Damaris reveled in his pleasure even as her own desire expanded and pulsed, begging for release. It was a slow, delectable torture of the senses, holding the aching need at bay while she pushed it ever higher. Alec slipped his hand in between them, his thumb finding the small, aching center of her coiling hunger. He stroked the slick bud, knotting the need within her tighter and tighter until at last she could hold back no more. The wave took Damaris and she trembled, a sob of pleasure escaping her lips. His hands went to her hips, holding her as he slammed into her, driving up into her as if he could reach the center of her very soul, until at last he, too, cried out as he reached his own peak.
She collapsed against him and started to roll aside, but Alec wrapped her arms around her, holding her in place.
“Stay,” he murmured, his lips against her hair. “Stay with me.”
And so she did, lying atop him as she slid into sleep.
Damaris awakened the next morning
, squeezed into a narrow space where the small bed met the wall. It was a bed meant
for one person, and when someone the size of Rawdon was in it, there was little room left for anyone else. As they slept, he had spread out, so that Damaris had been nudged farther and farther to the edge. It was a good thing that the bed was built into the wall or she would have fallen off entirely.
She rolled onto her side, back against the wall, and propped herself on one elbow. Dawn had crept through the grimy portholes on the opposite side of the small cabin, washing the room in pale light. Damaris was well content to just lie there for a while, gazing at Alec.
He was lying on his back, one long arm crooked over his head, his other hand resting on his stomach. Since he created enough heat for a banked fire, the covers had gotten pushed farther and farther down so that they now covered only enough of him for the bare minimum of modesty. His far leg had kicked free of the covers and was bent back over them, exposing the long line of his leg, lightly covered in pale gold hairs. The sheet slanted up across that hipbone, and above it was the wide plain of his chest.
Damaris was able to look her fill, as she had not been in the darkness of night and the heat of passion. He was a powerful specimen of a man, his body hard and padded with muscle. Her eyes moved slowly over his face, slack and peaceful in sleep, without his usual tight control, then down onto the wide hard points of his shoulders, taking in the lines and hollows of his collarbone, the sprinkling of light-colored hair that formed an inverted V. She thought of following that beckoning V with her finger, dipping down to where it disappeared
under the sheet. It would be terribly unladylike, of course. It had been one thing to caress his body last night in the midst of passion, but quite another to express such curiosity in the full light of day, with her mind unclouded by desire.
She cast a quick glance up at his face, still blissfully asleep, then reached out a careful finger, hooking it under the sheet and sliding it ever so slowly downward, revealing the flat table of his stomach, the shallow dent of his navel, the satiny skin stretched tightly over his pelvic bones, the line of hair widening now to burst out in full force all around the staff of his maleness. She stared for a moment in fascination at the member, thickening even in his sleep.
She stretched her hand out, then drew it back.
“Go ahead.”
Damaris glanced up, surprised, at the deep rumble of Alec’s voice, and found him watching her through heavy-lidded eyes. She blushed at being caught in such immodest behavior, but the rich timbre of his voice and the heated look in his eyes stirred her almost as much as his nakedness. She hesitated briefly, then placed her hand on his chest and slid it across him, her fingertips finding and circling the dark flesh of his nipples. Her belly warmed to feel them prickle and stiffen beneath her touch.
Alec linked his arms behind his head, offering himself to her touch without defense, and the gesture stoked the growing warmth in her abdomen. Damaris answered his invitation by letting her hand roam over him, delving down onto his stomach, edging ever close to the throbbing center of his
desire, until finally her fingers touched the quivering flesh. She curled her fingers around him, fascinated by the silken feel of his skin, stretched over the swelling hardness.
He swallowed hard, his whole body tightening, and when she bent to take his nipple in her mouth, he let out a sharp exhalation of breath. She trailed her lips over him, tasting the faint salt of his skin, her tongue circling and teasing his nipples. Alec was taut, ruthlessly restraining his hunger, allowing her to explore his body with infinite care. But, at last, he fisted his hands in her hair, and with a low growl, he dragged her head up to take her mouth in a long, deep kiss.
Desire stormed through them. Alec pulled Damaris beneath him and plunged into her. Damaris accepted him eagerly, wrapping her arms and legs around him, clinging to him as he moved in long, smooth strokes. With every movement, passion built and spiraled. Damaris dug her nails into his shoulders, unable to hold back a thin, high cry as he shuddered within her, sending them both over the edge into a trembling explosion of pleasure.
It was much later that they pulled together the strength to arise. Alec brought them back a plain breakfast that differed little from their supper the night before, but they wolfed it down with appetites sharpened by the night’s activities.
Afterward, they spent a long, lazy day together, talking and laughing, occasionally going up on deck to stroll around and look out over the limitless blue of the ocean. Though the sailors were around them, going about their jobs, Damaris
and Alec were separated, in a sense as alone together as they were in the intimate cabin belowdecks. Cocooned together, freed from the usual constraints of society, without even the constant presence of servants, they came to know each other in a warm intimacy.
Alec talked to her of his home and family, his pride and love for Castle Cleyre shining through his mundane descriptions of the place and people. He told her about his closeness with his sister, the two of them growing up united against the world, and, smiling, he spoke of their aunt, Willa, who now resided at Castle Cleyre.
“You will like her, I am certain. She is my mother’s sister, not a Stafford at all.”
“Ah, so then she is not your grandmother’s child?” Damaris asked, leaning her head against his shoulder. They were sitting curled up together on the bed, having just taken their third perambulation around the deck.
“Good heavens, no.” Alec chuckled. “Aunt Willa is terrified of the countess. She would not even come live at the castle until Grandmother began spending most of the year in Bath instead. Willa is a trifle vague—you will see—but she is the kindest of people. She feared my father as well, but for our sakes, she would brave him and Grandmother in order to visit us each year, and she managed to convince them to let us visit her in Cumbria in the summers.”
“Was she close to your mother?”
“I don’t know. I scarcely remember my mother. She died when Genevieve was only two and I was seven. She died in
childbirth, the baby as well. She was a beauty, I can tell that from the portraits of her. Aunt Willa was a paler version of her—eyes not so blue, hair not so blond, face not drawn so finely. Nor did she marry as well, though it was by all accounts a love match. Her husband was a jolly sort, though I fear that when I was young I viewed him with the scornful eyes of a Stafford. He wasn’t, I thought, what a man should be.”
“And what is that?” Damaris rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder, turning to press her lips briefly to his neck.
“Oh… all ferocity and pride, I suppose, as my father was. Grand in stature and feared by all.”
“And yet you did not follow your father in that way.”
“No. I refused to be him. But I am still a Stafford.”
“You are far more than that,” Damaris protested, turning to sit in his lap and twine her arms around his neck, planting soft kisses over his face, punctuating each of her words with another kiss. “You are strong and brave. A good friend.”
“Ahem. I believe it was you who designated me Lord Frost at your Twelfth Night gala, was it not?”
Damaris laughed, her breath touching his cheek in soft little gusts. “You will hold that against me always, won’t you? Perhaps I did find you a trifle cold—you did not, after all, pay me the slightest attention.”
“Ah, there you are wrong; I was quite aware of you.” He stroked his hand down her leg and slid it back up beneath her skirts. “I still am.”
“Indeed?” Damaris cocked an eyebrow at him. Her skin was already beginning to tingle in anticipation, her insides
threatening to turn soft and waxen. “I think you will have to prove that to me.”
“Will I?” He grinned, hooking his hand in the waistband of her underthings and tugging them downward. “I think that I can do that.” His fingers slipped between her legs to find the hot secret center of her.
Damaris choked back a gasp, closing her eyes at the hot, sweet pleasure, and she sagged back against his supporting arm. Alec never took his eyes from her face as his fingers played with her, stroking and teasing until her face was flushed with passion and her hips moved urgently against his touch. He watched, desire stamped on his features, as pleasure took her, sending her moaning and trembling into the maelstrom.
Only then did he shift her and sink deep within her to ride out his own fierce passion.
Afterward, sated and warm and lazy, they lay together, naked and unembarrassed, as Damaris told him of her childhood, loose and free and bound around with love in a way that was foreign to Rawdon. She talked of the cities in which she had lived, of the sophisticated, glittering continental society in which she had moved.
“And yet you chose to live in Chesley,” he said, leaning on his elbow and looking down at her quizzically.
“Do not discount Chesley,” Damaris warned. “It has a very particular charm.”
He smiled, twining a strand of her hair around his finger. “I think its most particular charm is you.”
Damaris stretched up to kiss him lightly on the lips. “I wish—”
“Wish what?” Alec prompted when Damaris stopped.
“I wish that we could stay like this forever, that it did not have to end,” she went on in a soft voice. She lifted her chin, looking at him almost defiantly. “Despite everything—those men and not having enough money, all of it—this time has been… magical.”
Alec curved his hand over her cheek, his eyes warm. “It does not have to end. We will still be together.” He bent and brushed his lips over her cheek. “We will still have the nights.” His lips touched hers. “In a much more comfortable bed.” His mouth strayed to her other cheek. “And I intend to make full use of it.”
Damaris smiled faintly. “I am sure you will.” She ran her fingers slowly back through his hair. “But it won’t be the same. I like having you in my bed.”
His mouth widened sensually, his eyes suddenly brighter. “As do I.” He touched his thumb to her lower lip, dragging it softly over the tender flesh. “I have no intention of losing you. We are both fully grown and independent. There is no impediment, no one to gainsay us. I shall make certain no servants talk, and there will be no stain to your name. Whether you are at Castle Cleyre or Chesley or London, believe me, I will find my way to your bed.”
Damaris’s heart twisted within her. Much as his words stirred her, she could not help but notice that in Alec’s future, there was no talk of marriage. He might want her, but she
would never be anything but his mistress. Of course, she had always known that. And if she had had any doubts, that fact had been driven home to her when he spoke about the effect the scandal with Jocelyn had had on his family. He would marry the sort of woman a Stafford should—and a woman born in scandal and wedded in scandal would not qualify.
She told herself it made no difference. When she had turned to him on this ship and invited him into her bed, she had realized how it would be. She had accepted it. And she would not cry about it now. She would take what she could have and leave the rest to worry about later.
So she smiled and wrapped her arms around Alec’s neck, pulling him down to her. “I will hold you to that,” she whispered, and kissed him.
T
he next morning, their ship
sailed into Newcastle, and with some regret, Damaris and Alec left behind their cabin and their pretense of marriage. Here, so close to his home, it took little time for Alec to secure them an excellent breakfast in an inn, as well as a room where Damaris could bathe and wash the salt spray from her hair. When the maids had filled the tub with deliciously warm water and left the room, Damaris turned to Alec, beaming.
“Thank you! You cannot know how much I look forward to it.”
“Oh, but I do. I am looking forward to it, too,” he told her, a grin spreading across his face as he began to undo his shirt.
Damaris’s eyes widened. “Alec, what are you doing?”
“I am equally in need of a bath. Why waste the water?” He stripped his shirt off over his head and tossed it aside. “I can wash your back, so it will be quite practical.”