No time for contemplation, not when there was still a chance she could change her mind.
The idea that de Marchand might be the only man to completely have her. That her husband might learn the truth. Or worse.
That she might die before making love to him … was untenable.
Impossible.
Especially now, when her desire surged with more intensity than her fear.
She padded across the floor and pressed her ear to the door once again. The dim light of a lantern still glowed beneath the seam, but all sound was smothered by the blustery night.
Drawing in a deep breath, she gripped the door latch and inched it open with the flat of her hand.
She heard her name before she peeked her head around, an answer—an invitation—poised on her lips.
At the sight of him, all her wits deserted her, the powerful tableau stealing what breath she had in her lungs and what words her mind could form. She gripped the latch of the door tighter, steadying herself as a dizzying rush of blood invaded her head.
Redmayne was, indeed, recumbent upon the edge of the bed, eyes closed, head tossed back, throat exposed. A strapping leg stretched along the snowy linens of his mattress, the other foot anchored on the floor. One hand curled into the sheets, gripping rhythmically.
The other around his sex.
Her heart leaped into her throat, and she had to swallow several times, gaping as he dragged his fist down the thick, sleek shaft, pausing at the thatch of onyx hair, before pulling the opposite way.
His features twisted into a grimace of something akin to pain, but not quite. The grooves at the edges of his eyes deepened with strain, as though his lids would never part again.
The wind, welcomed in by his open window, noisily tossed that one recalcitrant forelock over those sealed lids as his breath hitched and released.
For a second, or maybe an eternity, Alexandra stared at the organ he stroked between his legs. Duskier in hue than the hand around it, it jutted proud and thick and … long enough to make each fall of his fist quite the journey.
It would never fit inside of her, there was simply no possible way—
Her core tightened, almost insistently, releasing an alarming rush of moisture.
A dark pleasure sound dragged from his chest, a perfectly timed rejoinder to her body’s invitation.
The sculpted contours of his torso bunched and released, knotting with slow thrusts that could have hypnotized her if he’d not growled her name.
Then groaned it.
She glanced back up his body to find his eyes still closed.
He didn’t know she stood there.
And still he said her name.
Was this how he wanted her? She marveled, mesmerized by the play of the lantern light, gilding the roped crests and valleys of his abdomen as he slowly rolled his hips in long, torpid motions, pausing with a labored breath before he pulled back.
Above him, perhaps? Not pinned beneath. Not from behind.
Unbidden, she remembered the pistoning slams of her attacker’s hips. Short, quick, dry, tearing. That was how she’d assessed men must be inside a woman. How they moved in order to—to finish.
But this …
She took an unbidden step toward him, then another. This gentle glide of his hips was like some magnificent, primal dance, his every muscle perfectly controlled. No violence or frenzy.
This won’t take long.
Alexandra blinked several times, blocking the words.
What if it did with her husband? Come to think of it, none of her previous encounters with Redmayne had been abbreviated. And, so far as she could tell, he’d already pleasured himself for longer than her entire ordeal with de Marchand had taken.
He seemed in no great hurry to finish. As if he’d learned to become patient with the agony gripping his expression.
Almost … as if he enjoyed it.
The breeze brushed her nightgown against her body, abrading nipples so puckered and sensitive, she could bear it no longer.
She peeled it away with a humbled sense that she might be the only creature ever to creep so close to the Duke of Redmayne without him knowing it. He was always so ready. So aware. But in the throes of this wicked, beautiful act, he was utterly vulnerable and yet preternaturally male.
“God,” he breathed, his hand sliding faster, his fingers tightening. “Alexandra.”
“Piers.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
At the sound of his name, Piers bolted upright and dragged the sheets across his lap. The sight of her did nothing to curb the climax gathering in the twin weights beneath his cock.
He’d have thought her a vision he conjured, a lust-shrouded fantasy. Naked. Ethereal, ephemeral. Possessed of a delicate, unearthly beauty.
If not for the insecurity flickering behind the heat in her burnt-whisky gaze.
Stymied, he closed his eyes and opened them again, just to be sure.
At the sight of her, his cock was beset by an insistent, painful throb so agonizing, he ground his teeth together.
In his fantasy, she’d been sliding her slick body down his shaft, those perfect, pert breasts swaying in a most tantalizing manner every time her hips met his.
And, miraculously, there they were. There she stood. In his bedroom. Pale and proud and nude, shivering in the breeze that fluttered at her heavy locks, making them shimmer like the tresses of some pagan goddess.
He dragged his eyes away from her pink nipples. “Alexandra. What are you—what do you—?”
“You said my name.” She swiped a nervous tongue across her lower lip, just the one, as her eyes locked on the sheet barely concealing the ridge of his erection.
He grimaced. How long had she been there? How long had she watched as he stroked himself to an illusion of her?
God, but his mind couldn’t have conjured anything close to the magnificence of reality.
“Did you say my name because … because you imagined me doing … that to you?” She nodded to his hand, now clutching the sheet to him.
Panic surged above his lust as he searched her frustratingly placid features. Was she disgusted? Aroused? Afraid?
What should he answer?
He decided upon the truth. At the very least, it would drive her back to the other side of that door. Because he could think of no reason on God’s blighted earth that she would be in here with him unless …
“No, Alexandra. No, you weren’t stroking me with your hand, not in my mind.”
“I was—you were—inside of me.”
His breath stopped. His heart stuttered, stalled, and then started again, pounding against the cage of his ribs. And still, he answered her with complete honesty. “Yes.”
She stepped closer. “I was on top of you?”
He held up his hand. “Don’t.”
Her composure flickered, unveiling a hurt.
“Alexandra,” he rushed around a hoarse throat. “If you come any closer—” Bloody hell, that sounded like a threat. “I mean … You don’t have to do this. I told you I wouldn’t touch you.”
“I know.” She stopped right in front of him, her breasts inches from his mouth. Her knees almost touching his. It was torment. Torture. It was pure, spike-riddled hell. But he kept his word, bunching his fists in the sheets.
“I want you, Piers.”
His mouth watered, his muscles gathered, and his cock gave an insistent jerk against his thigh.