Andrea Kane (41 page)

“His?” Drake barely got out the word, his body leaping to life beneath his wife’s teasing caress.

“Or hers,” Alex conceded, pausing in her exploration of Drake’s body. “Do you have a preference?”

Drake ran his tongue over the delicate shell of Alex’s ear, his hands sliding down to cup her silky bottom, pulling her against his throbbing erection. “Several preferences, princess. Shall I tell them to you?” He whispered a few choice, erotic phrases into her ear, and Alex melted against him with a soft moan of surrender.

“Your grace, your wish is my command,” she replied in a sultry whisper, lifting her face for his kiss. Drake’s mouth opened over hers, his lips moved back and forth with barely leashed need. His tongue stroked hers slowly, with tender urgency, his hot breath filling her mouth. He loved her, and that knowledge made him want to give her everything, to shower her with every exquisite sensation a woman could know.

Alex arched slowly against Drake, making him wondrously and acutely aware of the presence of their unborn child. He had to be the luckiest man alive. For in his arms he held his life.

For a timeless moment they kissed. Long, deep, melting kisses broken only by Alex’s soft sighs and Drake’s husky words of love. When that alone was no longer enough, Drake began a slow exploration of Alex’s body, worshiping her with every stroke of his fingertips, teasing her tingling flesh with soft touches and gentle caresses that brushed ever so lightly upon her sensitized skin.

By the time his seeking fingers found the dewy wetness between her thighs, Alex was trembling, her whole body ablaze with desire. She recognized Drake’s need to be the aggressor, to have the opportunity to demonstrate his love for her. But waiting was rapidly becoming an impossibility.

She undulated her hips against his hand, trying desperately to deepen the contact, and was rewarded by Drake’s husky chuckle.

“Still so impatient, princess?” he teased, nibbling at her lower lip. He slid his fingers farther inside her … but only a bit.

Alex moaned. “I want you, Drake,” she pleaded.

“Mmm, I can tell,” he murmured, kissing the side of her neck, flexing his fingers slightly, feeling the inadvertent tightening of her inner muscles.

Duke, hell, he thought with a smile. The way she responded to him made him feel like a king.

His smile froze as Alex, relinquishing her passive role, began her own heavenly torture. Starting with the taut planes of his smooth back, she slid her hands over Drake’s body, lingering on the solid muscles of his broad shoulders and the hard wall of his massive chest. When she lightly brushed his nipples with her thumbs, Drake let out his breath in a hiss.

“Is there some problem, your grace?” she purred. Before he could answer, she stroked one of her hands through the soft, dark hair on his chest, over his rigid abdomen, and paused deliberately over the throbbing symbol of his need.

“You are merciless …” Drake ground out, flames leaping through him.

She brushed her fingers ever so lightly against him, then lifted them, hovering. In response, Drake thrust his hips forward, seeking more of Alex’s caress.

“Patience, Captain … remember?” she whispered against the vein that throbbed in his neck.

With a deep growl Drake seized her hand and brought it back to its original goal. “To hell with patience. Touch me, wife.”

She closed her fingers around him, feeling his life, his power, the effect she had on both. He pulsed in her hand, hardening and lengthening until he had to grit his teeth to retain a shred of control. Deliberately, he kept his gaze locked with hers so that his beautiful wife could see what she was doing to him. And when he could bear the intensity no longer, when the need to be one was so powerful that it could not be denied or delayed, Drake drew Alex to him, looking deep into her eyes as he lifted her leg to rest over his and slid into her moist, welcoming warmth, pressing deeper and deeper until they were one.

He lay quietly for a moment, overcome with emotion, listening to Alex’s uneven breathing and feeling the pounding of her heart as it beat against his. Then, slowly and with the need to give Alex more pleasure than she had ever known, Drake began to move inside her, lowering his head to find her lips with his. He made love to her with his mouth, his tongue, while he simultaneously drew her hips to his again and again, circling his body against hers until Alex was frantic, her body so tight around him that Drake knew it was time.

With one powerful thrust he gave her what she needed, at the same time pulling her to him, pressing her loins to his and holding them there to intensify the pleasure that exploded in wild, gripping spasms through Alex’s body.

“Drake …” she cried out, digging her nails into his back.

Drake groaned as her contractions clasped him, pulling at his frantic, engorged manhood. But, unwilling to relinquish the moment and the sheer joy of watching his wife, he determinedly held himself back, forced himself to wait.

She was breathtaking in her utter, abandoned ecstasy, her face bathed with pleasure, her voice calling his name over and over in soft pants of release. And all Drake could think in that final moment of sanity was that this beautiful, sensual angel in his arms, this unspoiled and giving woman who had known no man but him, this gentle healer of his lifelong wounds, was his wife and would soon be the mother of his child.

Drake closed his eyes, his entire body tightening … waiting. He was dangling at the precipice of a peak that towered so high, fell so far, that it demanded all of him, left none of him untouched. And he gave himself to it willingly, gladly, for Alex was beside him, with him … always.

The eruptions began deep inside him, growing stronger and stronger until he helplessly surrendered to the wildness of his climax, shouting Alex’s name, desperate, yet unable, to convey to her all that she made him feel.

And afterward, as he held his wife in his arms, he again whispered the words he had never said to another woman, the words that he hoped would begin to explain what was in his heart … the only words Alex ever needed to hear.

“Alex … I love you.”

“I
NEVER INTENTIONALLY KEPT
my identity from you. Circumstances thwarted every opportunity to tell you the truth.”

Drake lay on his back, Alex cradled against his chest. Their bodies temporarily sated, the need to talk, to understand, and to be understood moved to the forefront.

Alex raised her head, giving Drake a slightly disgruntled look.

“You certainly did not try very hard,” she reminded him, thinking of the months at sea when he had plagued her about her noble birth.

He grinned. “Not in the beginning, no. I was having far too much fun with our cat-and-mouse game.”

“At my expense.”

“At your expense,” he agreed, tenderly stroking her back. “But remember, princess, that I was not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone, least of all a woman. Worse, a woman who touched my emotions, made me vulnerable.”

“A woman who was everything you loathed,” she added softly.

“Everything I needed,” he corrected, wrapping his arms more tightly around her. “By the time I realized you had the right to know, it was too late. You already thought of me as Drake Barrett, a simple sea captain. If I had told you the truth, that I was a member of the peerage, prisoner to the same hollow world as you, you would have hated me for lying to you. The ironic thing is that I never really lied, except about my titles. Everything else I told you, my whole jaded life, was true.”

Alex rested her chin on his chest. “I cannot dispute your words. I’m sure I would have flown into a rage if you had told me who you were.” She gave him a questioning look. “Why did it matter to you how I felt, whether I accepted you or not?”

Drake traced the line of her nose with a gentle finger. “Because, my beautiful, foolish princess, I was in love with you.”

Alex’s head came up. “Even then?”

He gave her a roguish grin. “Even then. Before then. From the moment I saw your impudent little self clad in a dusty muslin dress, glaring at me in my own cabin, I was lost.”

“You despised me,” Alex contradicted him, thinking back to that fateful meeting.

“I resented you like hell,” he amended. “I thought you were the most arrogant, outspoken, patronizing chit I had ever met in my life.” He paused, his eyes darkening to a deep, forest green. “I also never wanted anything in my life the way I wanted to be inside you. This”—he brought her hand down to the hard, hot arousal pulsing against his belly—”has been a permanent condition since last March.”

“I’m flattered,” she murmured, stroking softly, “and delighted that I render you so insatiable.”

“Care to prove it?” He tangled his hands in her hair, drew her up to him for a bone-melting kiss.

“Gladly …
after
we finish our talk.” Alex withdrew her mouth and her teasing hand, determined not to be sidetracked—at least not yet.

Drake settled himself back with a resigned sigh. “All right, princess. You win. But I have already told you everything.”

“Not quite.” Alex gave him an accusing look. “You overlooked one small detail.”

“Which is?”

“That someone is trying to kill you.”

Drake stared at her in stunned silence.

“How did you find out?” he managed at last.

“I overheard you and Smitty talking the day of your riding accident.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew?” he demanded.

“For the same reason you didn’t tell me. I did not want you to worry about me or my reaction to your suspicions. And I knew you would, especially once I had told you about the baby. Instead, I decided to do a bit of investigating on my own.”

Drake scowled. “Why do I have the distinct feeling that I am not going to like this?”

“Because you never think I am capable of taking care of myself. Well, I am.” She shot him a challenging look.

“Spoken by the woman who disrupted my ship and was unable to climb down the fifty feet of rigging she had managed to scale.”

“Other than that time,” she hastened to qualify.

Drake decided not to dispute the point by reminding her of the other occasions when he had rescued her from oncoming disasters. “Tell me about your investigation.”

She nodded. “It seemed logical that only someone who was present at Allonshire could have cut that saddle. At the time the thought of any family member or servant doing such a heinous thing seemed impossible.”

Alex’s qualifying phrase, “at the time,” was not lost on Drake. But right now he wanted the answer to a far different question.

“So you decided it was one of the guests?” The light was beginning to dawn in Drake’s mind.

“Yes.”

“So that night at the ball, when I assumed you were flaunting yourself to all those men …”

“I was hoping to learn something … anything.”

Drake felt utterly disgusted with himself and, at the same time, very proud of Alex, proud of her courage and humbled by the depth of her love for him. He had accused her of being unfaithful when, all the time, she had been protecting him.

“Drake?” Her soft voice interrupted his self-chastisement. He stared down at her, the moonlight making her eyes glow a silvery gray. “I don’t blame you. Under the circumstances, I would have assumed the same thing you did.” She grinned. “I acted a bit out of character that night.”

“You have my word that I will never doubt you again,” he told her in a solemn voice.

Alex’s eyes twinkled. “I shall remember that promise when I next offer you advice at the helm, Captain.”

Drake chuckled, contentedly anticipating the numerous turbulent quarrels that would accompany them to sea … and the equally turbulent reconciliations. With sudden clarity he knew that his restless journeys were ended. Any sailing from now on would be with his wife and children. It was time for Allonshire to become a home.

But first there was a mystery to solve.

Carefully he asked, “What did you learn from our guests?”

“That most noblemen are lechers and most noblewomen, whores.”

“An accurate assessment,” Drake retorted dryly. “But not terribly enlightening.” He paused. “What did you mean when you said that ‘at the time’ the thought of a family member or a servant being guilty seemed impossible? Has something happened since to change your mind?”

Alex hesitated. “It seems too horrible even to consider,” she said at last, “but tonight, just before you burst into my room, Sebastian mumbled the oddest thing to me.”

At the mention of his brother’s name Drake’s mouth grew grim, his features tense with anger. “What did he say?”

“When I realized there was no escaping him, I told him that, if he did this unforgivable thing to me, you would kill him.”

“And I would have.” Drake’s voice was steel.

Alex nodded. “I know. But he answered me by saying that I had it backwards, that it was he who would kill…” She swallowed nervously. “He never finished the sentence, because that was when you came to my rescue. I’m sure it didn’t mean anything, Drake,” she added quickly, seeing the flicker of suspicion in Drake’s eyes. “He was foxed at the time.”

Drake was not so sure. But, seeing the worry on Alex’s face, he decided that enough was enough. She was exhausted; it had been an emotionally draining day, and she needed to sleep.

“It’s time to rest, love.” He drew the bedcovers up, tenderly tucking them around Alex’s shoulders. “You look utterly spent.”

“But, Drake,” she protested, voicing the fear that gnawed at her nerves and crept, unbidden, into her mind like some horrid, poisonous insect, “what if
he
tries to … hurt you again.” She could not even bring herself to say the word “murder.”

Drake kissed her delicately arched eyebrows, smoothing away the worried pucker between them with his lips. “No one is going to harm me,” he assured her, giving Alex the words she needed to hear. “I promise you that. I have far too much to live for to let anything happen.” He saw her visibly relax, and he pressed her head gently to his chest. “The mystery will still be here for us to solve in the morning, sweetheart. But for now you and my child need to rest. So go to sleep.”