“Am I?” He didn’t look away from her mouth. He tightened his grip, his fingers splaying across her spine, dragging her even closer until she could feel the heavy, thundering beat of his heart against her own. “Or am I simply holding you the way I should have held you from the beginning?”
The scent of him filled her head, dizzying her more than the rotation of the dance. Every turn was a provocation; every slide of his hand was a claim.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with a desperate, starving awareness. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to scream. But as he swept her across the floor, his body demanding her surrender, she found she could only cling to his shoulder, her fingers digging into the wool of his coat as she drowned in the fire he had reignited.
“Your friends,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that hummed against her temple, “are not fond of me.”
He guided her into a turn so tight and smooth it felt like an embrace. The statement was a cold observation from a man who had already measured his enemies.
Diana forced her gaze upward, though it was a perilous climb. She was dangerously aware of the sharp, clean line of his jaw and the rhythmic shift of his throat as he spoke.
“They are protective,” she managed, her voice sounding thinner than she liked. “And they are suspicious.”
“Suspicious of what?”
“Of your return.” She swallowed hard, her throat feeling tight. “Of your… motives.”
He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he closed the distance. He drew her so close that the delicate lace of her bodice was crushed against the heavy wool of his coat. Every time they turned, the friction of his thighs against hers sent heat pulsing through her belly. She could feel the hard, unyielding line of his muscle, a body built for authority, now focused entirely on her.
“And is their suspicion unfounded?” he asked softly.
Her gaze flicked treacherously to his mouth. She recalled the taste of it. The way he had kissed her in the study was as if he were trying to swallow her soul.
“It is natural,” she answered, her breath hitching as his hand moved. He wasn’t just holding her waist anymore; his thumb had found the sensitive, soft hollow just above her hip, tracing it with a slow, agonizing pressure that made her toes curl in hersilk slippers. “You left for a year. Now you are back, behaving as though?—”
She stopped herself.
Alexander’s eyes narrowed. “As though what, Diana?”
The turn tightened until she was trapped in his heat. His thumb pressed deeper, a silent demand for her to look at him.
“As though you regret it,” she whispered.
He didn’t blink. The music surged, a violent swell of violins that seemed to echo the storm in her chest.
“I do.” The words were a vow, delivered with a raw, masculine intensity that struck her like lightning.
Diana’s steps faltered, her knees turning to water. Only the iron grip of his arm kept her from collapsing. Her heart thrashed against her ribs, a wild thing seeking escape or surrender.
“You do not remember enough to regret,” she hissed, a desperate attempt to rebuild her fortress. “You are a stranger to your own life.”
“But I know enough,” he countered, his voice dropping to a dark, intimate rasp. He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of herear as they spun. “I know that when I saw you in that study, I didn’t want to explain myself. I didn’t care much about the past.”
He pulled her even closer, his hand splaying across her back, pinning her to his chest.
“That is not the same as regret,” she insisted, though her voice trembled faintly.
“No,” he agreed, his voice a dark anchor in the swirling room. “It is worse.”
The floor spun beneath them, a dizzying carousel of gold and silk. The orchestra slowed, a mournful pull of the cellos before the violins began to climb again. Around them, thetonglided in practiced, hollow elegance, but Diana felt as though she were standing in the eye of a storm, trapped in a circle of heat that was rapidly melting her armor.
She needed to regain control. She needed the distance of logic, the safety of a cold, intellectual inquiry.
“Why do you think you lost your memory?” she asked.
She forced her gaze to remain fixed on the sharp, black wool of his shoulder, refusing to look at his eyes. If she didn’t see the hunger there, she could pretend it didn’t exist.
His grip tightened, his fingers splaying across her back, dragging her a fraction closer.
