smiled to herself, leaning her head against his chest. “All right.”
He released her, his arms falling away from her reluctantly. Damaris took his hand and started toward the steps.
“No.” Alec remained where he was, their arms stretching between them. “I should stay here for a while. It’s, um, better that way. Safer.”
Damaris looked at him. Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest. “I don’t want ‘safer.’ “
She started once more for the stairs, and Alec followed.
Inside their cabin, Alec closed
the door and turned to face Damaris. His face was taut, his eyes bright and intent on her face, his whole body fairly radiating tension. He picked up her hand and brought it to his mouth, laying a kiss in her palm. His skin seared hers; his lips were soft as velvet. “Are you sure?” he asked.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He pressed his lips against her palm again, then cradled her hand to his
cheek. He moved even closer, cupping her face in his hands, and bent to kiss her, touching his lips softly to her forehead, her cheeks, her eyes, before settling finally on her mouth. The kiss was leisurely, exploring, signaling that they had all the night before them and he intended to savor each moment of it.
Damaris relaxed against him, and his arms slid around her. Damaris had never been so aware of her body. Every inch of her was alive and tingling, and where his hands moved over her, her skin blazed. A pleasurable ache started deep in her abdomen and grew with each kiss, each caress. He let his hands drift down over her back and up again, moving with a feather-light touch. They curved over her buttocks, and his fingers flexed, digging into the fleshy mounds and lifting her up against him. She could feel the rigid line of his manhood pressing into her, pulsing and eager.
He guided her back to the bed and tugged her down to sit on the edge, then went down on one knee before her. He lifted one of her feet, placing the sole of her half boot upon his bended knee, and began to unbutton her shoe. Damaris realized with surprise that something stirred deep inside her at the sight of him tending to her. She wasn’t sure what it was—the nimble movement of his long, agile fingers on the leather or the care he took with her or perhaps it was simply the thought of him serving her—but heat blossomed between her legs and sent teasing tendrils up through her.
When he had removed her shoes, Alec stood, taking Damaris’s hand to pull her up with him. He found the few
remaining hairpins that had not been dislodged by the wind and plucked them from her hair, sending it tumbling down around her face and shoulders in a heavy curtain. Then he pulled her to him, burying his face in her tresses.
His searching lips found her ear, and he took the fleshy lobe between his teeth, worrying it gently, then tracing the shell of her ear with his tongue. Hot shivers of longing shot through her, bursting into a liquid ache low in her abdomen. He kissed his way down her throat, and Damaris let her head fall back, exposing the tender flesh to him more fully. He nibbled at the taut cords, his tongue trailing designs over her skin, working his way ever lower.
She drew in a sharp breath when he reached the soft top of her breast, and he pulled his head up. Damaris feared for a moment that her reaction had stopped him, but Alec took the top button of her dress in his fingers, slipping it through the material. He looked down into her eyes as he unfastened the neat little row, his gaze holding her as surely as his hands had. She felt each movement of his fingers, so close to her skin, and her breath hitched in her throat.
As each button fell to his advance, the dress sagged open more, revealing the creamy tops of her breasts above her shift. His fingertips brushed the valley between her breasts, and her insides quivered, a dark ache starting low inside her. Slowly he eased the dress from her shoulders and pulled it down, letting it drop to the floor. He ran a forefinger along the neckline of her chemise, the touch sending a trail of fire across her skin. He watched the path of his teasing finger, his
eyes turning dark and heavy-lidded, then slipped his finger inside the soft cotton, gliding his nail over her nipple.
The bud tightened in response, and Damaris felt the movement all through her. Alec untied the center bow, loosening the garment, and rolled it slowly downward, revealing her breasts to his gaze. The cotton rubbed over her nipples, and he watched, with a sultry satisfaction, as the buttons of flesh prickled under the caress of the cloth.
Damaris was filled with a curious combination of embarrassment and pride as Alec drank in the sight of her bare breasts. No man had ever looked at her so. During her brief marriage, she had never undressed before her husband, and he had never removed her nightgown when they lay together. Certainly he had never gazed at her like this, as if he could consume her whole, as if his life lay in watching her.
The chemise soon joined her gown on the floor. Alec cupped her breasts in his hands, taking in the weight of them, and he brushed his thumbs over her, teasing her nipples into hardness. Then he bent and ran his tongue over one nipple, and Damaris let out another soft noise of surprise and pleasure. Nothing had ever felt like this, so hot and damp and compelling, and when his mouth closed around her breast, sucking softly on her sensitive flesh, she quivered with delight.
He took his time with each breast, stroking and kissing, rubbing her nipples between his lips, until Damaris was whimpering with desire. She moved her hips involuntarily, and his hand came down to slip between her legs, moving
through the cloth of her underthings over the hot, damp center of her passion. A low sound, somewhere between a groan and a growl, issued from his throat.
“So sweet,” he murmured against her breast. “So warm.” He raised his head and looked down into her face. He was flushed, his mouth slack with desire and darkened by their kisses, his eyes piercing. “Just like yesterday morning,” he went on thickly, his fingers working their magic on her flesh.
Damaris drew in her breath at the intense pleasure his agile fingers created, then gasped again as the implications of his words hit home. “You mean—you were awake then! When you—” Her cheeks flushed bright red with embarrassment.
He smiled slowly. “Did you really think I could sleep through that?”
She was indignant—or, at least, she wanted to be indignant. He had knowingly touched her. He had—he had—but, oh, sweet goodness, he was touching her like that now, and all she could think of was the hot, itchy, wonderful way it felt to have his hand on her. She could only shudder out a sigh and move unconsciously against his hand, her eyelids fluttering closed in pleasure.
This time she was certain the noise Alec made was a growl. He stepped back from her and bent down to yank off his boots and socks. He straightened, reaching up to the front of his shirt, but Damaris nudged his hands aside and began to unfasten the ties herself. He watched her, his eyes burning, as she took the end of each narrow strip of cloth
and dragged it slowly apart, revealing inch by inch the bare skin of his chest. Sliding her hands up under his shirt, her fingers spread wide over his skin, she slowly made her way up his sides. At last she hooked her fingers into the hem of his shirt and tugged it upward, and he bent over to let her pull it off over his head.
Marveling a little at her nerve, Damaris moved to the top button of his breeches. Alec’s stomach muscles twitched at her touch, but he did not move away. Damaris’s eyes roved over his bare chest as she unfastened his breeches, watching his chest rise and fall more rapidly with each of her movements. The garment drifted dangerously lower and lower on his hips as she freed him, until at last, with an impatient movement, Alec reached down and skinned the breeches down his legs and stepped out of them, revealing his naked body.
He was lean and powerful, his legs long and his hips narrow. She understood now why he had enjoyed looking at her naked body. It did wicked things to her insides to see his bare flesh, to watch his muscles bunch and lengthen, to think of how they would feel beneath her hands, hard and strong under his smooth skin. Her fingers itched to explore his body, and she laid her palms flat on his stomach, drifting slowly up over the outlines of his ribs and around to his back, then returning to smooth her thumbs across the hard outcropping of his pelvic bones. She stopped there, not bold enough to let her fingers follow the path of her gaze onto the flat plain of his abdomen… to curl around the hard, thrusting proof of his virility.
Damaris blushed and jerked her eyes away from the fascinating view of his naked body and back up to his face. He was watching her, but the look in his eyes sent any thought of embarrassment flying out of Damaris’s head. There was nothing in his expression but hunger, a deep, primitive need that left no room for thought or shame or anything but an answering yearning within her.
She untied her petticoat, letting it slide off onto the floor, then followed it with her pantalets. Alec watched her, his chest rising and falling in deep, uneven breaths. He came to her, his hands settling on her waist.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said in a low voice, his thumbs moving along her skin, stroking her. He bent and swooped her up in his arms and laid her down upon the bed.