He smiled. “Then I’m pleased to be the first to show you. This was my favorite spot as a boy. I fished here, I swam, I laid out in the sun and dreamed.”
He took her hand at last as he helped her down the steep side of the hill toward the water. She clung to his fingers, feeling their warmth and strength and longing for more, even though she knew she couldn’t ask for it at present.
“What did you dream about?” she asked.
He released her as they reached the bottom of the hill and his frown pulled down. She had gone too far, without even meaning to and she rushed to repair the damage.
“We all have dreams, don’t we? As a girl, I had my own,” she said. “Funny how they change as one grows older.”
He led her to the edge of the lake, to a bench that had been placed beneath a tree there. As he motioned her to sit with him, he said, “What did you dream of as a girl?”
She hesitated. Pushing him on his past was one thing, but now that the tables had been turned, she felt anxiety rise in her chest. Still, as she looked at him, his expression taut and drawn, she knew that she owed him a glimpse of herself, as payment for the glimpse she had taken against his will a few days earlier.
Perhaps that was the only way to work out whatever was between them. With honesty. Stark honesty she had been avoiding for a very long time.
“I wanted the things all girls are trained to desire,” she said, looking out over the water so she wouldn’t have to see his reaction. “A marriage, a home…children. I never thought to dream of anything else.”
“But those dreams did not come true,” Alexander said. “Though I don’t know why. You’re beautiful and clever, gentle, and the kind of lady most men would be proud to call a wife. Why didn’t you get what you desired?”
She sucked in a breath. “The world is talking about my father right now. About his stealing from his peers. They love that story, it feeds their sense of self-worth, makes them feel like they climbed over him on a ladder to the top of theton.” She shook her head. “But it isn’t the only story.”
Alexander leaned his arm on the back on the bench, his fingers gently caressing her bare neck. “What other story is there?”
She shivered with the brush of his hand and fought for focus. “My father had so many vices—the stealing is only the worst of it. He whored. He gambled too much and he was terrible at the sport. He lost far more money than he ever won. So by the time I came out I…had no dowry. Add to that the fact that I feared leaving my sister in his care and I didn’t exactly encourage any man who might have had an interest.”
Alexander shook his head. “You feared he would hurt your sister?”
“Not physically,” she rushed to say. “He loved her, just as he loved me, in his own way. He just had no capacity to protect us. I learned that long, long ago. I didn’t want Juliet to have to learn the same lesson.” She bent her head. “I failed, though. She’s learning it now, regardless of how hard I tried to avoid that.”
Alexander leaned forward, cupping her chin and tilting her face toward his. “You are sacrificing all you are, all you wanted, for her. One day she’ll recognize that and I hope she will appreciate it.” He searched her face, his expression suddenly filled with understanding. “Do you regret what you’ve done for her?”
Marianne swallowed hard. His expression was so intent, it pulled her in. They were one in that moment, two people joined not by sex, but by the pain they endured. They were linked by that and by the fact that they each wanted to ease the other’s suffering. And by being together, somehow they did.
She shivered at that thought and all it meant. “Are you asking if I regret coming here, being with you?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
She leaned up, feeling his warmth and strength surround her even before he held her in his arms. She brushed her lips against his and whispered, “No. I don’t regret it. I will never regret it, Alexander, never.”
He let out a long, shuddering sigh and then his mouth moved over hers. He was gentle at first, the kiss a balm on her wounds, perhaps a balm on his own. But as she slid her hands up his chest, wrapped her arms around his neck, the intensity of the kiss increased and the heat between them did the same.
He drew her over into his lap and she felt the evidence of his desire for her as his erection pressed hard into her hip. She smiled, for his need for her was exactly what she wanted. She needed him, too. She wanted to have him, right here, right now, and let his touch erase the rest of the pain she had brought to the surface when she spoke of her father.
His hands began to roam as he kissed her, brushing over her breasts, down her hips. He shifted her, and suddenly she was straddling him, her dress tangled between them and her sex pressed hard against his cock. She lifted into him, cupping his cheeks as the kiss between them deepened and began to spiral out of control.
He pushed at her dress, lifting it up, bunching it around her waist, and she responded by reaching between them to unfasten his trouser front. She pulled the fall away and broke the kiss to look down at his erection. She smiled as she stroked him once, twice, feeling him twitch in her hand, hearing him groan with pleasure.
He cupped her backside, which was now bared to the warm summer breeze, and lifted her, positioning her over his cock. They locked eyes, and she never broke the gaze as she lowered herself down onto him, filling her body with him. Feeling her heart and her soul filled by him, too.
She could have kissed him again, but she wanted to look at him. She wanted to watch his pleasure, she wanted to see him watch hers. So she began to move as he dug his hands into her hips and arched beneath her, matching her rhythm.
Pleasure came rushing forward almost immediately. Not just of her aching, twitching body, but of her entire being. In that moment, she knew this was where she belonged. This man was her home. And that realization jolted her into the most powerful orgasm she had ever experienced. It seemed to flow through her entire body, a pleasure that touched every part of her and brought tears to her eyes. She rocked into him, crying out his name as she tremored around him.
He groaned out an incoherent sound of pleasure and then pulled himself free of her, pumping against his hand as he drew her in for a long kiss.
She slipped back onto the bench next to him, tucking her feet beneath her as she rested her head on his chest. She felt the beating of his heart, strong and powerful there. The rhythm of it matched her own, and she curled her hand into a fist against it.
“I don’t know why I need you so much,” he whispered, his lips grazing her temple.
