One Night of Sin (9 page)

He obeyed, for once.

“Now, claim your reward.” Ceremoniously, she placed a strawberry on his waiting palm. It sat there, plump and scarlet, like a priceless ruby.

Or a tiny delicate heart.

His long, sandy lashes veiled his blue eyes as he stared down at it for a second, his expression so guarded it was impossible to know what he was thinking. Then he recovered with a devilish grin, tossed the strawberry up into the air and caught it in his mouth.

Becky gazed at him warily as he ate his prize in one bite. He washed it down with a swig of champagne from the bottle, and she was struck with the thought that a girl would have to be foolhardy to give her heart to a man like him.

When he flirted, he was furthest away.

“Something wrong?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows in his urbane way.
You can’t reach me,
his firm defenses seemed to taunt her from the depths of his blue eyes, like great shining silver walls of steel within him.

She shook her head, mystified. “Just a little tired. And still hungry,” she added.

“Well, eat, girl. Enough of your missish manners. I know you’re starving.” He took her fork, stabbed some meat and cheese with it, and then offered it to her.

Becky smiled at him and accepted the bite.

Do hurry,
he thought, enjoying feeding her but growing a trifle impatient. The sooner she was done eating, the sooner he could take her to his bed.

The little hellion fascinated him. After all his Society ladies with their fancy airs and haughty affectations, her naturalness enthralled him. He watched her devour pudding and meat, bread and cheese, gulping down champagne like it was water, and found himself growing decidedly aroused. He hoped her other appetites were equally lusty.

Finishing her meal at last, his fair young guest slumped back in her chair and rested both hands on her stomach with a contented sigh.

He regarded her in amusement. “Feeling better?”

“Worlds. Thank you so much.” She leaned at once across the table, draped her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek. “You will be my hero forever.”

“Have another drink, Becky-love,” he purred.

“You think I’m only saying this because of the champagne?” she retorted, lounging back in her chair again.

He did not answer. A tipsy, half-naked girl in his rooms suited Alec just fine.

Instead, he reached over and stroked the curve of her face with one knuckle. “It’s good to finally see some color in your cheeks.”

“Thanks to you,” she murmured. She did not protest his light, exploratory caress; indeed, his touch visibly relaxed her.

Alec savored the rose-petal softness of her cheek and fought the urge to tell her she was too damned beautiful for any man’s sanity. He liked the way the curling tendrils of her midnight mane framed her face and tumbled down her dainty shoulders.

With a heave of will, he sat back in his chair, waiting for her to come to him. He would not rush her. He would not. He stroked his lips in thought as he stared at her.

“So, why do you insist on claiming that you’re lucky?” he inquired, at which she laughed a little, skimming her lips back and forth along the rim of her wineglass with a musing motion that quickened his blood. Did she even know how badly she tempted him?

“Now, there is a tale to impress even you, Lord Alec.” She slanted him a mysterious smile. “It has to do with my middle name.”

“Which is?”

“Guess,” she ordered.

“No.”

“I’ll give you a hint: It starts with an
A.
”

Alec smiled with a speculative gleam in his eyes. “Alexandra—similar to mine.”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Anne?”

She shook her head.

“Alice. Arabella. Agnes. Agatha?”

“No, it’s not an actual
name.
”

“Ah . . . Anise? Alphabet? Azalea?”

“No, no, think more . . . geographical.”

“America? Atlas?” He stole a naughty glance at her breasts. “Alps?”

She laughed. “You beast! I think you need another hint—”

“No, don’t tell me. Now I am determined to guess it. It’s Arundel. Ascot?”

“No.”

“Blast. I was going to bet a shilling on you in the Derby.”

“Ha.”

“I’ve got it!” he said suddenly. “Africa!”

“Finally, you’re on the right continent, at least.”

He narrowed his eyes in thought. “I see. Someplace hot. Exotic.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Fits you,” he murmured, raising his glass to her again in practiced gallantry.

She stretched her legs out under the table, her calf briefly caressing his shin. “We’ll be at this all night if I don’t give you another clue,” she said.

“Well, we can’t have that. All right.”

“My father,” she said meaningfully, “was in the navy.”

“Oh, yes. I recall you mentioning something about that while you were threatening to brain me with the candlesnuffer.”

“It made a tolerable weapon, I thought.”

“God knows you used it well. Father in the navy . . . hot place. Of course! It’s Aboukir! Aboukir Bay, at the head of the Nile. You must have been born in the year of the battle.”

“Actually, sir,” she informed him with a rather tipsy lift of her chin, “I was born
in
that battle. God save the Queen,” she added.

He watched her in amusement, which she apparently mistook for disbelief.

“It’s true! While my father was on the upper gun-deck of the HMS
Goliath
helping to blow up Boney’s fleet, Mama was in the sick bay giving birth to me.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“I see. So, you’re lucky to be alive, is that it?”

“No, no, it’s a much more cheerful reason than that,” she scoffed.

“Born in a battle?” he murmured admiringly. “That explains a lot about you. Do tell.”

“For weeks our ships had been scouring the Mediterranean in search of Napoleon’s fleet, for the French just kept running and hiding, whisking away just ahead of us at every turn. But then, in the same hour that my mother went into labor with me, the French fleet was sighted in the Bay of Aboukir. They were riding at anchor, their sterns to our guns, defenseless—with no escape route. After weeks of searching, we had stumbled across the enemy purely by chance, like finding a needle in a haystack.

“Papa declared to Admiral Lord Nelson that it
must
have been the fortunate star of my birth that had brought them that stroke of good luck, for my arrival in the world was the only thing that was different from every day that they had been on the hunt. And it’s true,” she added proudly, “because the Battle of the Nile was, aside from Trafalgar, our most glorious victory. It ruined French sea power and changed the course of the war.”

This girl astonished him.

“Thank God you had the foresight to be born then,” he said abruptly.

“Yes, I know. Otherwise, we’d all be speaking French.” She grinned and took a swig of champagne.

Charmed to the point of distraction, wanting nothing so much as to scoop her up in his arms and kiss her senseless, it took Alec a moment to recover his wits.

“What the devil was your mother doing on board a warship?” he asked. “Surely the navy has rules against that sort of thing.”

“Well, my dear Lord Alec,” she said confidentially. “I’m sure you’re very innocent about such things, but there are rules and then there are
rules.
Officially speaking, we were never there. Nor were the several dozen other women who lived on board the ship with their husbands. That was the problem, you see. Mama was very beautiful, and Papa’s commanding officer took a fancy to her. She would not tell my father of his superior’s advances,” she added wistfully. “She did not want him to do something rash and jeopardize our livelihood by harming his career—let alone call the man out to duel, which he surely would have done. Papa was very dashing,” she informed him. “Instead, Mama gave him the excuse that my education was being neglected with such an unconventional upbringing. After that, she and I took rooms in Portsmouth and became landlubbers.”

“Landlubbers,” he echoed in quizzical amusement.

“Yes. I haven’t seen the sea in years,” she added pensively, staring at nothing. “Sometimes at night I dream about it, miles and miles and miles of waves.” She paused. “Mama died the summer I was fourteen. She fell ill caring for a poor family of the parish.”

Alec laid his hand over hers in a silent offering of comfort. “I’m very sorry.”

“It’s all right. She was wonderful to me while I had her. They both were.”

“What’s this?” he murmured, leaning closer to capture the tiny pink seashell that hung from a ribbon around her neck.

Her sudden, lovely smile dazzled him. “Do you like my little shell?” One would have thought it was a flawless diamond, for all her pride in it.

“Very pretty. Did you steal it from a mermaid?”

“Papa gave it to me the last time I saw him.” Sadness crept into her voice as she spoke. “Mama and I bade good-bye to him at Portsmouth, the last time he went away. He said that I could hold this seashell up to my ear and, anytime I wanted, I could hear him whisper inside it, ‘I love you.’ ”

Alec looked into her eyes.

With the seashell still resting on his fingertips, he was flooded with such a wave of protective male instinct that he barely knew what to do with himself.

Parents dead. No wonder she had ended up on the streets. “Come here, baby,” he whispered, releasing her trinket and sitting back slowly in his chair, offering her his lap. “Come on,” he ordered softly, taking her hand and drawing her to him.

She came to him with uncertainty in her wide violet eyes. He wrapped his arms around her, gathering her onto his lap. “It’s going to be all right.” He pressed her head down onto his shoulder and stroked her hair. “Why don’t you stay with me for a while?” he murmured. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“Alec.” She trembled a little as she breathed his name. Raising her head from his shoulder, she pulled back a small space and stared into his eyes; her own, liquid pools of emotion, their glowing violet hue like sun-kissed clouds at dawn.

Her beauty, he knew, would long haunt him.

“You are the sweetest man,” she breathed. Cupping his cheek in her hand, she closed her eyes and gently kissed him.

Alec quivered, breathless with the butterfly caress of her silken lips against his, healing him, enticing him, redeeming him. The ends of her sable hair tickled his skin; he pulled her closer, winding his arm around her, splaying his hand across her hip, kneading her. The feel of her firm young flesh was luscious to the touch, sheathed in his silk dressing gown.

Capturing his face between her soft hands, Becky tasted him more deeply. Alec opened his mouth, welcoming her tongue’s delicate explorations; and with that, the two of them simply picked up right where they had left off beneath that awning.

Alec couldn’t get enough of her. After a few moments she let him turn her on his lap so she was facing forward, straddling him, both of them engrossed in kissing and caressing. Her bare feet curled around his calves. His hands roamed hungrily up and down her back.

The candles flickered, creamy drops of melted wax rolling down their shafts; the music from his neighbor’s pianoforte floated through the ceiling, while the rain drummed the windowpanes. Alec’s heart slammed in his chest as he focused all his attention instead on the tender neophyte in his arms and his own strange longing to protect her.

His fascination with her took him by surprise, God’s truth; he had not expected to find this sense of connection. Maybe he could keep her, just for a while, he thought as his right hand ventured under blue silk, exploring the juicy thigh that hugged his hip.

He had never taken a mistress of his own before. Surrounded all his life by more women than he knew what to do with, there had never been any need. But she was different, he mused, shuddering at the unbearable softness of her skin. So eager, so sweet. The gentle way she stroked his belly was driving him insane. The delicious heat of her body called to his blood like a siren’s song.

Half maddened by her position astride him, her legs spread, the humid warmth of her core permeating his groin and teasing his ferocious erection, he could think of nothing else but parting that dressing gown and taking her right there on the dining table.

“Darling?” he panted, finally finding the strength to break their kiss.

“Alec,” she answered breathlessly.

The way she moaned his name made him smile. He hadn’t even really started pleasuring her yet. He cupped her lovely face between his hands, relishing the sight of her like this, utterly aroused for him, her violet eyes smoldering, heavy-lidded with desire, her cheeks aglow with passion’s flush. It seemed he had finally succeeded in warming her up. The girl was on fire. His pride swelled, along with other regions of his anatomy.

The dressing gown he’d lent her had come loose in a deep V that ended at her navel. He trailed his fingertip down the center. She flinched with want, her chest heaving under his light caress. “Becky,” he whispered slowly.

“Yes?”

“Shall we go to bed?” When he reached her navel, his touch traveled back up her bare flat midriff again, but he veered off to the right at her chest and ran his fingertip up along the lower curve of her breast, moving with exquisite slowness over the pebble-firm point of her erect nipple.

She gasped and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation, her inhibitions lowered by champagne. Encouraged, he squeezed her nipple gently between forefinger and thumb, and licked his lips at her sigh of delight, half ready to explode before he even got inside her.

“Becky?”

“What?” she murmured dreamily.

“I need you, kitten. Come to bed and love me.”

“Alec,” she groaned again.

“Please.”

He was the living, breathing definition of irresistible.

His kisses had made her more drunk than the fancy French champagne, she thought, insofar as she could string a thought together. She felt the massive readiness of his body throbbing with insistent demand against her pelvis, and did not suppose a refusal at this late juncture would have been very well received. She was not sure that she was capable of uttering one, anyway.