Her cheeks flamed at the words, and she thought she might perish from embarrassment when his fingers resumed their movement, dipping, swirling, and then disappearing again, rising to lazily paint the tip of one breast in slow, wet circles. “Shall I eat you up, lass?”
Before she could answer, he moved again, sliding down her body, licking and sucking until she sighed her pleasure and held him to her, aching for more. He repeated the action on the other breast, leaving her awash in need, aching for something she could not name.
She lifted his face to hers. “Alec,” she whispered, squirming on the creaky bed. “Please. Come to me.”
He shook his head then. “I am not done tasting you, love.”
Love.
The endearment was enough to set her squirming again, even more so as he moved her, pulling her legs to the edge of the bed, and—she closed her eyes—spreading her thighs wide. “Lie back,” he said, the words rough and deep and outrageous.
She blinked. “Aren’t you going to . . . ?”
“Taste you,” he said, his massive hands sliding up her legs, over the soft skin of the inside of her thighs, setting her heart to pounding as his fingers moved higher and higher, until they were a wicked promise at the junction of her thighs. He stared at her for a long moment, until she closed her eyes from the heat of his gaze.
Finally, he pressed a kiss against the soft skin of one thigh and said, “You are perfect here—not that I should be surprised. Slick and wet and desperate for me, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly afraid of what he was about to do, of what he was about to make her feel.
He growled at that. “You are. You are the most perfect thing I’ve ever touched.” He pressed a kiss to the soft skin of her thigh. “You humble me with your body.”
Unable to stop herself, she lifted herself to him, aching for his touch. “It is yours,” she whispered. “All of me. I am yours.”
He growled at the words, turning to nip the inside of her knee before lifting her leg and settling it, shockingly, wonderfully, on his shoulder. “You have it wrong, love. It is not I who owns, but you.” He pressed a kiss to the curls that hid the heat of her. “Your lips taste like Scotland,” he whispered at the core of her. “But here, you taste like heaven.”
And then he was kissing her in that glorious, secret place, and she was gasping her shock and pleasure, and doing as she was told, lying back as he licked and sucked and reveled in her. She sighed his name, her hands moving to his head, fingers sliding into his hair. “Alec,” she whispered. “I am yours. Forever.”
The words seemed to unlock him, to make him wild and desperate and wicked and wonderful; a growl came deep, the vibration against her core making her just as wild. Just as desperate. Her fingers clenched in his dark curls, and she did not hesitate to hold him to her, to move against him.
His hands slid beneath her, lifting her, holding her to him like a banquet, and she cried out as he licked, finding all her secrets, giving her everything she’d ever desired. “Yours,” she whispered again and again, and finally, as he drove her higher and higher, he ripped the word from her on a wild, loud scream.
He lifted his head at the sound, leaving her there on the precipice of something glorious. He pressed a soft kiss to her thigh, licking in little circles until she looked to him, meeting his magnificent gaze as he stared up the length of her. “You stopped.”
He did not move for a long moment, and then he leaned forward and blew a soft stream of air through her dark curls. She writhed. Called to him.
“How shall I prove it?” he said, lazily, his gaze locked on the heart of her.
“Prove what?”
“ ’Tis I who is yours.”
She did not have time for it. “Alec. Please.”
He licked the center of her, long and lush and outrageously, and she cried out before he smiled, wide and beautiful, and said, “ ’Tis I who is yours, mo chridhe. What shall I do to prove it?” He laughed, low and deep and liquid against her. “There. Tell me the thought that turned your whole body pink in the candlelight.”
“You know,” she sighed, the words nearly a whine.
“I do,” he said, as though they had all the time in the world. “But I wish you to command me, love. I wish you to be my goddess. And I, your servant. I wish you to know your beauty. Your pride. Your perfection. I wish to honor it. With every part of me.”
His words set her aflame.
It did not matter that they were mad.
She looked to him, desperate for his mouth once more. “Then do so.”
He raised a brow in question. “Say it.” He licked her again, and she went tight as a bow. “Honor me, Alec.”
The words flooded her with pleasure. “Honor me, Alec.”
“Worship me, Alec.”
She closed her eyes. “Worship me, Alec.”
“Kiss me, Alec.”
“Kiss me, Alec.”
And he did, driving her wild, making love to her with slow, savoring strokes, his hands lifting her to him like a feast. She pressed her hips to him, continuing the litany, repeating it again and again, until she found the precipice once more, and this time he did not stop, not even as she tumbled over the edge, his hands and mouth and tongue the only discernible thing in the riot of pleasure.
And as she clutched him and cried out the commands he had given her, she added another. “Love me, Alec.”
Love me.
And he did. In that moment, even if it never happened again, he loved her. She knew it.
As she came down from her pleasure, she reached for him, pulling him to her, aching for more of him, for all of him. He came to her, climbing up over her, the bed—at once too small and also perfectly sized because it kept him close enough to touch—creaking at the movement, as he pushed her back and leaned down, pressing warm, wonderful kisses to her jaw to her ear.
Her hand reached for the hem of his kilt, finding warm, muscled skin there, beneath the wool. She stroked up his long, muscled thigh, higher and higher, finding only warm bare skin. She could not hide her shock. “You wear nothing beneath.”
He lifted his head, meeting her gaze. “Nae.”
“Sesily wondered.”
He kissed her deep. “Sesily can find her own Scot to make the discovery. I am claimed.”
Hers.
The words emboldened her, and she tracked the bare skin to the front of him, to where he strained for her, hard and hot and—
He hissed his pleasure at her touch. “Lily.”
“You are magnificent,” she whispered.
“I am too big. A beast.”
She stroked him, long and lush. “You are too perfect. A man.”
He closed his eyes and put his forehead to hers. “Thank you.”
There was something in the words. An ache she did not like. A doubt she did not wish. She stilled. “Alec?”
He shook his head. “Do not stop. Christ, Lily. Do not stop.”
She did not, stroking again and again, reveling in the size and strength of him. “There is a small thing I should like to discuss.”
He hissed a laugh. “The word small is a bit unsettling when you are just there, lass.”
She stroked him, long and loving, until he groaned his pleasure, the sound sending a similar feeling through her. “I like that,” she whispered.
“I assure you, not half as much as I like it.” He stilled, then kissed her, stealing thought for a moment. “What is it you would like to discuss?”
She had difficulty recalling. “You remain clothed.”
His gaze found hers. “And?”
It was her turn to kiss, to caress, to steal breath and thought. And, finally, to whisper, “And I will you . . . not clothed.”
He closed his eyes. “I think I should not—”
“Are you mine?” she whispered. “Truly?”
They flew open. “Forever.”
The word opened her up. Brought the light in. “Then prove it,
Alec. Honor me. Worship me. Kiss me.” This time, she stopped at the last.
He did not. “Love me,” he whispered.
And she told the truth. “I do.”
He closed his eyes again, and she saw the pain flash over his features, as though the words had been a curse instead of a gift. Doubt flared deep inside her. “I am sorry,” she whispered, summoning his gaze to her with her own fear. “I cannot stop the truth. I love you.”
He did not reply except to move, giving her precisely what she wanted. He stood up, shed his clothes, revealing his magnificence, the hard expanse of his chest and the tight, rippling muscles of his stomach, ending in a remarkable cut of flesh above his hips, angling down to the part of him that appeared to ache for her as much as she ached for him.
He returned to her, the bed creaking beneath his weight as she reached for him, her legs opening as he moved between them, coming down over her, his arms holding his weight off her, his size protecting her. “Never apologize for that. I shall treasure it. Forever. Even when you discover how unworthy I am of it.”
Her brow furrowed, but she was unable to ask him to explain it, because he was kissing her, stroking her, guiding her, protecting her. He slid into her in a perfect, glorious movement, making her sigh and gasp and cling to him as he moved in a perfect rhythm, watching her responses, finding the places she most desired him, giving her everything she wanted, and eventually—once he found their rhythm—rocking against her, pressing and rolling and driving her higher and higher, until she was crying his name and clinging to him, begging him with words she should never have used.
Harder. Faster. Deeper.
And he gave it to her without question. Without quarter.
“Open your eyes, Lily,” he whispered, his lips at her ear, his tongue stroking there and making her mad with desire. She did, and he watched her, lids heavy with desire. “Don’t stop looking at me, love.”
“Never,” she whispered. “I will never stop.”
“I need you,” he replied. “I need this. I don’t know how I will live without it.”
“Never. You will never have to,” she whispered. “I love you.”
He kissed her again, and she realized that he’d stolen more than her heart. More than her breath. He’d taken away her shame.
She was his. And in that knowledge, she found herself. She found her strength.
And it was glorious.
They careened toward pleasure together, hard and fast and finally, finally there, like heaven had opened up and spilled down upon them, pleasure coursing through them, their names on each other’s lips, the ground falling away.
No. Not the ground.
The bed.
One thin leg had collapsed beneath their combined weight, beneath the force of their pleasure, and the whole thing tipped, sending them sliding off, Lily letting out a little shriek as Alec turned to bear the brunt of the fall, clutching her to him as he landed, hard on the floor, with a deep grunt.
A moment passed while Lily attempted to take stock of the situation—one moment, on the bed in the most magnificent experience of her life and the next, spread across Alec’s chest on the floor of the bedchamber.
Just as she came to terms with the event, a crack sounded and Alec cursed, immediately turning them, putting her back to the floor and covering her with his body as the canopy came down with a mighty crash atop them, a large piece of wood striking him across the shoulders and knocking the nearby table, from which a porcelain squirrel, complete with teacup, smashed to the ground.
Remarkably, it was only then that the dogs barked.
Lily began to laugh. She had never in her life been so happy as she was in that cacophonous disaster of a room, where she finally, finally felt whole. Naked and cold and on the floor . . . in the protective embrace of the man she loved. Not ashamed. Not used.
Not at all lonely, for the first time in forever.
Relief and joy and emotion drove the laughter for long minutes, until Alec moved off her, lifting the canopy from where it had fallen and sitting up, and she realized that she was alone in her amusement. That Alec, instead, was stone-faced.
She stopped laughing and sat up, immediately. “Alec?”
“This was a mistake.”
Cold dread threaded through her, but she did her best to ignore it. To pretend it was something else. “Well, it might be best if we stock sturdier furniture, if we are to have such lovely—”
“Not the bed.”
She did not pretend to misunderstand. She shook her head. “It wasn’t a mistake.”
It could not have been. Nothing that felt so perfect, so right, could be a mistake.
He was not a mistake.
But she . . .
Doubt whispered as he turned away, putting his wide, muscled back to her. He did not look back when he said, “I assure you, it was.”
He stood, magnificent and muscled like a Greek god, and she recalled the story he’d told, suddenly understanding why Endymion might choose endless dreams of his love over the possibility of losing her for even a moment. If given the choice, Lily would sleep now, forever, if it meant having a taste of him.
“We shall have to marry.”
The words came so softly that she nearly didn’t hear them. Or, rather, nearly didn’t believe he’d said them. There had never been words she had wished to hear more. And yet, they destroyed her; the emotion in them—keen, clear regret—was undeniable.
Shall have to.
As though it would be a trial. As though he did not wish it. Of course he wouldn’t wish it.
She was a public scandal. And he, a duke.
She reached for the plaid she’d been wearing, extracting it from beneath the fallen canopy. Wrapping herself in it, wanting to shield herself from the truth.
He cursed, his gaze trailing over the tartan and the bed, destroyed with their lovemaking. “What have I done?” he whispered.
She stood at the shaming, stinging words, refusing to allow them to slay her.
“There is no need for you to marry me,” she said, trying for calm. For cool. Trying to show strength even as the words made her weak.
His brows knit together, the angles of his face sharp in the shadows, and for the first time since he’d broken down her door, she saw the beast in him, wild and frustrated. He replied, but it seemed as though she had not spoken. “We marry. It is the only choice.”
In her dreams, she had imagined this moment. Alec proposing marriage. But in those dreams, he proposed from passion. From love. Never from duty. And certainly never with regret.
Marriage to Alec Stuart, Duke of Warnick, might have been Lily’s greatest desire . . . but she did not want it like this.
She had given him all she had—her love. And it was not enough for him. And so she gave him the only other thing she could.
His freedom.
“You forget, Your Grace, that you cannot force me into marriage.”
His eyes went wide with recognition as she invoked the most important clause in her guardianship agreement. “Lily,” he said, warning in the word.
She turned toward the door, unable to meet his gaze any longer. “I shan’t marry a man who regrets me. I may not deserve better, but I owe myself that.”
She did not expect him to reply. And she certainly did not expect him to reply with such anger. “Goddammit, Lily,” he thundered, deep and low and thick with brogue. She turned back to find the muscles of his broad, bare chest rippling with barely contained fury. “You think I would be the one who regrets? You think it would be me who was shamed?”
“I do,” she said, the words coming on a wave of confusion. “Of course it would be. Marrying Lovely Lily? The ruined Miss Muse? What worse a choice for a duke?”
He came toward her, and she thought he might take her in hand before he stopped short, crossing his arms across his magnificent broad chest. “Lily,” he said, the words no longer angry. Now, exhausted. Resigned. “I promise you. I would not regret you for a mo
ment. You, on the other hand . . . you would regret every minute we’ve ever shared.”
Impossible.
“I would never regret it.” She stopped. “Alec. What I said—I love you.”
He turned away from her, reaching for his coat. “I shall take you home.”
This is my home. Wherever you are is home.
Tears threatened, and she resisted the words. Instead, settling on a single question. “Why?”
For a moment, she thought he might answer, his throat working, his gaze the only thing in the room. She willed him to answer. To reveal whatever demons loomed for him. When he spoke, it was not a reply, but a declaration.
“Not me. Another. Someone worthy.” And then he said, “We shall find the painting. And we shall set you free.”
Chapter 18
SOMETHING WICKED INDEED: SCOTTISH BRUTE SPIED AT SCOTTISH PLAY
England shall be your ruin.
As a child, Alec had heard the words dozens of times. Hundreds of them. Every time he had begged his father to send him to England. To follow his mother. To honor her. To find the place she loved—a world that had promised more for her than the Scottish borderlands ever could.
England shall be your ruin, the old man would say. Just as it was mine.
And now it was true.
Like his father, he loved an Englishwoman of whom he was unworthy. Unlike his father, he was willing to do anything to save her from a future replete with disappointment.
I love you.
He should never have made her say it. Should never have allowed himself to bask in it.
But even now, those words rioted through him, making him ache. It would make everything to come that much more difficult—knowing that she would stay with him if he asked. That she would lower herself to be with him.
He had one way of protecting her from that life. One final chance that would give her the life of which she dreamed. And so he stood alone in the largest box at the Hawkins Theater—belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Duncan West, the newspaper magnate and his legendary aristocratic wife—waiting for the show to begin. He wore a coat and trousers that ostensibly fit him, but nevertheless felt as though they would strangle him, slowly, throughout the evening.