Chapter 27 #2
“When I left you and found my mother, I thought I’d feel...
I don’t know... triumphant, fulfilled. But all I felt was lost and empty.
And my mother.” Alix again struggled for words.
“She was glad that I had escaped, but the titles...” She paused.
“She looked upon them as ghosts from the past. She was insistent that we not look back, that we concentrate on moving forward and building a new life. For the first time, she said, we had a chance to make our own choices. We didn’t have to look to a man to decide every detail of our lives, from what we should wear to whom we should marry. ”
Alix looked at him, her eyes clear. “During the time we were apart, I thought a lot about what my mother said. I tried to see myself in different lights, as your wife, as Major Harris’s wife, or Lord Minton’s, or no one’s at all.”
Rafe stiffened and she saw his fingers clench the edge of the desk. This was hard, she thought, but she knew that she needed to finish what she’d come to say. “When Lamartine showed up...”
“Lamartine will never hurt you again, sweetheart, I promise,” he cut in, all the while a voice inside his head reassuring himself that if she chose to stay with him out of fear, he would accept even that to have her with him always.
“I’m not afraid of Lamartine,” Alix insisted.
“It’s just when he broke into my room, I realized what he’d become in pursuit of those titles.
Even if he’d gotten away with them and claimed the estates, what would he have had?
” She answered her own question, a note of bitterness creeping into her voice. ‘Trappings, empty trappings.”
Her tone softened. “When I didn’t hear from you for days, and I thought he might have killed you, too, I realized I’d very nearly made the same choice.”
“So that’s why you came across town dressed like a footman?”
“I wasn’t going to wait another day. I wasn’t going to waste any more time.
I want to be with you Rafe, now, in December, for always.
” She traced a hand along his neck, feeling the bristles of his beard rasp against her fingertips, amazed, as always, by the thousand tiny differences between men and women.
“All these conventions that make us noble lords and ladies, that bind us up into a pretty package, counting the number of dances we can share, the amount of time we can speak, and the chaperones.”
She took his face between her hands. “I wanted you to know before we are officially married, that you aren’t browbeating me into this.”
“And?” he prompted, understanding her answer, but wanting to hear the words.
“I’m making my own choice, Lord Moreham, being your wife is what I want.”
“I couldn’t browbeat you if I tried, Alix,” Rafe kissed her softly. “Though I will admit I may have tried a little.”
“A little?” she arched a knowing eyebrow at him.
“Perhaps more than a little.” He slid her heavy footman’s coat off her shoulders and onto the floor.
“But, good Lord, woman, I can’t even prevent you from traipsing about Paris and London in men’s britches.
” His hands moved around her waist and his fingers searching for the buttons at her waistband, and as he found them he murmured huskily.
“Perhaps they do present some advantages.”
Rafe unlaced the men’s drawers beneath the britches and pushed both garments down around Alix’s ankles. She stepped out of them and closer to him, her arms reaching to close the distance remaining between them.
“God, you’re beautiful,” she murmured as she stretched on her toes to kiss him.
“Isn’t that the gentleman’s line?” he inquired in an amused voice before bending to take her lips.
Alix paused for the briefest moment, her hand slipping to his chest to hold him off. “It’s my choice, my lord, and I say you’re beautiful.”
With a laugh, he swooped down and covered her mouth, his hands sliding under the loose shirt and waistcoat, which were all that remained of her footman’s garb. “A most shocking abuse of Lady Melbourne’s livery, Alix,” he whispered nipping at her ear.
“Then perhaps,” she said, as her fingers began to work the buttons on his waistcoat, “You should remove them to avoid giving further offense.”
“An excellent decision, my love,” he murmured as he swept the remaining garments over her head. Smiling at her, he pulled off his own shirt and waistcoat and tossed them to the floor.
A wave of desire swept through Alix, and she placed both hands on his chest and pushed him back against his mahogany desk, sending his work fluttering to the floor like a fall of bleached leaves. Rafe leaned back on his elbows, a wicked gleam in his eyes as he gazed expectantly up at her.
She leaned over him and began to unfasten his britches and drawers, yanking them down over his tapered hips.
As they fell against the thick carpet, her hands began stroking their way up the columns of his thighs.
She heard Rafe’s breath quicken and he reached down and lifted her over him, straddling his hips.
She unloosened her hair, and it fell like a silken net around them.
Crouching over his taut body, Alix took Rafe’s face in her hands and explored his features with her mouth, dropping kisses on his nose, his eyelids, the crease between his eyebrows before settling on his mouth. “I love you, Rafe Harcrest,” she whispered, glorying in the feel of him beneath her.
“I love you, Alexandre Charlotte de Rabec de La Brou Harcrest.” Rafe reached up and caught her around the hips, his thumbs trailing urgently over the lines of her waist and ribs, moving to cup her breasts.
His circling caresses sent spiraling waves of sensation through her.
She moaned softly, her body pulsing under his touch, the heat beginning to burn between her thighs.
He thrust his hips up at her, his erection pressed against the curve of her bottom. She reached down and caught him in her hand, her fingers stroking the heated length of him, and he whispered hoarsely, “Alix, what are you doing to me?”
“Making my own decisions, my lord,” she whispered.
She heard his breath quicken, then the sharp tug of his mouth on her nipples and she released him, and began stroking his body with her hips, brushing her damp curls against his belly and his thighs, circling, then settling gently against the length of his pulsing member.
Slowly she slid against it, letting him feel the slick heat of her arousal.
Rafe’s hands caught at her hips, urging her down on him.
Alix resisted, though as the waves of pleasure rippled through her, she knew it would not be for long.
She dipped and rose against him, feeling him strain to follow her, like a stallion fighting the bit.
She kissed him deeply and he thrust upward, catching her and entering her.
She sank down against him, and he slid deeply within her.
And suddenly it didn’t matter who was in control, who was leading and who was following, only that they were making love together.
Alix stretched herself against the length of him; he felt like home, she thought as the scent of his body and the warmth of his skin enveloped her.
She felt one hand slide along her hip to press her firmly down, and another slip between her thighs to caress the sensitive folds between her legs.
His thumb found the delicate tip of flesh, and with each gentle stroke sent searing streams of pleasure throughout her body.
She arched against him, her hips shuddering with need.
“Fill me, Rafe,” she cried in an agonized whisper, “complete me.” His eyes grew dark and his breathing came in broken gasps that matched her own.
She felt his muscles tighten as he arched upward, and she closed her eyes as red flowers blossomed behind her lids.
Alix felt as if she’d been swept into something swirling and molten that did not burn, but only consumed.
And as he bucked against her, crying out her name, she was certain that Rafe felt it, too.
In that brief instant before it seemed they must surely be turned to ash and smoke, she opened her eyes and saw him looking at her with such passion and love that she knew if she could have this man forever it would be enough.