She gasped, wiggling her bottom against his chest again. “Lucien! Don’t…Oh, my goodness.”
Her breathing did sound somewhat strained, and whether it was because of him or her predicament, he decided they’d best conclude this on the ground. He tugged the caught material sideways, and a moment later she slid backward into his arms. She flung her hands around his neck as her sudden weight overbalanced him and they half fell off the chair. Then his mouth found hers.
They thudded against the wall, but he scarcely noticed. He had been hard and ready since he walked into the cellar and saw her very attractive bottom wriggling in his window. And as volatile as she was, and as badly as he wanted her, he had no intention of giving her an opportunity to recover her senses.
“Lucien,” she breathed, kissing him and curling her fingers into his hair to pull him closer.
At least she was using his first name again. He sank to the floor with her still cradled in his arms. And then a small, white, furry dog jumped into her lap and slathered his tongue across both their chins.
“Good God,” Lucien bellowed, recoiling as the little monster reared up against his chest.
Alexandra, her arms still around his shoulders, began laughing. “Shakespeare, no!”
The cellar door rattled and opened. “My lord,” Thompkinson said hesitantly, “I know you said not to—”
“Out!” Lucien roared.
The door closed again.
“Thank goodness we weren’ten déshabillé,” Alexandra managed, capturing Shakespeare in her arms and still laughing helplessly.
“We will be in just a moment.”
“No, we won’t.”
Damnation. He knew giving her time to consider anything was a bad idea. Lucien shifted her on his lap. “Do you feel that?” he murmured, running his lips along her throat. “Do you feel me?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“You want me, don’t you?”
“Yes.” This time she kissed him, openmouthed and hot and wanting.
That was enough for him. He stood, carried her to the bed, and set her down. Her dazed, lustful expression had him aching, but first he needed to get rid of a certain canine nuisance. Lucien scooped up Shakespeare and strode to the cellar door, opened it, and set him out. “Watch him,” he ordered the startled Thompkinson, and shut the door again.
He expected another protest, but she raised up on her knees to meet him as he returned to the bed. She pulled his coat off his shoulders and tossed it aside, while he finished the work the window had begun on her burnt-sunlight hair and pulled the hanging clips free.
“This does not mean I’ve forgiven you,” she whispered, pulling his shirt over his head and licking one flat nipple.
“It will,” he returned, ripping the remaining fastenings of her torn dress open and yanking it off her. Her shift followed, and he lowered his head to her full, soft breasts.
She gasped in pleasure. “No, it won’t.” With shaking, anxious fingers she unfastened his belt and his breeches and shoved them down.
“We can argue later.” Lucien nudged her backward, drew himself up over her body, and with a possessive growl, pushed inside her.
He relished her fierce, hungry response to his lovemaking. Alexandra’s fingers dug into his back as he moved inside her, her hips moving in instinctive rhythm with his. They came together, and he muffled her exultant cry with a kiss.
As soon as he could breathe again, Lucien rolled off her and onto his back. A ragged piece of material still lay across the windowsill and fluttered in the slight breeze. She’d nearly gotten away from him, and he had no intention of letting it happen again. Not when he was so close to clearing the jumbled, rock-covered path between them.
Alexandra turned sideways and raised up on one elbow. “I have to admit, I’m glad it was you who rescued me, rather than Thompkinson or Wimbole.”
“So am I. Don’t do that again.”
She lifted an eyebrow, beautiful and utterly arousing in her unashamed nakedness. “Or what—you’ll make love to me again? It’s not a very effective punishment, Kilcairn.” She smiled, suddenly a sultry, if sated, kitten. “I like it too much.”
He frowned, flattered and annoyed. “That is not—”
“It won’t work, you know,” she interrupted, shaking her head at him. “You’re not convincing me of anything other than the fact that you’re a charming rogue. I knew that before.”
