Moonlight (4 page)

“Good.”

In all the time she’d known him, not once had she seen him the way she did now.

As a desirable man. A man of substance and weight, of a surprising gravitas considering his age. She studied him now, trying to understand what had changed.

However long she looked, she didn’t think she’d ever know. Her eyes saw a man now.

A man she desired.

His irises were nearly black and his lashes were a thick, dark sweep across his cheeks. His father lived on in the angles of his face, the length of his nose, the distance between his eyes. The shape of his mouth was his mother. Sensitive, his lower lip slightly fuller than the upper. There was a dimple in his chin. She very much wanted to make love to him. To Alec.

“Lovely Philippa.” He pushed her shawl off her shoulders, catching it at the crooks of her elbows and pulling the cashmere away to drape over the desk chair. His touch, light as it was, sent a quiver though her body. “I can hardly believe you’re here.” He took her right hand and worked her glove off her fingers. “That it’s you,” he said as he did this. He drew her glove off her arm and glanced at her before he went to work on Carolyn Jewel Moonlight 26

the other one. He took the fan dangling from her wrist and set that on the trunk. When he drew off her other glove, she pulled her hand back. His gaze met hers and desire roared through her.

He dropped her second glove on top of the trunk with her fan and the other glove. A smile quirked his mouth, and she was reminded of the boy he’d been. His smile had always been infectious. The man before her had no hesitations about what he was doing. “You anticipate me wonderfully well.”

“I am relieved, my lord.”

He reached for her left hand. Their bare skin touched. Hand to hand. The tips of his fingers slid over hers, once, slowly, over the wedding ring she still wore. “Do you miss him?”

“Yes.” She spoke over the lump in her throat.

“I miss him, too. His letters.” He slipped his arms around her waist, and as he pulled her close, he made a low sound in the back of his throat. Because he was a young and healthy young man. Because he desired her.

The tension in her eased. She put her hands on his chest and slid them down to the first button of his coat. Her wedding band glittered on her finger. She unfastened the button.

His eyelids closed part way. “Mm. What wickedness is this?”

“Wickedness?” She darted a look at him before she started on the next button.

“You are in your private quarters, my lord. Surely you can be comfortable here without thinking yourself wicked.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” He shrugged off his coat when she was done, but her hands followed the collar until the fine wool was sliding past his shoulders and down his arms to the point where she could reach no further. He leaned away to drop his coat on the chair.

“I think, Philippa, that I am still not as comfortable as I might be. Tell me, what ought we to do about that?”

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She couldn’t help smiling. His waistcoat soon joined his coat. And there he stood, in his trousers, shirt and braces, and he was simply too beautiful for words.

“It strikes me,” he said, still smiling that familiar smile of his, “that you must be uncomfortable, too. And here—” He gave a quick look around “—I think we may both be as comfortable as we like.”

Philippa held up her hands. “I’ve already removed my gloves. And my shawl.”

“Very bold.” He ran his index fingers from the tops of her shoulders downward along the neckline of her gown. “But I worry that this lovely gown of yours restricts you too much to be at ease. Does it?”

“Perhaps you’re right, my lord.”

“Mm,” he said. He moved behind her and began unfastening the hooks and ties of her gown. Before long, he was lowering the dress and she stepped out of her best evening gown. Her corset was next. Then petticoat. When he was done, he set his hands on her shoulders and his mouth by her ear to whisper, “Is that better?” She could only nod. She was now wearing only her shift, and, of course, her dancing slippers and stockings. Alec stayed behind her and put his hands around her natural waist. She melted against his chest.

“What a slender woman you are, Philippa.”

“Does that disappoint you?”

“No.” His hands slid up, his fingers slanted toward the floor. His hands stopped just beneath her bosom. She held her breath, longing for him to touch her yet enjoying the building warmth. She was liquid inside, a pool of desire when she’d once thought she was no longer capable of that sort of reaction.

His fingers brushed the bottom curve of her breasts.

Philippa faced him, and he was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive.

She pushed his braces off his shoulders. Alex shrugged, and they fell to his sides. She undid his neckcloth then the buttons on the placket of his shirt. He reached between them and pulled it over his head, turning a little to let it drop away from where they Carolyn Jewel Moonlight 28

stood.

“What a splendid animal you are,” she whispered. “So sleek. So well made.” His body was the product of youthful vigor and lack of indolence. She touched his chest, sliding a finger over his nipple.

“More,” he said on an intake of breath. He cupped the back of her neck and drew her toward him. She kissed him there, flicking her tongue over his nipple. One, then the other.

He gathered handfuls of her shift, and drew it up and over her head. She stood before Alec wearing nothing but her shoes and stockings. He stayed completely still, eyes on her body, lingering on her breasts. “So lovely.” With her eyes on his, she touched her breasts. The effect on him was gratifying.

The wide open eyes, the swift intake of breath. “Your hands,” she said, “need to be here.”

His attention fixed on her hands, on her fingers. He took a step forward and his hands came between them, one then the other, pushing away hers. And then his fingers covered her and she pressed forward and raised her face to the ceiling, eyes closed because she didn’t think she could look at him and keep back the tears at the same time.

She knew him so well. He would never do anything to hurt her.

“Like this?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“Tell me what you want.”

Slowly, she lowered her head, and when she opened her eyes, he was looking at her with that same reverence that made her throat close up. “To feel.” She covered his hands with hers. “To be alive the way I am right now. Like this.” Alec swept her up in his arms and carried her the ten steps to the bed. He spread himself over her, one hand above her shoulder, letting the weight of his hips press against her pelvis yet keeping himself over her. His hair fell over his forehead and his lashes were black against his cheeks. He was looking at her body, her breasts, her Carolyn Jewel Moonlight 29

stomach. He stroked his hand down her body, from her shoulders to her toes and back.

“Jesus, Philippa. You’re so lovely.”

“The lights,” she said.

He looked up. “What of them?”

“Don’t you mean to turn them down?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t.” He curled a hand around her upper thigh, pulling up so that her knee bent and his palm spread flat around the back of her leg. His other arm bore his weight and when she set her fingertips to his upper arm, she traced the shape of the muscles. “I want to see you. I want to put my mouth places that will make you scream my name, and I want to watch when you come apart in my arms.” Alec dropped his head and then his mouth was on her breast, his weight a little heavier on her now. She twined her legs around his, arching into the pressure of his mouth. Her body felt too full, the sensations too intense to bear. His fingers pulled at her garter and, after fumbling a bit, released one to slide her stocking down her bare leg, all without looking. When he’d done that, he shifted his weight to his other arm and his mouth to her other breast. Her other garter was soon gone, her slipper and stocking tossed off the bed which she knew because she heard the sound of her shoe hitting the floor.

She moaned when he pulled away. “No,” she said. “Stay.”

“I want to look at you.” His voice sounded thick, and when she managed to open her eyes, he was doing exactly that, kneeling between her legs, pushing her bent knees apart. “Does this make you feel alive? Tell me.”

“Oh, yes,” she said on a breath.

He kissed his way down her stomach, to her belly and then his mouth was between her legs and she simply hadn’t expected he would be willing to do such a thing, and he wrung her out. Completely and utterly.

Philippa let her body vanish into her arousal, the cresting pleasure and the damnable way he would bring her to the edge of climax and then stop.

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She lost her mind.

“Alec.” Her body bowed off the bed. His name was a groan, a long low note of all the pleasure that wound her body tighter and tighter. The silvery tremble of her approaching climax filled her. “Now.”

She shouted, and she didn’t care at all what he’d think of that. The spiral of pleasure peaked and she fell and fell and fell and she didn’t care at all what he thought of her. When she came back to her body, he’d pulled himself over her and was grinning at her.

“Good?” His mouth twitched.

She touched his naked back with her fingertips, drawing them down the sides of his spine as far as she could reach. Until she touched his trousers. “You are still dressed,” she said when she could trust herself to speak. “Why is that?”

“An excellent question.” He pushed up and then away to sit on the edge of the mattress. She turned onto her side, watching him. Her marriage had been a passionate one, but William had never displayed himself in this unconscious, uninhibited way. Her husband had come to her room at night, and never without letting her know that he would. In the dark, he slid between the covers with her, and they made love with tender quiet.

Alec’s skin fit close to his body. When he moved, his muscles flexed and bulged.

He wasn’t slender like William had been. She touched the top of his spine.

“Look at you,” she whispered.

He turned his head toward her while he was pulling off one shoe. He smiled.

“I’d rather look at you.”

“What is it you do that keeps you in such health?” She moved behind him, kneeling and slipping her hands around his waist.

“Boxing.” He dropped his other shoe and reached for the sagging waist of his trousers. As he pushed them off along with his small clothes, his erection was free to the air and her sight.

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He was naked at last. Gloriously, splendidly naked. She reached around him and touched the dark coiled hair around his penis. Alec tensed and reached up and back to curl his palms around the backs of her arms. She cupped his sac. With a moan, he let his head fall back against her shoulder. He put one heel on the mattress, letting his thigh fall open. “Philippa, yes. More of that, too.” His skin was warm, and she held him like this, stroking him, touching him until, all in one motion, he slid an arm around her, turned them both around and then he covered her with his body.

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Dane set his hands above her shoulders and kept his weight on his palms. He was aroused beyond anything, but there was something more he was feeling, and he wasn’t sure what it was, other than it had to do with Philippa. Obviously. And then, perhaps not so obviously.

“Have I told you how lovely you are?” he said. “How perfect? Exquisite?” He dipped his head to kiss her shoulder. At this exact moment he elected to think more about the curves of her body, the shape of her breasts, the texture of her skin than his emotional state. He’d made love often enough without his heart being involved at all. This was different. She was Philippa, and she took his breath.

Philippa set her hands on his shoulders, her palms curving over to his back. Her eyes closed, her mouth parted. He shifted himself into place, and she knew exactly what it meant that he nudged aside her thighs. He knew what it meant that her hips shifted underneath him, that inviting tilt of her pelvis, the slight bend of her knees.

“Now?” he whispered. He was grateful to sound both calm and amorous when in fact he was hardly anything of the first and the second was a trite description of the emotion that made his chest tight. He hadn’t ever
needed
a woman the way he needed to possess her, and that frightened him.

She slid her hands along his sides to his hips. Her fingers dipped in and out of the small of his back and then around to cup his backside. Every caress of her hands Carolyn Jewel Moonlight 33

made him harder yet. “Yes, Alec,” she said. “Please. Now.” Her hands urged him forward, and he slid inside her, and he about lost his mind.

She was wet and tight around him and as he penetrated her, his foreskin slid the rest of the way off the head of his cock. This moment, this moment was purely about the sensation of having his cock surrounded, except there was also the sound of her slow intake of breath and that shook him to his core, that she would make a sound like that.

He wanted, no, needed, her to find pleasure in his arms. He needed to see to her every satisfaction. He needed everything to be perfect. And then he just wanted to keep doing this, because this felt so good. She felt so good. His Philippa.

Dane groaned as the warmth of her body enveloped him. This was Philippa who was sending him crashing over the edge. She wasn’t passively accepting him, something he’d worried might happen. She raised her knees so that her thighs slid up to his hips, and she rocked her pelvis into his. They were naked, both of them, and what they were doing was more than fucking. His balls tightened and the quiver of incipient orgasm pooled at the base of his spine.