A Study In Seduction(117)
“Take me,” he repeated, his voice barely more than a growl.
“Yes.” Lydia gasped, her hips bucking up against him as pleasure began to cascade through her body, shimmering and flowing. “Yes, I will… I want…”
“Now.” He thrust fully inside her as his body began to shake with release, his shaft pulsing.
“I feel it.” A cry ripped from Lydia’s throat. “Oh, yes, I… I feel it…”
She pushed herself closer to him, clutched him against her, pressed her cheek to his shoulder. Brilliant colors of purple and blue swept across her mind, reds and yellows surging through her blood as her husband spilled his seed into her body and made her his all over again.
Afterward, he pulled her into the crook of his arm and stroked a hand through her tangled hair. Lydia closed her eyes and breathed. She placed her hand on his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heart, and for a moment she imagined that her own heart beat in perfect unison with his. A sense of wonder lit within her as she realized there was still so much about him she had yet to discover. Still so much they had to share and plan.
“You were right,” she murmured.
“Was I?” His voice was deep, lazy with satisfaction. “About what?”
“There’s a story written by Mrs. Mary Shelley.” Lydia shifted to look at him, propping her head on her hand. “It’s about an alchemist who drinks a potion that will grant him immortality. But he drinks only half the bottle and then wonders what is one-half of infinity?”
“A question for the ages,” Alexander mused.
Lydia gave him a light tap on the nose. “But the question,” she continued, “is meaningless. Infinity isn’t a number. It can’t be measured or multiplied or halved by some mathematical calculation. It’s a concept, an idea of something that goes on forever. Without end. Without boundaries.”
She pressed her lips to his cheek and stroked a hand down his chest.
“That’s what you were right about,” she said. “I’ve tried to quantify attraction and desire, to develop differential equations to explain the relationships between men and women. But it’s impossible. Life and love are immeasurable. They cannot be quantified or calculated. Life extends beyond death in ways that we will never comprehend. And love… love is as complex, as boundless, as infinity itself.”
“Mmm. You are brilliant indeed, Lady Northwood.” He slipped his hand up her back. “Brilliant and beautiful. You’ll cause a sensation in St. Petersburg. Though I will never let you forget that you said I was right.”
Lydia smiled. “I’d expect no less of you.”
Alexander’s thumb moved to caress her neck, sliding back and forth in an echo of the way he had touched her that first time in his drawing room.
“And I love you infinitely,” he said, cupping her nape as he drew her closer. “Forever.”
As their lips met again, Lydia’s heart filled with a love powerful enough to banish all regrets. She knew then that her future had begun during that first midnight encounter. Warmth, light, and hope had bloomed within the shadows and flourished into this lovely place of here and now.
A place where infinity was as real and substantial as her husband’s touch. A place where, in moments of extraordinary beauty and good fortune, one plus one could equal… one.
The Earl of Rushton has given his rakish son Sebastian an ultimatum: marry a suitable woman or lose his inheritance.
Sebastian has every intention of ignoring his father’s request—until one woman’s innocent beauty changes everything…
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A Passion for Pleasure.
Chapter One
She was carrying a head.
Sebastian Hall squinted and rubbed his gritty eyes. He blinked and looked again. Definitely a head. Cradled in one arm like a baby. A woman’s head with coiffed brown hair, though at this distance he couldn’t see her expression. He imagined it to be rather distressed.
He watched as the young woman crossed the empty ballroom to the stage, her steps both quick and measured, her posture straight in spite of her gruesome possession.
Sebastian pushed himself away from the piano. The room swayed a little as he rose, as if he were on the deck of a ship. A hum, seasick-yellow, droned in his ears. He dragged a hand over his face and scrubbed at his rough jaw as he crossed the room.