Chapter Twenty-Four
ALEX STARED, HIS MOUTH opening and closing without a word coming out. At last he said hoarsely, “Sabrina...you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I beg your pardon.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “I most certainly do. I’m not a child.”
“No, of course, I didn’t mean that.” His eyes flickered down her. Sabrina knew that even in the dim light, he could see the outline of her body, the darker circle of her nipples, and it made her blush. If he refused her, she didn’t know how she could face him again.
His hand tightened on the door handle, and he said, “I meant, I can’t—If I kiss you, if I touch you, I’ll only want more. It’s easier not to start.”
“But I want more, as well.”
“Sabrina...” He stretched the word on a groan. “I cannot.” He let go of the handle and half turned away, sweeping one hand back through his hair.
“I’m sorry.” Sabrina faltered. This wasn’t how she had pictured it; in her mind, everything had simply flowed. He would see her dressed for bed, waiting for him, and he would know. He would take her in his arms. She looked down at her discarded robe, wondering how she could gracefully pick it up and put it on again. “Perhaps I have presumed too much. I thought you wanted to...”
“Of course I want you!” Alex insisted, his voice rising. He stopped and drew a breath, visibly reining himself in. “I think I’ll go mad sometimes, wanting you. Do you know how much I think of you? How often I remember kissing you, holding you? But I would be the veriest cad to take you to bed tonight. When your memory returns, you may not feel the same. For all we know, you might not even remember me or this night. What if our assumptions are wrong? What if you love that man? You would regret tonight and curse me for having taken advantage of you. The last thing in the world I want is for you to despise me.”
Sabrina looked at him for a long moment, then said softly, “I could never despise you.” She came closer. “I’ve thought about this all evening. I’ve worried about what I would do if my memory returned or I found I’d been married. But I realized, the other things don’t matter. This is what I want.”
“But—”
“Shh.” She laid her forefinger against his lips. “Listen to me. The past doesn’t matter. I don’t care what the legalities are. If I awoke tomorrow and didn’t recognize you, it would make no difference. I know you in here.” She laid her hand over her heart. “I remember nothing else in my life, but I remembered that one dream of you. You are who I want. This is what I want. No matter what the future holds, I won’t regret tonight.”
His eyes darkened, and when he said her name, it was a caress. “Sabrina...” He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking over her cheeks. “You are so beautiful.” He bent and pressed his lips lightly to hers. “When I’m around you, I can’t think of anything but you.” He kissed her again, more lingeringly this time.
His palms against her cheeks were suddenly searing, and he moved into her. Never breaking their kiss, he let his hands fall to her shoulders and glide down over her arms, setting every nerve there alive. Sabrina kissed him back eagerly, wanting to know, wanting to feel, and he answered by putting his hands to her waist and pulling her tightly against him. She felt his body, so hard, so different from her own, pressing into her.
He kissed her again and again—her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her throat. His mouth roamed over her skin like a man long starved. Sabrina reveled in the sensations coursing through her—wanting to luxuriate in every sensual moment yet wanting to race forward to the destination that beckoned. Deep within her, heat grew and pulsed. She yearned to be rid of her clothes, ached to feel Alex’s hands on her skin. His skin beneath her fingertips.
Alex’s needs obviously matched hers, for he pulled back to sweep off his jacket and toss it aside, followed by his ascot and stickpin. Sabrina’s fingers went to the buttons of his waistcoat. When she was done, there was still the line of buttons down the front of his shirt—why did men have so many pieces of clothing? she wondered. A waistcoat seemed excessive, especially given the added entanglements of pocket watch, fobs and chain.
But when she had the shirt unbuttoned, her fingers slowed, enticed by the sight of his bare chest, lean and muscled. She pulled the sides apart and back, exposing more of his skin. She spread her hands out over his chest. His breath came in and out more rapidly, but he said nothing, merely watched her, mouth softening and eyes burning more hotly, as she took her time exploring him.
The tails of his shirt were still caught in his trousers, and she pulled them up and out. There was another button, and then his cuff links to be undone, but he waited patiently, unmoving except to suck in his breath when her fingertips drifted across the soft skin of his stomach. Sabrina slanted up a questioning glance, but seeing the heat in his gaze, she let her fingers drift back, slowly circling and teasing across his flesh.
Gliding her hand back up, she circled each taut masculine nipple, feeling her own nipples tighten in response. She knew that Alex, too, saw hers hardening, thrusting against the thin cotton of her nightgown, for he swallowed hard, his eyes fastened on her chest. Almost lazily, he raised his hand and brushed his knuckles across her breasts, arousing the sensitive tips through the material.
He cupped her breasts in his hands, watching the circling of his thumbs around the tight buds of her nipples. A damp warmth blossomed between Sabrina’s legs, and she began to ache, the feeling growing with every stroke of his thumbs. When he kissed her, taking her mouth as he caressed her breasts, she shuddered, desire blazing through her.
His hands left her breasts, but before she could utter a murmur of discontent, they were gliding over her stomach and around to her back. His fingertips trailed down her spine, light as down. He spread out his hands and curved them over her buttocks, lifting her up onto her toes and into his pelvis. She felt every hard inch of him pulsing against her, and the throbbing between her legs grew even more insistent.
One arm hard around her waist to hold her to him, Alex teased his other hand between her legs from behind, startling a surprised noise from her. He lifted his head and smiled down into her eyes, his fingers working the sensitive cleft.
“Too much?” he murmured. “Shall I retreat?” His fingertips glided teasingly back out.
“No.” She rested her head against his chest. “Advance.”
She felt the huff of his laugh against her ear. “Perhaps I should do both.”
He slid over her, back and forth in a light rhythm, until it was all she could do not to squirm and clamp her legs together over his questing fingers.
“Alex?”
“Mmm?” His mouth was busy on her earlobe, the dual attack sending her senses into a frenzy.
“I think...I want more.”
“Do you?” There was a faint smugness in his tone that was curiously arousing. “Perhaps this?”
He released her to take her gown in his hands and shove it up until his hands found the bare skin of her thighs. He slid beneath the garment, his hands smoothing in the same pattern over her bare flesh and into the liquid heat of her desire.
“Or would you rather this?” He moved his hand back around, now caressing her stomach and going lower to delve between her legs from the front.
Sabrina let out a soft whimper, each movement of his hand arousing her more.
“Or, no, I think this.” He took her gown in his hands and pulled it up and off, revealing her naked body. His eyes glittered, moving over her hungrily.
“Yes,” he whispered. “This is definitely better.” He caressed her breasts, her stomach, her back, her legs. He took her mouth with his, kissing her deeply, as he stole between her legs again, finding and entering her, stoking the fires of her passion until she thought she must simply shatter.
With a groan, Alex broke away and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the bed and laying her down on it. Swiftly he divested himself of the rest of his clothes. Sabrina had time for only a brief startled glance at his naked body, and then he was on the bed beside her, his hands and mouth making her forget all else.
Sabrina moved against him, not sure exactly what she wanted but knowing that she needed it desperately. Every sense was heightened, her skin aware of even the soft brush of air against her, her ears filled with the rasp of his breath, her body thrumming with the rush of her own blood through her veins.
She caressed his shoulders and back. Her fingers tangled in his thick hair, silently urging him on. Finally, when she was blazing with heat, her skin trembling, he moved between her legs. His engorged flesh probed at her center. Her breath caught as he moved slowly, insistently, into her. There was a flash of pain, startling her and making her tighten, and in the next instant he was sliding deep inside her, filling her in such a way that she gasped, her fingers digging into his back.
He paused, his breath hard and fast, his face tight, and looked down at her. Sabrina smiled slowly and arched up a little against him in a silent urging. His smile in return was slow and sexual as he began to move within her.
She had never known this, never expected it, never even dreamed of it. Sabrina was certain of that. His movement was an exquisite torment, a slow enticement of heat and pleasure. Alex moved in slow, deep strokes, vaulting her desire higher and higher, then easing up to tease her back to the top again.
A strange, wild, exhilarating pleasure took her, pulling her under like a great tide, and then exploding deep within her, rolling outward in wave after wave of pleasure. She cried out in surprise and delight, and for a long moment she was aware of nothing except the dark beauty enveloping her.
She looked up at him, blissfully spent, feeling boneless and malleable as wax, and she saw that his face was still sharp with desire, his eyes burning, his skin slick with sweat. And she realized it wasn’t over, that there was something more awaiting her. He began to move again, dropping his head as he pumped his hips, his strokes growing faster and harder. Amazingly, Sabrina felt her body awaken again, the sound and sight and feel of him arousing her once more, shooting her up and up.
This time, though, she knew what awaited her, and she rushed to meet it, caressing his muscle-hardened body, moving her body in an answering rhythm. Again the fire exploded through her, but now when she was swept into ecstasy, Alex rode through it with her, shuddering under his own release, and collapsed into her welcoming arms.
Sabrina was awakened the next morning by Alex stringing kisses down her back. Smiling to herself, she turned over to curl her arms around his neck and pull him down for a long, slow kiss on the mouth.
“There,” she said when she pulled back. “That’s a proper kiss.”
“It is, indeed.” He rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow and grinning down at her. As he talked, he trailed his fingers over her flesh in a lazy, meandering path. “One thing we can be certain of now—if you were indeed married, it was unconsummated.”
Sabrina blushed at his words, and he bent down to plant a soft kiss on the hollow of her throat. “I love watching you blush.”
“Then you should be a happy man,” Sabrina replied tartly, “since you so often cause me to do so.”
He laughed and said, “What shall we do this morning? Follow your horse back to its original stable? That seems the likeliest way to go.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Sabrina slid her hand up his arm and onto his shoulder. “Though breakfast might be in order first.”
“That, too. Or, perhaps, we might linger here a little while,” he went on, his hand gliding lower as he bent to kiss her again.
When at last he lifted his head again, Sabrina replied shakily, “That sounds like a remarkably good idea.”
Their lovemaking this morning was slow and soft, an almost casual exploration of each other’s bodies and desires. They kissed and touched and murmured, letting their desire grow until at last they came together in another cataclysm of desire, so intense, so sweet, so powerful that it brought tears to Sabrina’s eyes.
Lying there afterward, holding him, Sabrina knew that whatever her past held, her future was with this man. She could not ask Alex to link himself to a woman without a past; she would not hold him to anything beyond this moment. But for her the bond between them would last the rest of her life.
Their morning continued at a slow pace. They rose and dressed and breakfasted without haste, too wrapped up in one another to care about time or their mission. Alex asked the head groom for the name of the place to which they’d returned the horse Sabrina had ridden. The man gave him a curious look, but he did not ask why “Mr. Moore” hadn’t simply gotten the information from his wife, just gave him the name.
They leased a one-horse gig, the only vehicle the stables offered for hire. It was slow, but it was a pleasant enough day that an open vehicle would do, and spending more time driving down a country road with each other had its own appeal.
They traveled west along a narrow lane, clearly not a well-traveled route, arriving after a few hours in the village of Cumbrey. It looked to be an even smaller village than Baddesly Commons, but the main road, which their own lane intersected, was on a well-traveled route to Winchester, and for that reason, it boasted more than one inn.
“The Blind Ox, the head groom said,” Alex said as they turned left and rolled along the wider thoroughfare. “It ought to be easy enough to find an inn with such an unappealing name.”
They had almost reached the edge of town and Sabrina was beginning to think they had gone the wrong way when her eyes fell on an old building done in the distinctive black-and-white pattern of the Tudor era. It sagged here and there as if it had partially melted, giving credence to its having been there since the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Sabrina stiffened. Her stomach roiled, and suddenly her head felt as if it was about to split in two. “Wait! Stop.”
Alex pulled up and turned toward her. “What? Did you see a sign?”
“This is it!” Sabrina said, her voice hushed but intense. “I’m certain of it. This is where I escaped.”