Then Came You (The Gamblers #1)(91)

She wrapped the leather reins around and around her hand, keeping her face turned away.

Alex paused with his hand on the brandy bottle, staring through the semidarkness of the library. Lily was upstairs, preparing for bed. It was obvious she was afraid of something that no amount of time or patience would make her reveal. He didn’t know how to make her trust him. Each time he looked into her eyes he sensed a shortening of time, a danger that was drawing her deeper into a coil. He knew the problem wasn’t money. He’d made it clear that she could have any part of his extensive resources, and yet that hadn’t helped. Foolishly he’d hoped that after clearing her debt, the panic that surfaced so often in her gaze would magically disappear. But it was still there. What had happened tonight was not to be dismissed as a charming scrape—it was a wild rebellion against some burden that was dragging her down like a millstone. He knew all the signs of someone trying to escape from grief. He’d spent two years doing the same.

He set the bottle down without pouring a drink, and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly he was still, knowing she was there. His senses burned in immediate awareness. The soft sound of his name on her lips made his body hard with a ravening appetite.

He turned to face her. She was dressed in thin layers of white cambric nightclothes, her hair an unruly mass of sable curls. She looked hesitant and small, utterly beguiling. Her dark eyes flickered to the liquor bottles behind him. “You’re having a drink?”

“No.” He raked his hand through his hair, his voice threaded with tired impatience. “What do you want?”

Her breath caught in the prelude to a laugh. “It’s our wedding night.”

The statement diverted him, dispelled all thoughts except the need to have her again. He knew the shape of her beneath the delicate cambric, the feel of her body beneath his, the soft clasp of her flesh around him. Excitement shimmered along his nerves, but he forced himself to stand there with an appearance of indifference. He wanted the words from her, wanted her to admit why she had sought him out. “So it is,” he said neutrally.

She fidgeted a little, raising a hand to her neck, toying with a curl in a gesture that held an innocent, maddening allure. “Are you tired, my lord?”

“No.”

Gamely she persisted, though her voice was shadowed with increasing embarrassment. “Do you intend to retire soon?”

He pushed away from the table and approached her. “Do you want me to?”

She lowered her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind if you decided to—”

“Do you want me in bed with you?” He took hold of her, his hands sliding beneath her arms.

Lily felt herself flush. “Yes,” she managed to whisper in the second before his mouth closed over hers. She gasped softly and relaxed against him, linking her arms around his waist. The yielding promise of her body inflamed him; he wanted to hold her close, close, until he crushed her. Instead he carried her upstairs and undressed her carefully, and allowed her to help him with his own clothes. Unfamiliar with a man’s garments, Lily had difficulty in locating the flat, invisible buttons on the inside of his trousers. Gently he showed her how to unfasten them, his breath whisked away as the back of her hand brushed intimately against him.

Pressing her back to the bed, he covered her body with slow, hot kisses, nudging his face against her downy skin, loving the pale softness of her br**sts and waist and stomach. Lily was more abandoned than she had been the other nights they’d been together, her hands wandering over him more freely, her limbs twining around his. Her cool fingers threaded through his hair, toying languidly in the golden locks, stroking his nape.

The lithe, slender body arching beneath him caused a groan to escape his lips. Breathing hard, he sealed his mouth over hers. His hand reached down and cupped over her, trapping her damp heat against his palm, momentarily flattening the soft thatch of curls. Shivering, she parted her knees and pushed upward, craving more of the delicious pressure. His fingers rubbed slowly, and then entered her in a gentle, flexing thrust.

With a helpless moan, Lily hugged herself closer to him, writhing in time to the compelling movement of his fingers. He kissed her neck and shoulders and withdrew his hand, using his palms to push her thighs apart. “Open your eyes,” he whispered fiercely, staring into her face, holding her knees wide. “Look at me.”

Her dark lashes lifted, and she held his intense gaze. Deliberately he pushed forward. Her eyes dilated as she felt the heavy, stimulating force of him within her. Grasping her hips, he wedged himself deeper, moving in an insistent rhythm. Lily stroked the smooth surface of his back, and as her pleasure mounted, her fingers dug into the hard plane of muscle. Her face turned against the shaven scrape of his cheek. She heard him whisper to her then, in broken phrases he couldn’t seem to hold back—how beautiful she was to him, how much he wanted her…that he loved her. Confused, disbelieving, she felt the silken pleasure explode within her, around her, and she was drowning in feelings she could never have found words for. He drew in his breath and held it at the moment of cl**ax, his body taut and shaking against hers.

The most pressing silence she had ever known settled over them. Lily kept her eyes closed, though her mind was spinning with questions. I love you…He couldn’t have really said it, she thought. And if he had, he certainly couldn’t have meant it. Her Aunt Sally had once warned her never to pay heed to the things a man said in passion. At the time, she hadn’t understood the full significance of the advice.