Seduced by a Scoundrel - By Barbara Dawson Smith Page 0,66

a smile. His gaze scorching her, he unfastened his breeches. “I’m far from done, my lady.”

Alicia’s mouth went dry. She knew she oughtn’t stare as he stepped out of his breeches, but she couldn’t look away from her first view of a naked man. The sheer size of him awed her, even as she felt a frisson of alarm.

He caught her chin in his hand and tilted her face up for a tender, compelling kiss. “Say that you want me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Say it.”

“I want you,” she said in a weakening rush of feeling. “Oh, Drake, I do want you.”

His breath hissed out between his teeth. He tugged at her shift, the fragile fabric tearing as he jerked it over her head. As her last vestige of modesty vanished, a mindless sensuality swept over Alicia. She slid into bed, the linens cool to her fevered skin. Now. Now he would draw her onto him like that couple carved in stone.…

He pressed her back onto the pillows and came down on top of her, letting her feel the power of a man’s body. She knew the shock of flesh on flesh, and then he kissed her again with a violence that surpassed her most romantic dreams. All the while, he stroked her intimately, fondling her in ways that made her twist and moan, pushing her again to the edge of a precipice.

He parted her legs with his knees, caught her hips, and held her still. Through the cloud of ardor, she felt a probing invasion, too thick and hot to be his finger. She knew his intent, then, and she gloried in it. Bracing her feet against the mattress, she arched to receive him. A feral groan broke from his throat and in one swift thrust, he breached her last defense.

A brief stab of pain melted into an amazing sense of fullness. He held himself on his forearms, his chest sheened with sweat in the candlelight. His eyes glittered against the harsh handsomeness of his face.

“You’re mine,” he muttered. “Mine alone.”

“As you are mine, too.”

The fierce vow escaped her without forethought. They stared at each other, both of them panting. Something flashed in his eyes, a starkness she couldn’t read. She didn’t understand herself, either; she knew only that a bond had been forged between them, a link that connected them by more than the flesh. If she belonged to him, then he also belonged to her. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Stretching up her hand, she caressed his cheek, and his expression darkened with passion. He turned his head and kissed her palm; then he began to move. She closed her eyes to savor the incredible intimacy, the unimaginable pleasure. The heat inside her flared into a frantic, mindless urgency, and she cleaved to him, writhing, reaching for something she could not name. She cried out and he did, too, in the moment before she plunged, breathless, into great waves of ecstasy. An impossible rapture rolled through her, and she sensed him there with her, as if they were one being, one heart, one soul.

The flash of heaven faded, leaving her limp and replete. For a long while they lay entwined as their breathing slowed and their bodies cooled. She drifted in the sweetest peace she had ever known. His arm rested on her bare middle, and his fingers curled against the side of her breast. The weight of him was heavy, yet infinitely comfortable. She wanted to lie with him forever.…

She must have drowsed, for the next thing she knew, he was leaning over the bed, sliding his arms beneath her pliant form. She squirmed in protest, loath to leave her warm nest, but he merely chuckled and swung her up into his arms.

As she wreathed her arms around his neck, a distant noise puzzled her momentarily. Then she realized the connecting door stood ajar.

“The key,” she murmured. “How did you find my key?”

A self-assured smile slanted his mouth. “I didn’t,” he said. “I had another in my coat pocket.”

So, he could have entered her chambers at any time he chose. An uneasy sense of vulnerability crept into Alicia. She was at his mercy; she had always been at his mercy. And now that he had won the high-stakes challenge and seduced her, would he come through that door every night?

To her shame, she wanted that. She blushed to remember all they had done together, all the ways he had touched her. Like