The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(53)
Meagan gave him the smug look of a woman who’d won an argument after much persistence. “Exactly why I shall never take a lover.”
Alexander would never let her take a lover even if that meant he had to shoot every man who came near her.
He hastily undid the buttons holding his trousers over his very hard erection. “Do you remember our vision of the bath chamber?”
“Oh yes,” Meagan said, eyes starry. “Do you mean the one against the pillar or the one in the bath itself?”
“Both. I want to do both with you. How fortunate the eccentric builder of this house had hot water pumped from a cistern to the bath chamber.”
“Quite fortunate.”
“And do you recall the one we had about riding?” His cock tumbled out, swollen and ready as he thought of the vision they’d plunged into while he rode in Hyde Park. She’d been on her hands and knees on the bed, he driving into her from behind her. “Another I’d be pleased to act out. And then perhaps you can ride me.”
A pink blush stole over Meagan’s cheeks. “I am not certain how to do that.”
“I will teach you. I will teach you so many things, my Grand Duchess.”
He eased her thighs apart and positioned himself in the lovely place between her legs that was open and ready for him. She went rigid, but with longing that was obvious as she wriggled her hips toward him.
“What about the vision of the second man?” she whispered. “The one we had a few minutes ago. I could never have thought of such a thing.”
“Nvengarian husbands sometimes bring a third party for their wives,” Alexander answered. “Or the wives bring one for their husbands.” His mouth turned down. “But we’ll keep to two in our bed, Meagan. We will have plenty to do with just the two of us.” He’d guard the door against any Nvengarian gentleman who had other ideas.
Then it didn’t matter. Visions shattered and fell away as Alexander lifted her hips and slid himself inside her.
Ah … The gripping frenzy eased into astonishing pleasure. Where I belong. He’d waited so long.
Whether Meagan heard and understood his last words, he didn’t know. Her head fell back, her eyes growing languid as she gave into wanting.
Rain pattered on the long windows at the end of the room and candle flames hissed as they met liquid wax. Meagan’s lips parted in desire, ringlets of red hair spilling down her neck.
Everything about her made Alexander want her with animal-like insanity. The way her hair curled about her forehead, the cool tips of her fingers on his skin, the glow in her brown eyes—that of a woman wanting a man.
He ought to go slowly. Their previous encounters had been quick and harsh, Alexander’s lust too strong to quench. She deserved gentleness.
But Meagan awoke such a fierceness in him. Alexander was losing the iron control under which he’d held himself since the day his father had died. He’d always believed that love and trust meant betrayal. Alexander had turned a smooth face to the world and pressed the rage deep inside.
Meagan, with her soft-lipped smile, her brown eyes, and her no-nonsense way of speaking, was steadily prying away the boulder under which the real Alexander hid.
Alexander drew her up to him and kissed her with hard thoroughness. Meagan’s desire smelled sweet, and it tasted fine in her mouth.
He should have let her go to her bedchamber and have her maid slowly undress her and put her to bed. He could slide between the sheets later and strip off her nightrail, or perhaps leave it on to preserve her modesty. That was how husbands went to wives in England.
In Nvengaria, woman and man played many games in and out of bed, and did not merely come tamely together for the act itself. Alexander did not want the act. He wanted Meagan, whole and his, her clothes in shreds, her bare body warm in his arms. Whether they were under the covers on the bed or on the table in the dining room made no difference to him.
Meagan clung to him, her cheeks flushed, eyes heavy. Alexander kissed her flesh, nibbled and suckled her neck, leaving love bites in his wake. His medals pressed her breasts, the sash of office rubbing her skin, imprinting her as his own. Mine, his thoughts snarled in Nvengarian. All mine.
Meagan watched him with soft eyes, lips parted, as he rocked into her, feeling her close around him in a wildly joyous grip.
She traced the interlaced tattoo ringing his biceps as her body rose to meet his. He’d gotten the tattoo from a man he’d met in Greece during his Grand Tour, who’d learned the art from a Chinese man. The strange, smooth design had some significance that the Greek tried to explain and Alexander did not understand. “Two lives,” the man had said. “Duality. I chose it because I sensed this in you.”
Alexander had gotten the tattoo as part of his hidden defiance against the old Imperial Prince. No one saw it but himself and his valet, and his lovers who thought it made him dashing. Sephronia had never mentioned it.
Meagan traced the patterns with the tips of her fingers, her feather-light touch erotic.
Nestled inside her, his erection began to pound, the intensity of her closing around him, driving him into mindlessness. This is what it is like to come home.
The animal in him took over and poetry went to hell. Alexander drove into her, loving the cries of pleasure that escaped her mouth. He would make her his, make her belong to him, damn the spell, damn Nvengarian customs, damn that he was Grand Duke.