him. You have to fight him.
Yet his lips were wicked temptation. His hard-muscled body was a challenge and an enticement. Sal had told her it was easy to deal with men—Remember, they’re all ruled by one rather vital part of their anatomy—but Sal hadn’t told her how very difficult it would be to resist her own primal urges.
He fitted his mouth to hers and her world spun.
There was nothing gentle about his kiss. And Alec didn’t mean it to be gentle. His hands had snaked round her waist, pulling her close; her face was lifted to his, her eyes wide and flaring, her lips full—with doubt?—with desire? He claimed her mouth with the savage hunger he’d been feeling for hours. For days, damn it.
So had she, to judge by the way her hands had stolen up to cling round the nape of his neck, the way her slender body was moulding itself to his, as she surrendered to the fierce hunger of his lips and tongue. Heat consumed him as her hands swept his shoulders and he in turn let his own palms sweep down over the flimsy muslin to caress the curve of her hips, to splay his fingers and haul her against his hardening desire …
Dear God, swore Alec. She was inviting his ravishment. His sure hand caressed the column of her throat, sliding down to rest for a moment on the swelling curve of her breast, then slipping beneath the filmy fabric to caress one soft nipple with the pad of his thumb.
Rosalie felt the coral peak tingle and harden, tightening a cord of desire that reached to her womb, while his sensual wide mouth coaxed her lips apart and his tongue stroked hers with relentless, exquisite pleasure. His hand closed round her breast—warm, hard, erotic. Then he had her in his arms again and his kiss possessed her utterly.
Lost in a delicious haze of wine and longing, she was only faintly aware that he’d moved towards a sturdy chair and was guiding her on to his lap, still kissing her, as her arms clasped him instinctively.
And now, somehow, he’d eased her breast from her bodice. She let out a low cry of loss as he abandoned her mouth, but it changed to a cry of delight as his lips claimed one nipple. She gasped with amazement as his tongue, swirling round the stiffened peak, sent waves of rapture rippling through her entire body.
She clung to him as if he were her pillar of safety, when he was anything but; she was throwing her head back and gasping as his teeth nipped lightly, aware now that his hand was sliding up her leg, caressing the silken skin above her stocking top, stealing up to the juncture of her thighs, then seeking—and finding—the moist warmth at her feminine core.
She was damp, shaking, enraptured. Her hands digging into his hard-muscled back were her only anchor on reality. With devastating skill he swept his strong, knowing fingers across the swollen bud again and again, watching her with smouldering eyes as she arched herself against him, all restraint forgotten, and cried his name aloud as the sweet, unfurling spasms of her climax shook her body.
Her eyes had fluttered shut. Her lips were tingling and parted. Even when the last echo of rapture had died away, she kept her eyes closed. She had not known that she could feel like this. A savage pain clawed at her stomach. Perhaps she was a whore, to give herself so readily, so eagerly.
He was already lifting her from his lap and setting her on her feet. And he was—just watching her. She gathered herself up, feeling cold away from the shelter of his arms. Feeling—terrified at what she’d just let him do to her.
‘I rather think it’s yourself that you should not trust, Mrs Rowland,’ he said softly at last. ‘Do us both a favour by going and putting on a dress that at least covers you. Do you hear me?’
A feeling not just of anger, but of utter loss, was squeezing at her heart. ‘You misunderstand and misjudge me at every turn, Captain Stewart,’ she said in a low voice.
‘No doubt.’ He dragged his hand through his dark hair and stood up also; he was trembling with tension, she realised, as if every muscle in his powerful body was held on the tightest of leashes. His lip curled when he saw her eyes slide, horrified, away from his skintight breeches. ‘Indeed, I’m rather a handy scapegoat for all your foolhardy experiments, aren’t I? You can see it’s time you and I were leaving. Now. Go and wrap yourself in your usual drab attire, then we’ll get back to the child in your care. Or had you forgotten her—again?’
That hurt. Oh, that hurt. She clenched her fists. ‘It was you who insisted I stay here to be impressed by this place that was once your home! You who implied I ought to repay you for your dubious protection by spending two hours examining paintings, when I only wanted to get back to Katy! You are overbearing and unjust and hateful! Damn you to hell, Alec Stewart!’
He gazed down at her, his eyes bleak. ‘No need. I’m already there.’
She stumbled away.
Alec sat there with his head in his hands. His lust for her was raging. The hardness between his thighs still throbbed.
Rosalie Rowland. Writer, courtesan and all-round troublemaker. In her way she’d been absolutely right to accuse him of trying to impress her with this magnificent place that he’d once called home. Certainly, he’d hoped to trick her into making mistakes. Yet it was he who had handled everything so badly.
In fact, until she’d let her damned fichu slip like that, he’d begun to feel that he’d got everything wrong about her. He clenched his jaw. Damn it, she’d had a lucky escape. One more minute of her passionate response to his foolhardy kiss and he’d have been hard-pressed to stop himself ravishing her there and then.
Alec got to his feet and paced the room like a caged animal. Why had he let things go so far? Well, he had plenty of answers. Not least of his motivations—and certainly the worst—was his impulse to prove to himself that she was indeed any man’s for the taking.
Yet once again he’d been baffled by Rosalie Rowland. Most women of experience would have realised that Alec was aroused virtually to the point of no return. Most women would have offered some sort of physical relief—but she had made no attempt whatsoever to assuage his rampant desire.
The enigmatic, tormenting Mrs Rowland. Everything about her stoked up the fire of his vital male urges—but ever since that first night at the Temple of Beauty, he’d not been able to make sense of her. He was utterly perplexed by the way she moved and spoke so gracefully, by the way she’d so solemnly examined those pictures for him and calmly delivered her judgement.
At Dr Barnard’s tawdry show she’d stood out from the other jades like a pure-white wax candle burning amidst a mass of burned-down tallow ones. But how could she be unspoiled? Innocent? No. For God’s sake, she’d been married, she’d been at the Temple of Beauty! She was still lying to him; he’d still be thinking Katy was hers, had it not been for Mary’s suspicions—’She doesn’t even know the child’s age for sure, Captain Stewart!’ And of course there was Garrett’s news that last winter Rosalie had been visiting one London theatre after another, asking for someone called Linette.
Who was Linette? Alec drove one fist against the other. Who had sent that nasty threat? Who was trying to bribe Alec’s men to betray her? What the hell had he let himself in for, by offering to protect her?
Upstairs,
