She gasped. “Theatrics? Damn you! I am appalled that a child has died. Appalled! And I imagine you are grieving for him. I came to offer my condolences—I came to comfort you!”
He saw red. “You didn’t come to comfort me, Mrs. Thornton. Now, did you?”
She blinked at him. “I do not understand.”
She turned to leave, but he shifted his body and barred the doorway. “Perhaps I do need comforting now, Alexandra.”
He saw the comprehension filling her eyes, which swiftly blazed. “Let me by.”
“Why?”
She stared at him. Her expression changed. Her eyes became soft—beautifully so. “The anger is easier, isn’t it? It’s always easier for a man to shout than to cry.”
He was taken aback. “I do not comprehend your meaning.”
She reached up and cupped his cheek. “Tell me what happened, Xavier.”
He was paralyzed by her touch, but only for a moment. “I can only take so much,” he snapped, and then he was hauling her up against him. She started to cry out, but his mouth smothered the sound.
He wanted to punish her for daring to even refer to Timmy, for being so goddamn beautiful, and for being treacherous through and through. For not being Vera, the beautiful and innocent slave girl. His arms locked around her. He seized her mouth. Tearing at it, forcing his tongue deep inside her throat. He was agonizingly aware of how soft she was as he forced her to ride one of his thighs. He was agonizingly aware that he had never, in his entire life, treated a woman so shamefully.
And he expected her to beat at him. He deserved a good pummeling for the liberties he was taking.
But she did not fight against him. She remained rigid and unmoving in his embrace. Some of his anger began to recede, and in its place came a new, wonderful awareness of the woman he held. Her back was straight and supple, her hips small, and her thighs, riding his, were surprisingly hard. But her breasts were full and soft against his chest, and her mouth was hot, sweet—he could not get enough.
Xavier was frightened.
And just as he realized this, she melted against him, her mouth suddenly moving beneath his lips, her thigh suddenly pressing against his rock-hard erection.
He ripped his mouth from hers. Their gazes locked. He saw the shock and wonder in her eyes. Neither one of them spoke.
She finally smiled, the smile small and uncertain. Her palms slid up his bare chest. “Don’t stop now. Not now,” she whispered, and then she strained upward and began kissing him.
But he gripped her shoulders, trying to think, trying to get a grip on the powerful emotions that had been somehow, inadvertently, unleashed. It was very hard to do. Because somehow he had turned her, pressing her back against the wall. Reflexively his loins rocked against her. When he did not kiss her back, she pulled away an inch and gazed up at him.
“This is meant to be,” she said.
The sounds of the bagnio started to drift to him. Soldiers whispering in Turkish, the captives murmuring in the lingua franca, the wind whistling in the chimes. He recalled Timmy’s gruesome death. “Who are you, really?”
She tensed. He was holding her and he felt it. “I am not a spy.”
His jaw tightened. His disappointment was vast. “I want you to leave.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed with dismay. “And if I refuse?”
His laughter was bitter. He pushed her away, releasing her, turning his back on her.
But dear God, he could not recall ever being this aroused— or ever being this unhappy.
“How do I prove myself to you?”
Xavier glanced at her.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Do not bother,” he finally said.
She brushed her fist against her eyes.
