Argent (Hundred Days Series Book 3) (19 page)

              “Alexandra,” Spencer beckoned, obliging her to look up, “take down your hair.”

              She obliged him, under a spell. Eight pins; she drew them slowly, reveling in the way he watched her, caressing her with his eyes while she worked. Bold, she held both arms higher as she went, aware of the effect it was having by the slant of his gaze. A moment later her teasing was rewarded by a low groan.

              Finished and triumphant, she tossed her pins to the floor and pinged them off of the wood without caring. Hair brushed her back and shoulders, a sensation she had experienced a hundred times before. Tonight, though, it was different.

              Spencer pressed her back against the bed and raked fingers through her waves to fan them over the pillows. When he sat back to survey his handiwork, Alix turned her face away from the scrutiny. Fingers circled one wrist, then the other; he raised her arms and rested them above her head and hummed his approval.

When stood up and the mattress shifted, giving her the courage to look at him again. His eyes didn’t leave her body while he worked his breeches open with the same deftness as he had her gown. Long planes and sharp angles were silhouetted by the firelight and she watched unabashed as he stripped the pants away. He came back to her, sat, and then stretched out beside her along the bed. His hard frame crushed her softer one, and she sighed.

Spencer wrapped her with an arm, tucking a hand into the small of her back. Then he stopped, head bent halfway to her mouth. “Do you feel that?” he whispered.

             
She felt a lot of things
. Uncertain, Alex shook her head and he smiled.

              “I can just feel your heart against mine.”

              Exhaling, she closed her eyes and smiled. She did feel it, and contentment washed over her. She breathed his name, exhaling the last syllable against his lips.

There was no preamble to his mouth’s force. He crushed lips against her teeth until she winced, but she had no desire to pull away. Something about a little pain made her heart thump harder, and she gripped his shoulder and pulled, silently begging Spencer to cover her body with his. He obliged with one easy shift, settling between her knees.

He assaulted her neck and shoulders, the tops of her breasts. Teeth nipped, his tongue soothed, and Alix struggled to catch a breath.

              She traced the corded lines of his back, his buttocks, memorizing the shape of his body. She'd never seen, let alone touched, an entirely unclothed man. Something primitive whispered for her to scrape, to knead, to learn. She wanted to learn him with fingers and legs and tongue, to touch every inch.

Spencer stiffened between her legs, groaned into her breasts, and pulled away. He stared down at her, chest heaving. He was asking; she understood by a hungry look he fixed on her. Alix closed her eyes, raised arms above her head in surrender, and arched against him.

              Spencer's weight shifted on her, transferring onto one arm, crushing her while lips painted her shoulder with hot gasps. Knuckles brushed the inside of her thigh. He drew back, and then pressed her with infinite gentleness.

              “Mmph!” She arched further, winced, and sucked in a breath. It hurt, and then it passed, washed away on a surge of need.

              Spencer stiffened. She didn't hear him so much as breathe, and then he pulled back.

              “No! No, no!” Alix grabbed at his shoulders, his hip, holding him.

              “Alexandra,” he panted, pulling harder.

              “No.” She locked a leg over his back, and when that didn't work, raised her hips to sink him fully inside. “No,” she gasped again, knowing she'd won when Spencer weighted her back against the mattress. He came into her again, pushed up the length of her body with a pressure near to pushing through her. He tore a cry from her chest, coming on again at the same delicious pace.

Sweat beaded between their bodies. A knot in her belly moved lower, heat spreading to her thighs and coupled with a tender throbbing already lingering there. “Please,” she whispered against his damp temple. “Spencer, please...” She ran a toe up the back of his calf, twined their legs together.

He grunted, bucked against her, chuckling into her throat. Slow and relentless, he ignored her plea.

              Now she begged in earnest. Thought fell away under sensation. She
needed
. Alix had no doubt Spencer was doing it right. He just wasn't doing enough; he was withholding on purpose. Lungs burning, she panted and raised harder against him. She writhed, arched. Fistfuls of his hair twined between her fingers, thick and silken. She clenched them, tugging him into a kiss. His lip was too fetching a target, and Alix caught it between her teeth and pinched.

His groan filled her mouth, vibrating in her throat; she had won. Spencer gripped her thigh, raised her knee and pierced her with a force which punished even as it fulfilled.

This
. This was what she wanted. Small ‘ahh's’ of frustration were shredded into cries of pure, mindless satisfaction. She clutched at Spencer with trembling limbs, bracing herself.

              His hips jarred hers, groans caught against her nipple. “Alexandra. Oh God, Alexandra...” Her name was sweet and urgent on his lips. Spencer went rigid between her thighs, hands cradled her back, and he raised her until her flesh stung. His body trembled ahead of hers, a warning she had only a breath to heed, and then she snapped. Spencer's movements ripped something from her, and spasms wracked her head to toe as the world melted away. His name on her lips was a wild sound, a sound she felt in her throat more than a fully formed word.

He shuddered out a cry of his own against her breast. Heat spilled over her thighs and he fell against her, trembling out of time with her own weak limbs. Air couldn't come fast enough, but she was in no hurry for anything else.

              The crackling fire reached her ears as their breath slowed, reality setting in once more. Sweat cooled on her skin and Alix tensed, anxious about the moment that Spencer withdrew and left her empty.

              She had no idea how much time passed. Her eyes closed and she drifted, content just at the edge of sleep under his warmth. At some point, a sound drew her back. She realized it was her name when he spoke again.

              “Alexandra.” Spencer raised up on his elbows, staring down at her from a heavy-lidded frown.

              “Mm.”

              “Why didn't you tell me?”

              “Tell you … oh.” Her first impulse was to say she thought she had, but then Alix realized she hadn't said anything one way or another. “I told you I had never been married. Never had an affair. I thought it seemed obvious.” She swallowed. “Though, in hindsight it's clearly not.”

              “Clearly,” he sighed, then brushed her cheek with his lips.

              “You don't owe me anything,” she protested as he pulled back.

              “No, perhaps I don't. I'm not exactly dashing out to fetch the parson, but this is serious, Alexandra.”

              Not to her. It had just been something she’d lived with, like the color of her hair. Or perhaps it was, and giving herself to Spencer was so right that it had felt more natural than momentous. She was in no condition for rational thought.

              Spencer shifted, his eyes on hers. “London teems with men who find virginity a prize. They take
bets
on it, Alexandra; I have seen the wagers. Once they've taken it from her, they wouldn't tip the girl a nod when crossing the street. And still others avoid it like a pox, thinking it a synonym for prudishness. I am neither sort.” He slipped a hand up beneath her shoulder, raising her to him in a slow kiss. “It can only be given between a man and woman once, and I think that carries some weight.”

              “It does,” she breathed against his chest. “But I wanted you, wanted to make love, and carry on as we have.”

              “It wouldn't have stopped me,” he grinned, “but it would have spared me a nearly fatal moment of surprise.”

              “I'm not a nun,” she muttered. “It's not as though I've lived three decades as a hermit.”

              “No,” Spencer brushed kisses over her cheek, her bottom lip, “that much has been apparent for some time. But the act itself...” His grin was cheeky now, skipping her heart. “It's in a gentleman's best interest to take a little care, to make sure the lady enjoys herself. Ideally she should want to do it again.”

              “Oh,” she twined her arms around his neck, kissed him and bit knees into his sides, “She does.”

*              *              *

              They lay twined together nearly in the center of the bed, having finished at the foot and not quite making it back to the top. He was sixteen and in the hayloft again, and nothing about Alexandra was slowing the charge. She was all curves and softness, firm thighs and womanly hips. Her sweet perfume clung to him and the husky way she’d begged at the end made him want to start all over again. And they had, until the fire burned out and he lost count, until his parts ached and then passed beyond aching, forgotten in the frenzy of arousal.

              Alexandra had been quiet, her cheek pressed to his chest. Now she stirred, slipped onto her back and caressed his thigh. The touch garnered an impressive response, by his estimation, given the near pulped sensation he felt from the navel down.

              “What pleases you?” she murmured against his ribs.

              “What?” He wondered at this point if her question could be serious after the last few hours.

              “I read a smuggled copy of 'A Gentleman's Diary', years ago. Have you read it?”

              “No. Why, am I in it?”

              She snorted, poking him. “He indulged in all manner of activities, but one or two things in particular gave him the greatest pleasure.”

              He blinked slowly, taking her in. “I want
you
, Alexandra. To make love to you, to press you and debauch you in every way. Wear you to exhaustion until you tremble, and then sleep against me.” He drew a thumb over her nipple and relished her gasp. “Whatever wins me that, pleases me.”

              A slender arm draped his chest. Her fingernail traced his lower lip, raked his jaw. “Knowing what pleases you, wins you that.”

              “Very well.” He couldn't deny an inherent appeal to instructing her. Spencer settled against the mattress until he was entirely comfortable and folded one arm beneath his head. He beckoned Alexandra with a finger. “Up.”

She knelt beside him, her smile an invitation to sin.

“Over,” he ordered, raking a hand at her.

              “Hmm.” She straddled him. The perfect weight of her thighs was torture. “This?”

              “Mmhmm. The man who thought of this was a genius,” he murmured, looking her over. “I can touch every inch of you.” Cupping her shoulder, he traced her curves; the weight of her breast, flare of her hip. He pressed a thumb to the crisp black hair between her thighs and hardened at her ragged gasp.

“Every inch.” Gripping her hips, he raised her up slowly and denied himself the pleasure of her for an achingly long moment. Sheathing slowly, rational thought melted away at the point where their bodies joined. Alexandra's moan vibrated through him. He pressed her backside, moving her until she caught his rhythm.

              “Like this?” she murmured, hands splayed over his chest.

              He nodded, taking advantage of their position to explore her. Wild black waves covered her face, teasing his chest when she leaned into his touch. His words felt ragged and out of breath. “If it feels good to you, I promise it's the same for me.”

              Groaning, he admitted the information might have been a mistake. She shifted, a wicked smile on her face, and for a moment he thought he might lose control.

              Alix arched and her fingers gripped his thigh. She was relentless, pressing him to the point of mindlessness. There was something sweet and heedless about her deliberate pace, an innocent disregard for how quickly she was pushing him to the edge.

              “This?” she whispered again, palms brushing his chest.

              Spencer laced fingers behind his head, arched into her and let himself be thoroughly used. “This.”

*              *              *

             
Two days passed divided in equal fashions: utter domestic failure and exhausting romantic success.

Spencer estimated that no part of the shy little house had been spared. They had burned a loaf of bread while taking advantage of the kneading board's convenient height. His treasured, and until now, pristine cherry wood desk boasted a few well-earned scratches in its surface. A trip and fall on the staircase while chasing Alexandra to the bedroom had presented an entirely new opportunity for both of them. Food was reheated two and three times, and sometimes finally abandoned out of exhaustion. Window ledges, table tops, the rug; nothing was safe.