Chapter 8 #2
Alexander leaned down, bracing one hand on each armrest. He caged her in, his large frame blocking out the rest of the room until there was nothing left but him.
Her heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird. He was so close now that she could see the dark shadow of stubble along his jaw and the subtle, hungry tension in his throat. The heat radiating from his chest was a physical weight, pressing against her until she felt dizzy.
“Tell me, Diana,” he murmured, his face inches from hers, his gaze dropping to the trembling curve of her lower lip. “If the man I was gave you nothing but coldness…how would you prefer your husband to behave now?”
He leaned a fraction closer, his lips hovering a mere heartbeat from hers. The scorched heat of his breath grazed her skin, a searing invitation that made her vision swim.
“Show me,” he whispered, the words vibrating against her mouth. “Show me exactly what I’ve been missing.”
Diana’s skin burned as if she were standing in the center of the hearth. The raw, unadulterated intimacy of his tone terrified her; it was far more dangerous than his arrogance had ever been.
She opened her mouth to breathe, to protest, to say anything, but her voice had deserted her. Instead, her gaze dropped—traitorously, helplessly—to the firm, cruel perfection of his mouth.
His eyes followed the movement, his pupils blowing wide until the green of his irises was almost gone. Then, his gaze lowered further, settling on the book clutched against her thighs.
“The book,” he said, his voice dropping into a register so deep it felt like a physical caress.
She startled, her heart giving a violent lurch as she looked down at the scandalous volume. He reached for it, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he trailed his fingers over the leather cover, his knuckles brushing the silk of her nightdress, and the sensitive skin of her inner thigh beneath it.
“Is this how you would prefer it?” he asked, the words a low rasp. “Shall I behave as the hero does?”
Her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears it drowned out the crackle of the fire. The scent of him was making her lightheaded.
“I—” she started, but the word died in her throat.
He leaned closer still, caging her so tightly into the chair that she could feel the radiating heat of his body through her robe.
“Do you want me to do what the book says, Diana?” he asked, his voice a rough, dark command. “Do you not want me to be polite?”
Her body answered before her pride could even draw a breath. Every nerve ending she possessed was screaming for him, a year of starvation manifesting in a single, desperate ache.
She nodded. Just once. It was a jagged, microscopic movement, but in the silence of the library, it was a total surrender.
And he saw it.
He closed the distance, his mouth crashing onto hers with a primitive, starving passion that stole the very soul from her lungs. His tongue swept against hers, bold and demanding, tasting of heat and wine and a year of lost time.
He groaned low in his throat, a sound of pure, unbridled hunger, and his hand slid from the armrest to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her loose hair to tilt her head back. He drank from her as if he were a dying man, and Diana finally let go.
She dropped the book, her hands flying to his shoulders to grip the thin cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer until there wasn’t a single inch of air left between them. She had not known she could want like this, with a hunger so sharp it felt like a physical ache.
Her hands slid up the broad expanse of his chest, her fingers curling into the thin cotton of his shirt until the fabric strained.
She pulled him closer, desperate for the friction, and he responded with a low growl that vibrated against her lips.
His palm swept down the arch of her back, his fingers digging into the silk of her robe as he hauled her against him.
She felt the hard, rigid line of his body through their layers. A violent tremor rocked her, her knees going weak as she realized she was no longer in control.
He broke the kiss only to drag his mouth along the line of her jaw, his lips scorching a path down the sensitive curve of her throat.
His breath was ragged, hot against her skin.
When his teeth grazed the frantic pulse beneath her ear, her head fell back, her eyes fluttering shut as a soft, broken whimper escaped her.
Then, he sank to his knees. The movement was so sudden, it stole the air from her lungs.
“What are you—”
He didn’t let her finish. His hands slid to her calves, his grip firm as he parted her knees. The heat of his palms through the thin silk made her shiver violently. His mouth followed the path his hands had carved, pressing a slow, soft kiss just above her ankle.
The world tilted on its axis.
His lips traced upward along the velvet inside of her calf, over the curve of her knee, higher still. Each kiss felt like a brand, a claim, a reverent exploration.
The silk of her nightdress pooled around her hips, and the cool air of the library bit at her skin, making her every nerve feel impossibly, agonizingly sensitive.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, her knuckles white as she fluctuated between trying to pull him closer and trying to keep from falling out of the chair.
“Alexander,” she whispered, her voice a fractured, desperate plea.
He glanced up at her from beneath dark lashes, his mouth hovering just an inch below the lace edge of her nightdress, his hot breath fanning the skin of her inner thigh.
“Is this how the book describes it?” he murmured, his voice roughened into a growl.
The wickedness of the question made her entire body burn with a humiliating, beautiful fire.
“Yes,” she breathed, her hips lifting instinctively toward him.
A faint, dark curve touched his mouth. “Then I am improving.”
He pressed another kiss, higher this time, his tongue glancing against her skin. Diana’s body arched, her back leaving the chair as a bolt of pure, electric sensation shot through her.
The book struck the floor with a dull, unforgiving thud.
The sound shattered the air, and reality rushed in like ice water. The library, the dying fire, the shadows, and the man kneeling between her thighs.
Her husband. A man who didn’t remember her. A man who, once his memory returned, might recoil from the very heat he had just ignited.
Her stomach clenched. This was borrowed fire, and she was the only one who would get burned when it went out.
“Stop,” she panted, and Alexander froze instantly.
He looked up, confusion flickering through the dark hunger in his eyes. “Diana?”
She didn’t answer. She scrambled back, pulling her robe closed with trembling hands as if shielding herself from a crime. “This was a mistake.”
He rose slowly, the raw heat in his face cooling into a sharp, searching intensity. “A mistake?”
Diana wrapped the robe tighter around herself, as though the thin fabric might restore the distance she had so recklessly allowed to vanish. Her heart was still racing, her skin still burning with the memory of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said, forcing the word past the knot in her throat. It wasn’t wise.”
It had not been wise. Not when she already knew how easily this man could unmake her and walk away without a second thought.
“Why?” His voice lowered, the question simple and unguarded; the confusion in his tone struck her harder than an accusation would have.
Of course, he did not understand. To him, this was a moment interrupted, nothing more. He did not remember the cold dismissal of their wedding night, nor the quiet humiliation that had followed her through an entire year of whispers and careful smiles.
“You seemed rather willing a moment ago,” he continued.
The accusation—no, the observation—made heat flood her face.
Of course, she had been willing. She had practically melted beneath his touch like a foolish girl who had never learned caution because she had forgotten.
Forgotten that the man kneeling before her had once looked at her with the same intensity…
and walked away without a backward glance the very next morning.
Diana turned as if to retreat, desperate to put space between them before the memories overwhelmed her, but his hand closed gently around her wrist.
The contact was firm enough to stop her.
“Diana.” Her name sounded different on his tongue now. Lower. Rougher.
She stared stubbornly at the floor instead of at him. If she looked at his face, if she saw that same curiosity in his eyes, she feared the fragile resolve holding her together might shatter entirely.
Alexander said nothing for a moment, but she could feel his gaze on her, heavy and searching.
He was studying her, and something about the observation seemed to trouble him. She could feel the realization forming in the silence between them.
“We have not done this before,” he said slowly, the words edged with sudden disbelief.
The sudden awareness in his tone made her chest ache.
“No,” she said, the word brittle as glass.
His brow furrowed. “No? You mean… we never—”
“No.” The humiliation she had buried for a year surged up, hot and bitter. “You left the morning after our wedding. You made it very clear you had no interest in such… obligations.”
He stared at her as if she’d struck him. “I did not consummate our marriage?”
She let out a long breath before answering, “You did not.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He stepped toward her, the hunger replaced by something heavier.
“I thought,” he said quietly, “that your nervousness was because you knew something about my accident. That you were hiding some incriminating truth.”
For a moment, Diana simply stared at him. She was so stunned that her mind struggled to catch up with his words. Heat rushed into her face, spreading quickly down her neck as disbelief gave way to a sharp, rising anger.
After everything—after the humiliation, after the year he had left her to endure alone—this was what he imagined of her?
Her jaw dropped.
“You believed I was involved?” she huffed. “That I orchestrated harm against you?”
“I am trying to align the man you describe with the instincts I feel now,” he ran a hand through his sandy hair. “Something didn’t add up.”
She laughed, a sharp, incredulous sound. “Not everything revolves around your secrets, Your Grace. Sometimes a woman trembles simply because she has been starved of affection for a year and is suddenly confronted with a ghost who finally decided to look at her.”
The vulnerability of the confession made her skin crawl. She hated that he could see the wound he’d left.
Alexander exhaled slowly, his shoulders dropping. “I misjudged.”
“That seems to be a recurring habit,” she gritted out and turned for the door, her silk robe hissing against the floorboards.
“Diana,” he called out gently.
She didn’t stop.
“Diana!”
She didn’t look back. She left him standing in the amber light of the fire, the scandalous book lying abandoned between them, a silent witness to a marriage that was still, after all this time, unmade.