Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You are in earnest?” Marco asked, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.
“Why should I not be?” Alice said, folding her arms and giving Marco a significant stare. “Do you think I would make a jest about despising my father?”
“Of course, you would not. I am merely surprised,” Marco replied, unable to keep the shock entirely from his countenance.
He could see that Alice was put out by his words, perhaps even discomforted, but he could not concentrate on her right then.
He was overwhelmed with sudden elation. He had worried himself endlessly, night after night since she told him of her terms. He fretted over the idea that Alice did not want children for some terrible reason.
He had thought of all the possibilities and lost his mind over them all.
Yet she had just given him an explanation he had not considered.
“To be clear, you do not wish to bear any children because of your hatred of your father?” he repeated, hardly believing this turn of events. “Because you wish the duchy to end with you?”
“Why would I want to raise my children to be scrutinized and criticized as I have? Why should I force it on another simply because it was what that man wished for my life?”
“Many would say because it is your duty to your father,” Marco said, unable to stop his snort of disbelief, despite Alice’s stormy expression.
He could tell that his hesitancy and amazement infuriated her, but he did not think he could stop.
Alice wanted revenge upon her father almost as much as he did.
Marco felt as if the heavy burden of his own secret was lifting.
After all, if Alice loathed her father, why would she bat an eye at his own hatred of the man?
“Well, I do not agree.” Alice snapped, shaking her head scornfully.
“He was not a good man and was a terrible father.
My childhood fantasies of my dead father were better than the reality.
At least that man had a suitable reason for his absence in my life.
All the Duke did was ignore me and then make choices for me that I had no say in. "
“So you wish to punish him,” Marco said slowly. “By never having children?”
Alice gave him an angry glare and shook her head again, her face taut with fury.
“I do not expect you to understand, but I have carried the stain of a being bastard my whole life. It is not a stain that ever washes clean. Any child of mine would also be tainted. I will not do that to an innocent.” Alice stood up and looked at him scornfully.
“Now that you know the reason behind the terms you agreed to, do you wish to end our engagement?
Now is the time to do so if that is your desire. "
“You know I do not wish that, Alice. I want you too damn badly to...”
“Perhaps those are just pretty words.” Alice gave him a hard, cold look.
“Why would I pretend to want you?” Marco asked without thinking, and Alice glared at him with such ferocity that he took a step back.
“Perhaps you have been deceiving me,” she hissed angrily, her voice thin. “Perhaps this seduction has been no more than an elaborate game to you. Maybe you are just like all the others..”
“I did not realize you had such a low opinion of me,” Marco said, perhaps a little more sarcastically than he intended. Alice looked like she was about to burst into flame with her rage.
“Why should I think well of you?” she said, clenching her hands into fists.
“You agreed to my terms and did not seem disturbed by the notion of being childless.
But you have not behaved as you should. You have been trying to tempt me into your bed all along.
Those are not the actions of a gentleman. "
“I never claimed to be a gentleman,” Marco said, grabbing her wrist as she moved towards the door.
He cupped her cheek with his hand and captured her perfect lips with his, enjoying her little huff of surprise at the suddenness of his movements. Yet she did not melt into the embrace as she had done before. She pulled back, breathless, her eyes still full of anger.
“Your actions prove my point,” she said, looking him up and down scornfully.
“You try to lure me with your kisses and sweet words.
And when I fall under your spell, you will plant a child in my belly against my wishes.
Will you have everything you want then? My father's money for your business and a title for your... "
“Stop right there, Alice!" Marco exclaimed.
He took a moment to run his hands through his thick black hair, then looked at her and took her hands in his.
She resisted, but he held them firm. "You are ascribing nefarious intentions to me that I do not possess.
I want your body, not your father's bloody title. But if you do not enjoy my attentions, I swear I will never touch you again.”
“Do you truly mean that?” Alice asked, her voice suddenly unsure. Marco smiled and tenderly ran his thumbs over the backs of her hands.
“I do,” he said, even though it would all but kill him to be near Alice and not be able to have her.
Yet, even without taking her maidenhead, he knew he could make her body hum with pleasure.
Then he could teach her how to please him in return.
It would not be the same as sinking inside her, but it would have to be enough.
He would not lose her over this. "I want to marry you, Alice.
Just you. Not your father's money or his title. I just want you, for you."
Alice looked at him speculatively. Marco simply smiled into her eyes.
He no longer felt the need to hide. His deepest secret that he hated her father was of little matter.
She held no love for her father, and would never ask him to respect the memory of the man who ruined so much.
Instead, she was dedicated to making sure he was not remembered in any substantive way.
This turn of events could not be better for him.
“If that is so,” Alice said, looking down at his hands. “Then why did you seem so… unsettled when I told you my reasons for wishing to remain childless?”
“I was not unsettled,” Marco said, smiling as he guided her back against the desk.
“You appeared unsettled,” Alice pressed, and Marco grinned.
“I was only taken aback for a moment. Then my mind was flooded with images of all the pleasurable things we could still do to one another that will not risk a child," Marco breathed into her ear.
Alice gasped, and he smiled when he felt her whole body shiver.
Underneath Alice's icy facade was a vulnerable and sensual creature.
One he meant to tease to the surface. “Would you like to learn more?”
“I… perhaps,” Alice said, and Marco grinned. He lifted her skirts, just as he had done before, tracing his hands up her thighs.
“Then I believe it is time for your next lesson, Miss Fitzroy,” he said huskily and sank down on his knees before her, tossing her skirts over his head.
“What are you doing?” Alice gasped just as she felt Marco's tongue lick her thigh teasingly.
“I should think it would be fairly obvious. I am trying to get under your skirts.” His reply was muffled by the layers of fabric between them. But Alice could picture Marco’s smirk, which she had come to find so engaging.
“Allow me to rephrase,” Alice said. “Why are you underneath my skirts?”
Alice shuddered when she felt Marco's hot breath over the curls at her core. Her body heated with desire as he used his shoulders to push her thighs apart wider. She had to lean back and brace her hands behind her as he grasped her hips and positioned her body just at the edge of the desk.
“The reason will become quite apparent in a moment.”
When she did not respond, he smiled again and used his fingers to part the folds of Alice's sex. A moment later, he used the flat of his tongue to lick a path from her opening to the soft curls of her mound. Alice gasped at the intimacy of the act and then shivered.
“Marco, I...”
Her words were cut off by another pass of his rasping tongue.
She fell back onto her elbows, unable to hold herself up as he began to lick circles around her nub.
She was dazed by the delicious sensations he was creating in her most intimate of places with just his mouth.
She fought to keep her wits about her, feeling that she would faint if she did not.
“None of the maids ever spoke about this,” she said breathlessly. “They just told me of kisses and touches and... and... trees...”
Marco lifted his head from her skirts, and Alice nearly cried out with dismay at the loss of his touch. She lifted her head to see him, still on the floor between her legs. His hair rumpled in a way that made Alice wish she could smooth it back into place.
“There are many things it seems they did not tell you. Many things I would like to show you. Unless, of course, you would prefer I use my mouth for conversation instead?"
She laughed at his teasing tone. The rascal knew Alice longed to have his mouth on her again, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of begging. “What better use could you have for your mouth than stimulating conversation?” she asked, raising her eyebrows to show her complete innocence.
“Allow me to show you,” Marco said, diving back under her skirts and shoving her legs even further apart before tossing each one over his shoulders. Alice fell back onto the desk without protesting the indignity of her position as his firm tongue teased her opening before he pushed it inside her.