Creole Fires (16 page)

“Thank you,” she said, but her mouth had gone dry and she had difficulty forming the words.

Alex climbed up on Napoleon, who pranced and whinnied and fought the bit harder than usual. “There’s a mare on the wind,” Alex said, looking at her pointedly.

Nicki’s cheeks went warm. Alex chuckled softly and lightly set his heels to Napoleon’s sides, urging the stallion down the road. Nicki rode beside him, thinking again what an imposing figure he made astride his big bay horse.

“My grandmother has excellent taste in clothes,” he said, appraising her riding habit, just a shade darker than her copper-colored hair. “Or did you choose it?”

“We both did.” They were riding toward the river, beside the cane fields, which had grown even taller. “I want you to know I appreciate all you’ve done for me.” A bit self-conscious, she touched the imported Belgian lace on her cuff. “I know these things were expensive. I wish there was some way I could repay you.”

Alex reined up beneath a moss-draped oak that
fronted the wide Mississippi, flowing past with barely a ripple. “Your father saved my father’s life. They were friends. That makes us friends. I thought you understood that.”

He helped her dismount, and they tied the horses so they could drink and splash in the water. As they walked back under the oak, Nicki almost asked him if that meant he would release her from her contract, but her position was still too new, too tenuous. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“I liked your friend Thomas,” she said instead, opting for the first fresh subject that came to mind.

Alex’s expression turned hard. “If you liked him so much, why didn’t you accept his invitation to the theater?”

The anger in his tone surprised her, but she didn’t let it show. With studied nonchalance, she pulled a leaf from an overhead branch and twirled it between her fingers. “Because you obviously didn’t want your friend’s reputation sullied by someone like me.”

Alex looked thunderstruck. “Is that what you thought?”

Nicki lifted her chin. “What was I supposed to think? You obviously disapproved.”
And you own me.

Alex moved closer, inching her step by step against the trunk of the oak. The gentleness she had seen in him these last few weeks was gone. “I didn’t want you seeing him because I didn’t want … complications.”

“Complications? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means …” He seemed to be weighing his words. A wide hand raked back his hair, but his eyes remained fixed on her face. When she tried to glance away, he turned her chin with his hand, forcing her
to look at him. “I didn’t want you seeing him, because I wanted you for myself. The truth is, I may have been fooled by your little charade, but my body wasn’t. I’ve wanted you almost from the start.”

His words were a tonic that soothed, yet stirred. Alex desired her. He was pursuing her as a woman. The knowledge made her head spin. Her heart, already beating in staccato, pounded even harder. She felt more of her old power returning, the feminine instincts that had once come so naturally back in the life she’d led before.

“You desire one woman, yet you are pledged to another.”

“Clarissa isn’t important,” Alex said with finality, making her confidence swell. “What matters is that I’m a man and you’re a woman. A full-grown woman. What I feel for you is no longer forbidden.”

He ran a finger along her jaw, then cradled her cheeks between his palms. His hands felt warm and strong, imparting his feelings as if he had spoken. His mouth came down in a slow, deliberate kiss that held none of the restraint of the night before. It was a searing kiss, a demanding kiss that took her breath away.

With expert determination, he coaxed her mouth open, exploring the inside until her own tongue began the same sensuous movements. His hands slid around her waist, and Nicki swayed against him, letting him pull her close. She could feel the rough texture of his shirt, the muscles that moved as his hands played over her back. The heat of his body seeped into her limbs, making her weak and shaky, but she didn’t pull away.

When he trailed hot kisses along her cheek to nibble her ear, Nicki whispered his name and slid her
arms around his neck. His hair felt soft against her fingers, the muscles of his shoulders bunched, and a liquid warmth touched the place between her legs.

He was kissing her again now, plunging his tongue inside her mouth. Nicki dug her fingers into his shoulders, and Alex groaned. His hands moved down her body, over her bottom where he cupped the fullness to settle her more firmly against him. Nicki’s senses reeled.

Alex felt the blood pounding at his temple, and the fire in his loins burned hotter. Nicki’s warm, full breasts pressed against him, her nipples hard with desire. Even through the folds of her skirt, her bottom felt lush and perfectly curved to fill his hands. His arousal, already hot and pulsing, stiffened even more, thrusting itself against her, determined to make itself known.

Moving his palm along her bodice, he unfastened the tiny covered buttons that closed up the front of her dress and slid his hand inside. The heavy weight of her breast, the smoothness of her skin, and the pebble-hard peak he teased with his fingers increased his passions, and white hot desire surged through his veins.

Trembling all over, Nicki whimpered softly and leaned into his hand.

“Let me make love to you,” he whispered, his fingers still working their magic.

Nicki jerked away as if he had slapped her. Clutching the open bodice of her dress, she stared at the bulge in his breeches that no amount of will could disguise. Though she hadn’t moved or spoken, the flush was gone from her cheeks, replaced by a sudden
pallor. Alex felt sure she was recalling what had happened at the prison.

“It’s all right,
chérie,”
he soothed. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want.”

If anything she looked paler.

“I didn’t mean to rush you. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head as if to deny his words, but still she did not speak.

“I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’ve been through, but it doesn’t have to be like that. What happens between a man and a woman can be beautiful,
chérie.
I promise you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I should have gone slower, given you more time—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Nicki said, surprising him. “It was mine. I could have stopped you, but I didn’t. I don’t know what came over me. I wanted you to kiss me—I enjoyed it—but I didn’t know that I would want you to … to …”

He tilted her chin with his hand. “You didn’t know you would want me to what,
chérie?
To hold you? To touch you in places that once seemed forbidden?”

She looked up at him and could not lie. “Yes.”

Alex drew her into his arms. Nicki could feel his relief in the tension that drained from his body.

“We’ll just take things slowly. Everything is going to be all right.”

The last of Nicki’s apprehension fled. Alex would take care of things. He always had, hadn’t he? She realized suddenly how much she had come to trust him. How much she depended on him. She nodded her understanding, and Alex grazed her lips with a
feather-soft kiss. Wordlessly, they gathered the horses and started back to the house.

They rode in silence for a while, but even with what had happened, she wasn’t uncomfortable with him. “You said something back there,” she said as they rode along, “something about knowing what I’d been through.”

He nodded. “When I was younger, I spent some time locked up myself.”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Algeria. I was serving in the French army. Some of us were captured. The prison was a hellhole.”

“How long were you in there?”

“Six very long months. Fortunately I made a friend who helped me through it. A big Turk named Ram. He’s worked for me off and on ever since. Unfortunately, the sea keeps luring him away.”

“My friend was named Lorna.” She felt a tightness in her throat. “I’ll never forget her.”

“Tell me how you came to be in such a place,” Alex coaxed softly.

Nicki told him about Richard Paxton, the man who had bought her contract from Laurent. She talked of Paxton’s unwanted attentions and his wife, Adrian’s, jealousy. “She planted the brooch, declared it stolen, then found it in front of Richard and sent for the authorities. You know the rest.”

“What happened is past,
chérie.
For both of us.” Alex smiled at her, but his vision was drawn across the fields to the knoll that rose above the western boundary where a lone rider watched them. Alex
shaded his eyes against the sun, but he knew who it was.

“Fortier,” he said, glancing down at Nicki. “Promise me you won’t ride alone.”

“But surely he won’t bother me once he knows I’m under your protection.”

“To him you will always be the little thief you were at the prison. He wants you. Fortier takes what he wants.”

A shiver touched her spine. “What would you do?”

“I’d kill him … or he’d kill me.”

The heavy rap of the silver lion’s head on the massive front door stopped Nicole at the top of the staircase.

On her way to the dining room to breakfast with
Grand-mère
, she watched with curiosity as Frederick pulled open the door and a crisp breeze blew in, along with a dark-haired woman just a few inches taller than Nicki. Olive-skinned and lovely in her burgundy silk day dress piped in black, the same onyx hue as her eyes, the woman smiled at Frederick and asked to see Alexandre.

“Who is she?” Nicki whispered to Danielle, who had walked up beside her.

Danielle pulled her a discreet distance away, where they could watch without being seen. “That is Mademoiselle Aimee, M’sieur du Villier’s mistress.”

“Lisette?” she repeated, incredulous. She couldn’t help noticing the woman’s seductive beauty, the full red lips that curved in a bit of a pout.

“Out.”

Unconsciously, Nicki’s fingers dug into her palms and a cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach.

Within minutes, Alex strode into the foyer. “I asked
you not to come here,” he said by way of greeting. That he was upset was apparent by the scowl that lined his face.

“Why ‘ave you not come to see me?” Her accent thick but charming, Lisette seemed equally annoyed. “You ‘ave been away too long.”

“I’m hardly at your beck and call, Lisette. I’ll be there when I’m damned good and ready.”

Lisette’s pout became more pronounced. “What ‘ave I done to displease you? You do not desire Lisette anymore?” Her look said she didn’t believe it for a moment.

And neither did Nicole.

When Alex didn’t answer soon enough, she twirled away from him, displaying her elegant clothes. “I look beautiful, no?” Her face seemed softer, her expression less contrived. Her black eyes sparkled with an almost childish delight.

Alex’s anger faded. “You look lovely.” Lisette beamed at the compliment, once more certain of her allure. “As a matter of fact,” Alex told her, “I was planning to see you tonight.” Taking her arm, he led her toward the door. “Why don’t we go for a walk in the gardens where we can speak in private?”

As soon as they’d stepped through the doorway, Lisette turned into his arms and kissed him. Nicki didn’t miss her look of triumph—or the possessive way she clutched his neck.

“How dare he!” In a swirl of bright yellow skirts, she turned and raced back to her room. If she didn’t get out of the house in the next few moments, she would probably kill them both! She had never been so angry in her life. Yesterday Alex had been professing
his feelings for her. Kissing her and touching her in a way no man had. Tonight he would go to Lisette!

Rage enveloped her. She wanted to race down the stairs and pull out every single strand of the woman’s glossy black hair. She wanted to slap Alexandre’s too-handsome face and call him the bastard he was.

Danielle helped her pull on her riding habit. “You are angry? No?”

“I am angry—yes! How dare he consort with that … that … woman! For heaven’s sake, his grandmother is sitting in the dining room. He is certainly not a gentleman, and I intend to tell him so.”

Danielle caught her arm. “I do not think that is such a good idea.”

“And just why not?”

“Because if you do,
le duc
might think you are jealous.”

“Jealous! Of that … that … loose woman!” But even as she said the words, she knew that was exactly what Alex would think, arrogant rogue that he was. What’s more, it was true. She was jealous of Lisette and furious at Alex. And the fact that she was only made her madder.

Pulling on her soft leather riding gloves with short, determined tugs, she marched past the main staircase and down the hall to the servants’ stairs that led into the butler’s pantry. Once outside, she took in great gulps of air to calm herself and marched off toward the stables.

She would ride Napoleon—alone—whether Alex liked it or not! As long as she stayed away from Fortier’s boundary she would be safe.

Patrick had the good sense not to argue. He’d never seen her in such a state, but he recognized her
determination in the stiff set of her shoulders, the way she tapped her riding crop in measured beats against her boot.