For long moments they stayed locked together, breathing hard. Alexander’s weight pinned her deliciously to the mattress, his manhood still twitching inside her. Slowly, he lifted his head, eyes soft and tender.
Alexander brushed damp hair from her forehead and whispered, “Still think it is all an illusion, sorceress?”
Theodora closed her eyes, too wrecked to answer. But deep down, in the place where experiments ended and truth began, she already knew the verdict.
And despite the fact that she was done being afraid, this new feeling within her was absolutely terrifying.
* * *
What have I done?
Alexander lay on his back, one arm curled possessively around Theodora’s waist, her head resting on the slope of his shoulder. The sheets were tangled around their legs, damp with sweat and the raw evidence of their joining. He felt overwhelmed with an unknown feeling which he had never experienced after laying with a woman.
Theodora shifted but did not wake. Her breathing had slowed to something soft and even, but every few minutes a faint tremor still ran through her limbs like aftershocks. He traced idle circles on her bare hip with his thumb, savoring the warmth of her skin and the way she fit against him as though she had always belonged there.
I am in trouble.
“Hmm.” Theodora suddenly awoke and lifted her head just enough to look at him.
“Is it time for my report?” he grinned at her and she scowled.
“How do you feel?” he asked groggily and he tried not to laugh.
“I feel…tired, satisfied and unsatisfied.”
Theodora frowned. “Unsatisfied?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Why?” a flash of hurt crossed her face.
Alexander cupped her chin. “I did not mean to insult you, Theo. I only meant that it was unsatisfying that you experienced the pain and I cannot wait to show you the pleasurable side of it.”
Her green eyes were heavy-lidded, but the familiar sharpness had returned. She was curious, and most probably searching for answers in that brain of hers.
“Alexander.” Her voice was rough from crying out his name. “Are we alone?”
“Yes,” he answered her simply.
“What happened to Rosalind?” He saw the worry in her eyes.
His hand stilled on her hip and he exhaled slowly, staring up at the shadowed canopy as though the answer might be written there.
“She is in the country,” he said at last. “Wiltshire. Where our old estate is.”
“Did something happen?” She cocked her head and the sight of her, above him, with just a sheet wrapped around her, stole his breath away.
“Nothing at all happened, she just…missed home,” he assured her.
“Oh, I was worried.” Theodora frowned.
“We went back for a week because she missed her friends. And she decided to stay behind.”
Alexander did not want to leave his sister, but she looked so happy in their country home that he did not feel like he could force her to come back to London. Theodora watched and waited. She didn’t prod or judge. She simply rested her palm flat over his heart and listened.
He swallowed. “She… was not well, as you know. But she tried to hold everything together for me. Which I only recently found out about. I was too busy drowning myself in every vice London could offer to see how much it was costing her; how sick she had become and how her smiles never reached her eyes anymore.”
His voice cracked. He hated the sound of it, but the words kept coming.
