Lucien smiled. “I told you why. I want to cover your naked skin with slow, hot kisses.” He lifted her backward, across his legs. “I want to make love to you.” His fingers gently traced her cheekbones as he leaned in to touch his lips to hers.
Alexandra forgot how to breathe, and then remembered again in a ragged rush as she felt the tie around her waist come loose. “Lucien,” she managed, and then couldn’t speak as his mouth found hers again.
Unable to resist, she swept her arms up around his shoulders and pulled herself closer against him. The warmth running just under her skin turned to fire, so hot she could scarcely think of anything except how it felt to touch him, and to be touched by him. He was smooth and steel, all at the same time.
“I don’t want you to dance with anyone but me, ever again,” he said, his own voice unsteady. The buttons running down the back of her gown unfastened, one by one.
The possessiveness in his tone thrilled her. “You told Lord Belton to dance with me.”
“That was so I could.” Her gown slipped from her shoulders. “My attempt at propriety. Stand up.”
“I’m not certain I can,” she said shakily, still clinging to his shoulders.
With a low growl deep in his chest, he kissed her again, his tongue and lips teasing at her mouth until she opened to him. She could feel him, feel his growing arousal against her thigh. When his hand slipped around to the front and dipped down to cup her breast, she gasped. His fingers touched and caressed and teased, until she had to lean into him, wanting more of the flame that centered wherever he touched her, and in the secret, yearning place between her thighs.
She protested when he stood her on her feet, but he only chuckled. With a whisper of silk he slid her dress up past her knees, past her thighs, above her waist, and then over her head and onto the floor. Alexandra stood there in nothing but her shift, watching his face as his gaze traveled slowly up the length of her body, pausing at her hips and her breasts and then returning to her face.
“Take off your shift,” he said.
Her breathing fast and unsteady, she watched his hungry gaze lower to her chest again. She looked down to see her nipples erect and straining against the flimsy material of the shift. Her first instinct was to cover herself, until she realized the effect her near-nakedness was having on Lucien.
“Take off your coat,” she countered, lifting her hands to open the buttons of his waistcoat. When he complied without argument, it amazed her to realize how much power she had over him—at least tonight. Lucien shrugged out of his dark coat and then let her slide the waistcoat down his shoulders. As she did so, he ran his fingers up her arms and pulled her against him. With a yearning moan she raised on her tiptoes to receive his kiss.
“You could have gone home with any of the ladies at the ball tonight,” she said, pulling his shirt from his breeches. She needed to feel his warm skin against hers. “Why me? Why an overaged, ruined governess?”
“I want you.” He helped her lift his shirt over his head. “All of those idiots you danced with—they wanted you, too. Why me, Alexandra?”
She ran her hands along his bare, smooth chest, fascinated by the hard muscles beneath her fingers, so much more alive than the statues standing cold and silent in the museum.I don’t love them, she almost said, and stopped herself just in time. “I don’t trust them,” she said instead.
“You trust me?” he repeated huskily, pausing in his exploration of her shoulders and throat.
Alexandra half closed her eyes as touch overloaded her senses. “I don’t want to, but I do.”
“That’s right. Miss Gallant makes her way in the world alone, doesn’t she?”
She tried to read his expression, but only intense curiosity and heat and desire looked back at her. “Miss Gallant has found that to be the wisest way to proceed.”
Very slowly Lucien slipped the thin straps of her shift down her arms. “But not tonight,” he murmured.
She shook her head. “Not tonight.”
The shift rustled to the floor, leaving her naked except for her stockings and her shoes. She expected him to enfold her again, but instead he knelt in front of her. He removed her shoes one by one. Then he slid his palms up her right leg to the top of her stockings. Apparently he removed clothing from women all the time, because he was very good at it. Every tug and every slide of her stockings became another caress.
Her knees felt weak, and she dug her fingers into his bare shoulder for balance and for strength as he removed her other stocking. She could easily have swooned into his arms, but if she did that, she might miss something—and she had no intention of missing anything tonight.
“What did Lady Victoria mean when she said you shouldn’t flee again because of Virgil Retting?”
Alexandra frowned. “I don’t want to talk,” she stated.
He chuckled. “This is the only moment I can be assured of getting an answer out of you.” Lucien stood again and kissed her. “Tell me.”
She felt ready to growl with frustration at the delay. “About two years ago, before my employment with Lady Welkins, I came across him in Bath. I was so angry at seeing him, alive and healthy and wealthy, that I gave notice and left just so I wouldn’t have to look at him again.”
“He is fairly stomach churning,” Lucien agreed. He walked a slow circle around her, his hands running across her shoulders, her back, her buttocks, and her stomach. She should have felt embarrassed, or shocked, but everywhere he touched her seemed to come alive, leaving her craving more. And there was more; she knew it. Her body knew it. “Kiss me again,” she demanded.
He grinned and bent his head to comply. Gentle fingers trailed down from her shoulders to caress and tease her breasts, a delicious torment she could never have imagined before tonight. Lucien lowered his head further, and his lips and his tongue on her nipples brought her to moaning arousal.
“Lucien,” she shuddered, twining her fingers into his hair.
