Chapter Eighteen

The moment Alexander’s lips touched hers, Kitty was consumed—by fire, happiness, and an all-encompassing desire.

He kissed her with a passionate urgency, and she responded with flaming wonder. A wild impulse unraveled in her, and with a sweet sigh of surrender, she parted her lips and allowed him to sweep his tongue along them. The taste of him spilled through Kitty like sunshine, darkness, and temptation.

This kiss was harsher, more delicious, and more ravishing than any before. Pleasure coursed through the heated nerve endings, and she shivered in his embrace. Then the sky opened, and with a gasp, they broke apart.

“Come, we must return at once,” he said, drifting with her toward the gently rocking boat.

He helped her in and then hauled himself into the boat. Alexander grabbed the oars and, with powerful moves, clawed through the water toward the shore. Kitty glanced behind her. “We are not heading to the main house?” she asked huskily, rubbing her arms to keep the invading chill at bay.

“No.”

“Well, that sounded appropriately ominous,” she said with a scowl.

“I’m directing us to the southeast side of the estate, to the conservatory, which is much closer than the castle.”

The sky rumbled, and the drops became more insistent. Thankfully, within a few minutes, they were able to disembark the boat and hurried along a cobbled path toward a large half-brick, half-glass enclosure that loomed in the distance.

They entered the conservatory, and the lush, sultry scent of moisture and fragrant blooms beckoned her deeper into the room. A wide stone path led into the shadowed greenery deep inside the conservatory, and she could see that it opened into an extensive, lavish garden.

“It is wonderfully warm,” she said on a pleased sigh.

The boiler there was lit, the air redolent with the many blossoms. A wrought-iron bench was pushed against a corner, and a large oblong table was in the center of the room with pruning shears atop its surface.

A soft noise had her turning around. He held up a blanket. “Will you permit me once again to be your lady’s maid?”

There was that provoking humor in his eyes again, but there was something else there, too: need and an awakening hunger. An undeniable awareness filled Kitty, and a languorous feeling spread through her limbs. We must be wicked and improper…

She moved closer to him, and he wrapped the blanket around her sodden clothes, warming her even more. Kitty spread her hands over his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin under her fingers. It was then she realized the duke closed his eyes whenever she touched him. A slight caress. A bold brush of her fingers along his chin. Each moment was as if he savored her.

Kiss me again, Alexander. The words were so close to emerging that she could feel the desperate weight on her tongue. But the idea of voicing such a wanton thought mortified her.

“I can feel your heart racing,” he murmured, his expression one of passionate need.

She suddenly could not hold his eyes. Would you always look at me so? Please, God, her irrepressible heart prayed. Let Alexander look at me in this manner—with hunger, tender desire, and admiration—always.

Her forehead fell to his shoulder, and he cupped the back of her neck firmly, as if encouraging her to stay there forever.

“I am so tempted,” she whispered into the crook of his neck. “So very tempted.” The words emerged like a desperate sob, and she closed her eyes against the aching needs within them.

A finger slipped under her chin and lifted her face to his. “To do what?” His gaze held hers, and his voice was tender and rough.

“To be wicked…and free…and to take something for myself without worrying about consequences, and I want to do it with you.”

Something hot and hungry flared in his expression. It tightened, his cheekbones becoming more pronounced as his lashes lowered over his eyes. Lifting his regard to her, he brushed a lock of damp hair gently behind her ears.

“What consequences do you worry about?”

She laughed lightly. “As indelicate as it seemed, my mother warned her girls about wicked, licentious rakes leaving unwanted babies in our bellies, and I assure you, we are suitably filled with fears of ruin and disgrace.”

His eyes went dark with indefinable emotions. “I am impotent, Kitty.”

Her heart lurched at his serious tone. “I know you said—”

“I see you do not perceive its meaning. I am unable to make love with a woman properly. My licentious raking days are long gone. I am unable to father children. If I could…I believe I would make you my duchess.”

The world fell away from beneath her feet, and it was only he who anchored her.

“You’re mad,” she whispered. She felt shaken. Hopeful. Delighted. Aroused.

“Perhaps. I want to strip you, lay your heart and mind bare before me, and make your secrets my own.”

“A terrifying proposition,” she murmured, scanning the nuances of his expression. She pushed past the shocking revelation he would make her his duchess if he could. And… “Your impotence, this is the result of your fall?”

“Yes.”

“I am so sorry, Alexander.” An ache rose in her throat as she tried to imagine the desire of having children being taken away from her. What woman did not dream of a husband, children, a happy home?

Even though Kitty had other dreams in her heart, there still lingered that plan that said at the end of it all, perhaps she would have to settle with a man who was only a companion, but she would be surrounded by smart and rowdy children until it was her time to leave the world.

“There is no need to be sorry,” he said. “I’ve had ten long years to accept it. My heart does not ache for the loss of something I no longer have. Nor do I hunger for it.”

She stared at him in mute shock. No hunger for a family or children. Could anyone truly ever be contented with being alone? “Do you not hunger for a family? A large one with much laughter?”

“Why would I crave the nuisance of noise?”

She narrowed her gaze on him, truly wondering if he were being honest with her. “And this is why you’ve made no plans to marry?”

“A part of it.”

Then silence.

“Must you make me impolite enough to ask?”

He chuckled, and the rough sound rolled through her like fire, warming her chilled skin.

“I’ve not met a woman interesting enough to tempt me to the state.”

Her breasts were swelling beneath his gaze as if he were stroking her. How exquisite were the sensations tightening around her heart. She felt weak, undone, hopeful, and afraid. “Until me?”

“Do I find you interesting, Kitty Danvers?”

There was an invitation in the brilliant depth of his gaze. “I suspect so,” she whispered, “or I would still be in London, you would be here, and we would have never met.”

A smile curved his lips. “I might feel a touch of something unusual.” Then he sobered, his eyes serious. “I am addicted to you, Miss Danvers. And I know all about drugs.”

“Do you?” she asked archly, though her heart was a quivering mess.

“I do. For some time, opium was my best friend. Hashish my lover. Laudanum my brother, and we got together often in my despair.”

Her heart gave a sudden, sharp thud. “And now…are they still your companions?”

He smiled, barely. “Not for the last six years.”

“Why not?”

“Penny needed me…so I became present.”

And that indomitable will peeked out from the brilliant beauty of his eyes once again. He dipped his head and leaned in close so their lips almost touched, their noses brushing. “I want just one small, infinitesimal piece of your affection to carry with me always. At first, I thought your smile would be enough. Then maybe your laughter. How wrong I’ve been, Miss Danvers. Foolishly…quite foolishly, I am desperate for more.”

“I am falling for you,” she said softly, and with every honest emotion in her heart. “I want a piece of you as well. Memories that will live with me for this lifetime and the next.” But I would much prefer if you never let me go, Alexander.

He captured her mouth in a searing kiss. She allowed the fire of lust to consume her world, willingly burning away the doubts. His embrace was fierce, unyielding, and she shivered at the sensations rioting through her. Each kiss went deeper, lingered longer. Everything in her yearned for this, craved him.

It had been so long since she’d done something for herself.

Passion blazed between them, sweeping the last remnants of cold from her body. Kitty burned everywhere, and her needs were so chaotic and terrible, she sobbed against his lips. And he swallowed it all, every moan, every inarticulate cry of wonder and desire.

Kitty gasped when he lifted her and, in a few steps, had her seated atop the large table, the duke standing between her thighs, which she had instinctively widened to accommodate him. And through it all, he continued kissing her with ravishing tenderness.

“I am going to be very wicked with you, Katherine,” he murmured against her lips, in a voice that had gone hoarse. “If you have any objections, please voice them now while I am still sensible.”

His words set a path of fire down her throat and into her stomach. “Yes,” she said, unable to resist the needs in her heart and body for him.

He made a murmur of approval and slid his hand around her nape, then kissed her lips with such tenderness, a lump formed in her throat. Rain muttered dimly against the roof of the conservatory, but the air within felt hushed and full, heavy with expectation. As his kisses gentled, the sensations within her body exploded with pulsing heat. Then he broke away to kiss her chin, her throat, the crook of her shoulder.

Her nipples became so hard, so tight, they were a near-violent ache. “Alexander,” she moaned, low and husky.

His thumb made a slow stroke across her inner elbow, a soothing, sensual caress. The high waist of her gown was tugged down, and his mouth brushed the top of her breasts; then his lips closed over a nipple.

A wild cry tore from her throat as aching, desperate sensations began to pulse through her. “Alexander!”

His mouth pulled, and the tug was felt low and hot in her belly. She held his head to her, her fingers gripping perhaps too tightly in his hair. The strokes of his tongue sent heated delight flushing through her.

He dragged the heavy, sodden skirts of her dress up, his fingers tangling into the material, inching it upward little by little. His touch lingered against her calves, her knees, her thighs, then skating past her garter along her thigh, and then he was at the wet, warm center of her sex. He was touching her there.

And it was glorious.

She cried out brokenly, her breath coming in ragged gasps. They both froze at the wicked, wicked act of intimacy. She felt the weight of his touch, the shocking pleasure, and the impropriety of it. Before she could process it all, his hand disappeared, and he urged her to recline. Kitty complied and braced on her elbows, staring at him in dazed arousal. She wanted to protest when he lowered himself, as surely his back and hips would suffer for it. She made to rise up, and one of his hands pressed against her stomach, the casual, dominant touch spiking lust through her veins.

She felt his smile of pleasure against her wet, aching folds…and then he kissed her even more carnally, taking her nub between his teeth and devastating her senses. She cried out sharply, unable to contain the sound. The urge to whisper to him beat at her, but what to say? If there were words that would encourage more of his diabolical debauchery, they eluded her.

Only incoherent sobs tore from Kitty. And pleasure—the exquisite pleasure was overwhelming.

Kitty arched into him, sobbing with the terrible need working through her system. She needed more to reach that unimagined pinnacle that hovered with such intensity. “Alexander, more,” she demanded huskily.

He licked her drenched sex, forcing a piercing pleasure through her swollen nub every time he caught it with his tongue in a sweet, carnal glide. He released her from the diabolical torment of his tongue and rose up so he could peer into her eyes. His features were savage, a grimace of male ecstasy.

“I want to see you, touch you,” she said shakily.

Without waiting for a reply, she removed his waistcoat and started to unbutton his shirt. Her duke went still, the expression in his eyes stark and wary, but she also spied his indomitable strength.

“You are scared,” she said softly, pressing a tender kiss to his lips.

“Only my doctors have seen me…” He leaned in and placed his forehead against hers. “I want you to…”

“My darling…thank you for trusting me.” She leaned back and held his eyes as she removed his shirt. The pain and agony painted on his body burned her throat with tears. There were so many scar tissues on his left side, from his chin down to his neck, chest, and stomach, disappearing into his pants. Kitty could not imagine enduring and surviving such pain. She glanced up from the scars on his stomach and met his eyes. With boldness and wickedness she had never dreamed herself capable of, she opened the buttons of his trousers. Even there he had scars on his hips….

She reached into his pants for that bulge that testified he wanted her with a similar need.

“Katherine,” he began warningly, his throat working in deep, almost nervous swallows.

She caught the thick, warm length and stroked him, at first clumsily and then with more boldness. He trembled in her embrace, his face a grimace of awe and lustful greed.

“This should not be possible,” he groaned, cupping her cheeks and kissing her with an almost violent passion.

Their lips pulled apart, only a scant inch between them. “Why not?”

“I…I…” He pressed his forehead against hers, his words missing. Cupping her chin, he stared into her face, his eyes searching, for what she did not understand, but she submitted to his need.

He was silent, watching her. But it was more than that. He had disappeared somewhere, inside that emptiness that had saved him. But she saw it now, peeking at her like a live entity. She could almost touch the wall of terrible isolation that surrounded him. She leaned into him and kissed his chin. “I am here, in this moment with you.” And forever…I want to be here with you forever. “You are so beautiful, Alexander.”

A small smile curved his lips. “You are still lovely even when you say such foolish things.”

Kitty kissed him, at first with gentle tenderness but then with all the passion and growing love in her heart.

“Open your legs for me,” he murmured against her mouth.

She complied immediately, snared by the command in his tone and the lust in his eyes. He pressed closer to her body, a hard, muscled thigh pushed between hers, spreading her legs even wider. Without breaking her gaze, he slipped one of his hands between them and down to her wet sex. In his eyes, she saw a hunger deep, wild, and so urgent, it scared her.

A very strange but sweet twisting ache stirred in her belly, and her heart quickened. He slid a finger inside her, a slow penetration that arrowed a thousand darts of fire to burn her from the inside. Another finger entered her, a pinch of pain that melted quickly, and then he began to move in and out while his thumb pressed and rotated against her nub of pleasure.

Kitty cried out and arched upward as an unbelievable sensation spasmed through her. Her body bowed, her breath catching on a near sob, as lust rose and splintered inside. He held her as desire made her body tremble, destroying everything she thought about herself.

Oh God. What have I done, and why do I want more…everything?

Yet she could not move from the warm shelter of his arms or the soothing touches against her back.