He gazed tenderly down at his wife’s beloved face, her tear-filled eyes looking more than ever like the wondrous waves of the sea, her rare innocence shining so clearly that it could only escape a man who refused to see its splendor.
And she loved him. It was there in her eyes as they awaited his reply, in her lips as they trembled with hope, in her body as it melded to his in a need and an instinctive trust that told Drake all he needed to know.
Lord, how he loved her.
“You bore the brunt of my brother’s sickness … and my own stupidity,” he told her in a humble, reverent tone. “Can you ever forgive me?”
The tears flowed anew down Alex’s cheeks, but this time they were tears of joy.
“Oh, Drake, don’t you know that I forgave you long ago?” she whispered, reaching up to touch his lips. “I just need to know that you believe me … that you trust me—” Her voice broke.
Drake kissed her fingertips one by one, then pressed her palm to his mouth. “I believe you,” he told her, his breathing ragged. He drew her into his arms, lowering them both to the bed. “I trust you,” he whispered against her mouth. He gazed solemnly into her exquisite face. “I love you.”
Alex blinked, afraid to believe her ears. “You love me … ?” she repeated, in a soft, hopeful voice.
“With all of my being,” he answered, his own voice rough with emotion.
Alex sagged against his powerful body, feeling weak with joy and relief. But it was not over yet. Not until they had talked—about the misunderstandings of the past few days and of the past few months. “There is so much I need to tell you, so much you must understand.”
“I know, princess, I know.” He kissed her cheeks, her chin, her soft mouth. “And I will listen to everything you have to say, tell you all that you need to know … later tonight. Right now I need to hold you; to convince myself that you are really here, unharmed, in my arms. Can you understand that?”
Alex gazed up at him with all the love in her heart. “Yes,” she breathed, sliding her fingers into his thick hair. “Because I need that, too.” She tugged his head down to hers. “I need you to take the ugliness of the night and make it disappear beneath your touch. I need you to tell me over and over that you love me. I need you to show me how much.” She brushed her lips against his. “Will you do that … please, Drake?”
He enfolded her against his heart, covering her mouth with his in a tender, passionate kiss that claimed her totally, body and soul. “I love you,” he murmured, sliding the sheet out from between them, shrugging out of his own clothes with determined, hurried movements. “I love you,” he reiterated reverently, melding their naked bodies together. “I love you.” He breathed the words, feeling the familiar sensual magic storm his senses. Familiar, yet so much stronger, so much richer because of the bond that had been forged between them.
Drake rolled Alex onto her back, gliding his hands up and down her bare arms, pausing to intertwine their fingers.
“You are mine,” he told her in a husky whisper.
Alex felt treasured, warmed by the emerald fire that glowed in Drake’s eyes. “And you are mine,” she replied.
Soberly Drake nodded. “Gladly and forever.” He bent his head to kiss her throat. “Tell me that you love me,” he demanded against the scented hollow.
Alex smiled, giddy with pleasure. “I love you, Captain Drake Robert Barrett, the Duke of Allonshire, the Marquis of Cairnham, the Earl of Laneswood, Earl of Ravleton, Viscount Manvell, and Baron Winsborough. I love you.”
Drake raised his head and, in the light cast by the bedside lamp, Alex saw the laughter on his face. “You are still the most outspoken of women, princess,” he told her tenderly, nibbling on her chin.
“A tyrant, I believe you said,” Alex reminded him, wrapping her arms around his broad back.
He kissed her again, a long, slow exploration of her mouth that left them both breathless, wanting more.
“There are compensations to being married to a tyrant,” he managed, sliding his fingers through the tumbled waves of her hair.
“Mmm,” she agreed, licking lightly at his mouth. “Just as there are compensations to being married to a man who is two different men.”
Drake grew serious. “Just one man, sweetheart. One man who adores you and always will.”
There were no more words as he covered her body with his, blanketed her in his love. He savored the taste of her, touching every inch of her skin with light caresses of his open mouth. Alex sighed, sensual pleasure coursing through her in great, surging waves. Every place Drake’s mouth touched tingled with pleasure, ached for more.
He was more than happy to oblige the silent urgings of Alex’s body. He ran his hands along the perfect contours of her hips and waist, finally cupping her full breasts in his trembling hands.
“Ah, Alex … what you do to me,” he breathed against her mouth. Lightly he stroked her nipples with his thumbs, feeling the breath catch in her throat. He followed his hands with his mouth, circling, tasting, teasing the hardened peaks until Alex moaned, tossing her head from side to side. Drake slid down her body, defining it with his mouth, watching the flickering light cast its golden glow upon his naked goddess. It had been so long since he had made love to her in the light … so long, for until now, he had been afraid of what he would see in her eyes. But no longer.
Down, farther down the bed he moved, lost in the wonder that was Alex.
He reached the slight swell of her abdomen and froze, staring down at the obvious physical change in her body.
Alex felt Drake tense and raised her head to meet his stunned gaze.
“Alex?” He searched her face for the answer to his unspoken question.
Alex smiled, knowing that there could not be a more perfect time to tell him.
“I’m carrying our child,” she whispered, her face radiant with joy.
For a moment Drake just stared at her in utter disbelief. Then, slowly, he lowered his gaze back down to the absolute proof of Alex’s words. A baby. Alex was going to have his baby.
He rose to his knees at the foot of the bed, his gaze greedily raking her body for every telltale sign of pregnancy, signs that the darkness had obscured from his view. Transfixed, he stared from the swell of her stomach up to the ripe opulence of her breasts, the darkening color of the nipples that were still wet and taut from his mouth. Alex lay still, watching Drake learn of his child in the most beautiful way possible.
When he once again met Alex’s gaze, Drake’s eyes were damp with emotion. He lifted a shaking hand to stroke Alex’s smooth cheek, lowering himself carefully beside her on the bed.
“When did it happen?” he asked in a raw voice.
Alex smiled, moving into his arms. “Probably on the island. In any case, not long after we were married.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since the afternoon of the ball. I was going to tell you that night, but …” her voice trailed off.
Drake’s features twisted in pain. “But I nearly raped you because of my stupid, destructive jealousy.” He ran his hand caressingly over Alex’s body, pausing where his child was nestled safely within her womb. “Love, I’m so sorry. The thought of hurting you or our baby …” He raised wondering eyes to hers. “Our baby,” he repeated, cupping her belly possessively.
Alex moved closer, wrapped her arms around his neck. “Our baby,” she murmured in agreement. “And you didn’t hurt me, Drake. You’ve never hurt me … not physically, at least.”
“I’ll never hurt you, in any way, again,” he vowed, sealing his promise with a tender kiss. He hesitated as Alex pressed her lush, desirable body against his. “Alex, is it all right?” he questioned her anxiously. “The baby—”
“… will be delighted to learn how very much his parents love each other,” Alex finished, running her hands along the muscled planes of Drake’s back.
“His?” Drake barely got out the word, his body leaping to life beneath his wife’s te
asing caress.
“Or hers,” Alex conceded, pausing in her exploration of Drake’s body. “Do you have a preference?”
Drake ran his tongue over the delicate shell of Alex’s ear, his hands sliding down to cup her silky bottom, pulling her against his throbbing erection. “Several preferences, princess. Shall I tell them to you?” He whispered a few choice, erotic phrases into her ear, and Alex melted against him with a soft moan of surrender.
“Your grace, your wish is my command,” she replied in a sultry whisper, lifting her face for his kiss. Drake’s mouth opened over hers, his lips moved back and forth with barely leashed need. His tongue stroked hers slowly, with tender urgency, his hot breath filling her mouth. He loved her, and that knowledge made him want to give her everything, to shower her with every exquisite sensation a woman could know.
Alex arched slowly against Drake, making him wondrously and acutely aware of the presence of their unborn child. He had to be the luckiest man alive. For in his arms he held his life.
For a timeless moment they kissed. Long, deep, melting kisses broken only by Alex’s soft sighs and Drake’s husky words of love. When that alone was no longer enough, Drake began a slow exploration of Alex’s body, worshiping her with every stroke of his fingertips, teasing her tingling flesh with soft touches and gentle caresses that brushed ever so lightly upon her sensitized skin.
By the time his seeking fingers found the dewy wetness between her thighs, Alex was trembling, her whole body ablaze with desire. She recognized Drake’s need to be the aggressor, to have the opportunity to demonstrate his love for her. But waiting was rapidly becoming an impossibility.
She undulated her hips against his hand, trying desperately to deepen the contact, and was rewarded by Drake’s husky chuckle.
“Still so impatient, princess?” he teased, nibbling at her lower lip. He slid his fingers farther inside her … but only a bit.
Alex moaned. “I want you, Drake,” she pleaded.
“Mmm, I can tell,” he murmured, kissing the side of her neck, flexing his fingers slightly, feeling the inadvertent tightening of her inner muscles.
Duke, hell, he thought with a smile. The way she responded to him made him feel like a king.
His smile froze as Alex, relinquishing her passive role, began her own heavenly torture. Starting with the taut planes of his smooth back, she slid her hands over Drake’s body, lingering on the solid muscles of his broad shoulders and the hard wall of his massive chest. When she lightly brushed his nipples with her thumbs, Drake let out his breath in a hiss.
“Is there some problem, your grace?” she purred. Before he could answer, she stroked one of her hands through the soft, dark hair on his chest, over his rigid abdomen, and paused deliberately over the throbbing symbol of his need.
“You are merciless …” Drake ground out, flames leaping through him.
She brushed her fingers ever so lightly against him, then lifted them, hovering. In response, Drake thrust his hips forward, seeking more of Alex’s caress.
“Patience, Captain … remember?” she whispered against the vein that throbbed in his neck.
With a deep growl Drake seized her hand and brought it back to its original goal. “To hell with patience. Touch me, wife.”
She closed her fingers around him, feeling his life, his power, the effect she had on both. He pulsed in her hand, hardening and lengthening until he had to grit his teeth to retain a shred of control. Deliberately, he kept his gaze locked with hers so that his beautiful wife could see what she was doing to him. And when he could bear the intensity no longer, when the need to be one was so powerful that it could not be denied or delayed, Drake drew Alex to him, looking deep into her eyes as he lifted her leg to rest over his and slid into her moist, welcoming warmth, pressing deeper and deeper until they were one.
He lay quietly for a moment, overcome with emotion, listening to Alex’s uneven breathing and feeling the pounding of her heart as it beat against his. Then, slowly and with the need to give Alex more pleasure than she had ever known, Drake began to move inside her, lowering his head to find her lips with his. He made love to her with his mouth, his tongue, while he simultaneously drew her hips to his again and again, circling his body against hers until Alex was frantic, her body so tight around him that Drake knew it was time.
With one powerful thrust he gave her what she needed, at the same time pulling her to him, pressing her loins to his and holding them there to intensify the pleasure that exploded in wild, gripping spasms through Alex’s body.
“Drake …” she cried out, digging her nails into his back.
Drake groaned as her contractions clasped him, pulling at his frantic, engorged manhood. But, unwilling to relinquish the moment and the sheer joy of watching his wife, he determinedly held himself back, forced himself to wait.
She was breathtaking in her utter, abandoned ecstasy, her face bathed with pleasure, her voice calling his name over and over in soft pants of release. And all Drake could think in that final moment of sanity was that this beautiful, sensual angel in his arms, this unspoiled and giving woman who had known no man but him, this gentle healer of his lifelong wounds, was his wife and would soon be the mother of his child.
Drake closed his eyes, his entire body tightening … waiting. He was dangling at the precipice of a peak that towered so high, fell so far, that it demanded all of him, left none of him untouched. And he gave himself to it willingly, gladly, for Alex was beside him, with him … always.
The eruptions began deep inside him, growing stronger and stronger until he helplessly surrendered to the wildness of his climax, shouting Alex’s name, desperate, yet unable, to convey to her all that she made him feel.
And afterward, as he held his wife in his arms, he again whispered the words he had never said to another woman, the words that he hoped would begin to explain what was in his heart … the only words Alex ever needed to hear.
“Alex … I love you.”
Chapter 30
“I NEVER INTENTIONALLY KEPT my identity from you. Circumstances thwarted every opportunity to tell you the truth.”
Drake lay on his back, Alex cradled against his chest. Their bodies temporarily sated, the need to talk, to understand, and to be understood moved to the forefront.
Alex raised her head, giving Drake a slightly disgruntled look.
“You certainly did not try very hard,” she reminded him, thinking of the months at sea when he had plagued her about her noble birth.
He grinned. “Not in the beginning, no. I was having far too much fun with our cat-and-mouse game.”
“At my expense.”
“At your expense,” he agreed, tenderly stroking her back. “But remember, princess, that I was not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone, least of all a woman. Worse, a woman who touched my emotions, made me vulnerable.”
“A woman who was everything you loathed,” she added softly.
“Everything I needed,” he corrected, wrapping his arms more tightly around her. “By the time I realized you had the right to know, it was too late. You already thought of me as Drake Barrett, a simple sea captain. If I had told you the truth, that I was a member of the peerage, prisoner to the same hollow world as you, you would have hated me for lying to you. The ironic thing is that I never really lied, except about my titles. Everything else I told you, my whole jaded life, was true.”
Alex rested her chin on his chest. “I cannot dispute your words. I’m sure I would have flown into a rage if you had told me who you were.” She gave him a questioning look. “Why did it matter to you how I felt, whether I accepted you or not?”
Drake traced the line of her nose with a gentle finger. “Because, my beautiful, foolish princess, I was in love with you.”
Alex’s head came up. “Even then?”
He gave her a roguish grin. “Even then. Before then. From the moment I saw your impudent little self clad in a dusty muslin dress, glaring at me in my own cabin, I wa
s lost.”
“You despised me,” Alex contradicted him, thinking back to that fateful meeting.
“I resented you like hell,” he amended. “I thought you were the most arrogant, outspoken, patronizing chit I had ever met in my life.” He paused, his eyes darkening to a deep, forest green. “I also never wanted anything in my life the way I wanted to be inside you. This”—he brought her hand down to the hard, hot arousal pulsing against his belly—”has been a permanent condition since last March.”
“I’m flattered,” she murmured, stroking softly, “and delighted that I render you so insatiable.”
“Care to prove it?” He tangled his hands in her hair, drew her up to him for a bone-melting kiss.
“Gladly … after we finish our talk.” Alex withdrew her mouth and her teasing hand, determined not to be sidetracked—at least not yet.
Drake settled himself back with a resigned sigh. “All right, princess. You win. But I have already told you everything.”
“Not quite.” Alex gave him an accusing look. “You overlooked one small detail.”
“Which is?”
“That someone is trying to kill you.”
Drake stared at her in stunned silence.
“How did you find out?” he managed at last.
“I overheard you and Smitty talking the day of your riding accident.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew?” he demanded.
“For the same reason you didn’t tell me. I did not want you to worry about me or my reaction to your suspicions. And I knew you would, especially once I had told you about the baby. Instead, I decided to do a bit of investigating on my own.”
Drake scowled. “Why do I have the distinct feeling that I am not going to like this?”
“Because you never think I am capable of taking care of myself. Well, I am.” She shot him a challenging look.
“Spoken by the woman who disrupted my ship and was unable to climb down the fifty feet of rigging she had managed to scale.”
“Other than that time,” she hastened to qualify.