Chapter 14 #2
The admiration in his tone softened the teasing edge of the earlier exchange, and Diana felt something unexpectedly steady in the way he studied her now.
His gaze lingered on her face a moment longer than politeness strictly allowed, with attentiveness that suggested he was noticing far more than she wished him to.
The intensity of it made warmth spread slowly across her skin, a faint flush rising along her cheeks.
“And,” he added after a brief pause, “with your ability to distract me.”
Diana felt her breath catch almost immediately.
“I distracted you?” she repeated, trying very hard to keep the sudden flutter in her chest from appearing in her voice.
Alexander did not answer at once.
Instead, he reached calmly for the small box resting on the table and drew it toward him. The ribbon around it had been tied neatly, though the knot loosened easily beneath his fingers as he began untying it with slow, deliberate movements.
“You did accuse me earlier,” he said thoughtfully, “of attempting seduction.”
The mere fact that he repeated the words aloud was enough to make her feel far more unsteady than the glass of wine ever could, leaving her momentarily breathless.
“That was a joke,” she said, though the quiet steadiness she attempted in her voice did not quite hide the faint dizziness settling behind her ribs.
“Was it?” His tone remained mild, though the quiet glint in his eyes suggested that he remembered the moment beside the hedges rather clearly.
Diana took another sip of wine in an effort to steady herself. “It was an observation made in the heat of competition.”
Alexander finished untying the ribbon and lifted the lid of the box.
Inside, several pieces of dark chocolate rested in delicate paper wrappers, their smooth surfaces catching the firelight with a soft sheen. The scent rose faintly in the warm air between them.
Alexander glanced at her, his voice dropping to a low, velvet rasp. “You have not touched them yet.”
He reached for a piece at the same moment she did. Their hands brushed—a spark of static that made her breath hitch—and Diana withdrew her hand as if burned.
“I can manage perfectly well on my own, Your Grace.”
Alexander tilted his head, his gaze never leaving her mouth. “Let me.”
“Why?” she whispered, the word feeling heavy in her throat.
“Because,” he said, his voice softening, “you deserve to be spoiled, Diana.”
For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Thought scattered, slipping just beyond her reach, leaving her suspended in something she did not quite recognize.
All she knew was that what he was offering felt unreal, almost ludicrous in its softness, and she resisted the childish urge to pinch herself, to break the dream, for fear it would vanish the moment she did.
A faint, humorless breath left her. “No one has ever found that necessary.”
His gaze sharpened with a depth that unsettled her. There was curiosity in it, perhaps, or something closer to anger, that made her pulse quicken.
“That does not mean it was not deserved. You deserve that, and much more,” he said, and her throat tightened at the certainty in his voice.
There was no artifice in it, no polite flattery meant to soothe. He meant it. And that, more than anything, stole the air from her lungs.
She looked away, the firelight catching along the curve of her cheek. “It means no one ever thought me worth the trouble, I suppose.”
The words slipped free before she could stop them.
Silence settled between them. When she looked back at him, he was still watching her, his gaze steady, and for a moment it felt as though the world had narrowed to the space between them, stretched thin and fragile beneath the weight of everything unspoken.
When he spoke again, his voice had softened, stripped of all edge. “Then allow me to be the first man with better judgment.”
The words hit her with the force of a physical caress. No one had ever spoken to her with such quiet devotion. For a heartbeat, she simply stared at him, her defenses crumbling like dry parchment.
Slowly, almost in a trance, she allowed her hands to fall back into the silk of her lap.
Alexander held a single piece of chocolate between his thumb and forefinger. “May I?”
She nodded, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
He leaned forward, closing the space between them until she could feel the radiating warmth of his chest. The firelight licked at the sharp angles of his face as he brought the chocolate to her lips.
She opened her mouth, and his fingers grazed her lower lip—a touch so light it was agonizing. The chocolate was cool at first, then exploded in a velvet, bitter sweetness that melted across her tongue.
“It is… very good,” she murmured, her voice sounding thick and unfamiliar to her own ears.
“You eat it as if it were a chore, Diana. So slow. So controlled.” Alexander’s gaze never left her mouth. He picked up a second piece but didn't hand it to her. “Have you never just reached out and taken something? Simply because you wanted the taste of it?”
The challenge prickled against her skin. “I was taught that restraint is a virtue.”
“Restraint is just another word for starving yourself,” he murmured. He moved the chocolate closer, the scent of dark cacao mingling with the cedarwood of his skin. “Release yourself, Diana. Enjoy it.”
He was tempting her, dangerously so. His voice was a velvet lure, pulling at the threads of her composure.
I’ll show you restraint, she thought.
Defiance rose in her like a slow-moving tide. This time, when she leaned forward, she allowed her lips to brush fully against the pads of his fingers. The contact was electric, a jolt of pure sensation that sent a wave of liquid heat spiraling downward to pool in her belly.
The room was suddenly too warm. The air felt charged, thick with the scent of sugar and skin.
He picked up a third piece, his movements slow and hypnotic. As he held it out, his gaze burned onto hers with focus that made her knees tremble.
“Diana…” His voice dropped, roughened at the edges. “The way you look at me… It drives me wild. I want you to look at me like that all the time.”
Her breath caught, though she did not retreat. “How do I look at you now?”
“Like you want everything I do.”
Her pulse stuttered, but she leaned closer instead, drawn forward by something she neither trusted nor resisted.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
His jaw tightened, a clench as though he battled for restraint. For a moment, he said nothing, and yet everything in him answered.
Something thrummed low in her stomach, stealing the steadiness from her limbs. She ought to have stepped back. Ought to have remembered herself. But she could only stand there, held by his gaze.
“You,” he said at last, his voice rough, each word drawn from him with effort. “Every particle of you.”
She gasped, and her eyes flickered to his mouth.
His lips were slightly parted, his breath uneven. She knew, even the act of speaking had cost him control. The small piece of chocolate rested forgotten between his fingers.
A faint flush had risen along the sharp line of his cheekbones, and his gaze—dear God, his gaze—had darkened into something molten, burning with a hunger that made her pulse leap.
“Then… take me,” she said softly, her voice trembling despite the steadiness she forced into it.
Diana leaned in, her logic entirely eclipsed by the starving need he had awakened. Her tongue darted out as she took the chocolate, slowly licking the sweetness from the tip of his finger.
Alexander’s breath hitched—a sharp, ragged sound that tore through the silence of the room.
The sensation of his salty skin against her tongue made Diana’s entire body go taut. A fierce, demanding ache blossomed between her legs. The throb of desire was so intense she nearly cried out.
The sweetness of the chocolate was nothing compared to the salt and heat of him.
Diana’s lips closed around his finger, her tongue swirling around the pad of it in a slow, rhythmic suction that made her own head light. She heard his breathing grow heavy, ragged—a jagged, ruined sound that vibrated in the small space between them.
“Diana…” His voice broke on her name, low and strained. “You have no notion what you are doing to me.”
Her lips did not release him. His hand flexed where it hovered near her, as though he fought the instinct to seize her, to stop her—or to pull her closer.
“Don’t I?” she murmured against his skin, her eyes lifting to his, burning with a new, terrifying power.
“Stop,” he said, though the word lacked command, unraveling even as he spoke it. “Or I swear—”
The sentence fractured into a sharp inhale.
“God help me,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
Alexander moved, sinking to the floor before her, the shift bringing him lower while somehow making him feel no less imposing. He reached up, his hand closing around her jaw, his thumb sliding beneath her chin to guide her gaze down to his.
His eyes were the dark, velvet color of a forest at midnight, swirling with a desire so potent it made her feel as though she were melting from the inside out.
Without breaking eye contact, he drew the finger she had just sucked into his own mouth, his tongue licking away the dampness she had left behind.
The sheer intimacy of the gesture sent a fresh wave of liquid heat crashing through her, pooling between her legs until she was slick and aching. A soft, desperate whimper escaped her.
It was the only invitation he needed.
His lips crashed onto hers, and for a moment, Diana forgot how to breathe.
He tasted of dark wine and a raw, unchecked hunger that made her head spin. His mouth was a fever, devouring hers with a desperate urgency, his tongue sweeping against hers until her soul felt as though it were being pulled through her throat.
“You are so beautiful, Diana,” he murmured against her lips, his voice a jagged, ruined sound. “I have spent every waking hour trying not to touch you like this.”
His teeth caught lightly on the frantic pulse at her collarbone and Diana’s head fell back against the velvet of the chair.
Her spine arched instinctively toward him, her chest straining against the restrictive silk of her bodice.
Her fingers tangled in the thick, sandy silk of his hair, pulling him closer, desperate to anchor herself as ecstasy bloomed like a wildfire behind her ribs.
“Alexander,” she sobbed, the name a prayer and a plea.
“Diana,” he whispered, his hot breath fanning across her damp skin. “I want you. God, how I want you.”
His large hands found the hem of her silk gown.
He bunched the fabric in his fists, the expensive material hissing as he slid it upward until the cool air hit her thighs.
The chill was instantly incinerated by the searing heat of his palms. He mapped her, his thumbs grazing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs with a slow, possessive heat that made her blood thunder.
“You’re perfect,” he growled, his gaze fixed on her as he hooked his fingers into the silk of her panties and slid them down her legs.
A distant, frantic voice in the back of her mind screamed for her to stop, to remember her pride, to remember the man who had once discarded her, but it was drowned out by the sheer, crushing power of his presence.
Her legs spread slowly, an instinctive surrender to the man who was now claiming her with every ragged breath.
Alexander sank to his knees between her thighs. He looked up at her, his green eyes dark with a burning focus that made her knees tremble.
“I am going to worship you, Diana. Do you understand? I am going to taste every inch of you.”
She wanted to say something—to claim some scrap of her composure—but she couldn’t breathe. Her chest heaved, her ribs aching with the effort, and all feeling narrowed to the heavy, branding heat of his palms on her thighs.
The first touch of his tongue against her core was electric, a bolt of pure, white-hot sensation that made her vision snap. She gasped, her head hitting the back of the chair.
“You like that, my sweet?” his voice vibrated through her very center, a low rumble of satisfaction as she moaned and nodded. “That’s exactly what I want. I want to make you feel good, Diana.”
His tongue stroked her, again and again. Relentlessly. He used his mouth with a devastating precision, finding the exact, punishing rhythm that drove her toward the edge.
“So sweet,” he muttered against her skin, the vibration of his words humming through her marrow. “You’re so slick for me. Tell me you like it.”
“I… yes, please,” she gasped, her fingers digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders.
Her hips bucked against his mouth as the tension coiled tighter and tighter, a spring wound to the point of breaking. She was drowning in him, in the heat, in the wicked movements of his mouth.
He didn’t let up. He used his teeth with agonizing care, nipping at the soft flesh of her inner thighs before returning to her center with a renewed, hungry focus.
She pulled his hair tighter, her knuckles white, and felt the corners of his mouth rise against her skin. He was smiling in triumph, while she could no longer contain the frantic pressure building in her stomach. Everything in the world was reduced to the fire of his tongue.
Then, the world shattered.
A violent, shimmering climax tore through her, a tidal wave of gold and fire that left her crying out into the empty room. Dark spots blurred her vision, and for a long, breathless moment, she simply hovered in the abyss of her own pleasure, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Slowly, the room came back into focus, but his eyes had never left her.
His hands were still steady on her thighs as she began to recollect herself.
Through the haze of her ragged gasps, she felt his arms slide beneath her.
He picked her up as though she weighed nothing, his chest a solid, warm wall against her cheek.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his voice thick with a tenderness that brought hot, unexpected tears to her eyes.
He carried her to the bed and laid her down against the cool linens. He settled beside her, the mattress dipping under his weight, and pulled her flush against his side.
Diana tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder, her ear pressed against the steady, thudding rhythm of his heart. Alexander’s hand began to stroke her hair slowly, soothing the frantic energy still humming in her veins.
And for the first time in her life, she felt truly wanted.