tightening of his fingers against her head, the sounds of his ragged breath, heightened her stimulation to immeasurable peaks.
Her hands skimmed up his thighs and smoothed over his flat belly before she eased back and released him from her mouth. A gasp escaped her lips as she met his hot gaze, her chest heaving and her body so aroused she feared she might come apart with one flick of his finger. Bracing herself on his knees, she rose and grasped the folds of her chemise. In one movement she pulled it over her head and bared herself to him.
“Ah, Christ…” Alexander’s eyes moved with lust over her naked breasts, the curves of her hips. He started to stand and reach for her, but Lydia placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back.
“Wait,” she whispered, her voice throaty with promise.
Alexander winced, the planes of his face glistening with sweat and flickering shadows. “Can’t wait much longer.”
Lydia turned as his hands gripped her hips and drew her toward him. She reached behind her to find him, then spread her legs apart and began to ease herself down. Lydia closed her eyes as her inner muscles clenched around his thick, delicious length.
“Stop.”
His command stopped her movements. “What?”
“Turn around. I want to see you.”
Lydia’s teeth sank into her lower lip, her heartbeat escalating to thunder inside her head. For an instant, she didn’t know if she could do it, didn’t know if she could face him, look into his compelling dark eyes.
Alexander’s fingers tightened on her waist as he eased her away from him. Lydia turned, grateful for the veil of loose, tangled hair falling over her face and shoulders. She settled her hands on Alexander’s upper arms, straddling his thighs again.
“Lift them,” he said.
With a shiver, she cupped her hands beneath her breasts and lifted them to him. He captured one hard peak between his lips, tugging lightly, his tongue swirling over her flushed skin. Lydia shook with arousal as he lifted his hand to cup her other breast. The heat of his breath against her nipple, the glide of his long fingers into the moist crevice below the heavy globes, rained shivers through her body.
She poised herself above him, then sank down in one movement, a cry ripping from her chest as he filled her with inexorable, exquisite pressure. His thighs tightened beneath her bottom, his hands sliding over the curve of her waist.
“Do it.” An edge of desperation cut through his deep voice.
Lydia lifted her hips and brought them down again, pleasure jolting through her. She rose again, straining to find a rhythm, a cadence that would build slow and steady to rapture. Alexander groaned as she engulfed him again and again, her movements increasingly fraught with urgency.
Gripping her hips, Alexander muttered another oath and thrust upward as she sank down, creating an explosive friction that made Lydia’s blood throb. She grasped his sweat-slick shoulders and tried to temper the riot of sensations coursing through her. “I’m going to—”
“Now.”
She cried out, awash in the sensations of his hands on her breasts, his body in hers. Pleasure erupted through her, causing her to tremble, even as she became aware that Alexander was nearing his own climax. She tensed, absorbing the ebbing cascade of bliss as she lifted away from him. She grasped his shaft as his rough shout struck the fire-heated air.
A renewed flow of sensation shivered through her as she watched him ride out his own pleasure. She sat back on his thighs as his body began to slacken. She stared at him, mesmerized by how his damp skin shone in the flickering light, the intense repletion in his dark eyes.
Her husband-to-be.
A violent upwelling of love filled her chest—love and utter wonderment that this man had broken through her well-constructed shell. That she had allowed him in, let him fill every inch of her heart.
He lifted a hand to brush the tangles of hair away from her face. His gaze searched hers, his hand sliding down to cup her cheek. Lydia leaned into his touch. She closed her eyes and anticipated spending a lifetime with this beautiful, complex man who had the power to make her heart soar and her body sing.
A faint but palpable tendril of hope spiraled through her.
Was it possible? Could she have a blissful married life with Alexander? Could she be a good wife to him and still give Jane all she wanted? Could she continue her work without living in constant fear?