Linda Needham (21 page)

“As…?” A tiny part of her heart went sailing out over the moon.

“As a husband, Talia.”

“Oh!”
Oh, no. Not that!
“Why?”

“Why?” He looked suddenly lost, helpless and dear. And then he grew big and blustery. “Damnation, Talia, I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Well, I—”
should be. Want to be.
“You want to marry me, Alex?”

“You’re damn right I do. Right here, right now.”

“But, Alex, I…”

“Will you have me, Talia?”

Have him. Hold him, for all the rest of her days.

Her eyes began to puddle again. “What about your lovely heiress, Alex? And your gigantic castle and your vast holdings and all those influential titles?”

He smiled ruefully, wolfish. “Remind me often of what a fool I was, my love.”

His love.

“Thinking that I could blithely give you away to someone else when you are my heart.”

His heart, too.

“Oh, Alex.” It was too late.

“Marry me…please.”

Please?

“Oh, Alex. No one’s ever said
please
before.”

She’d stopped running from him sometime back, and now he merely slipped his fingers through her hair, tilted her face to him, and said so simply.

“I love you, Talia. And I’m asking. I’ll beg, if you wish it. From right here on my knee.” He kissed her lightly on her mouth and then knelt on one knee, enveloping both her hands in one of his. “Will you have me, sweet? Marry me and make me whole.”

“Oh, dear. My love.”
I can’t.

Though she wanted him completely, and forever, wanted him to stay and stay, wanted children with him and orchards and a full tithe barn for her people.

But not even Alex could stop the killing tide of the war. Could he?

“There, Talia, you love me.”

“Alex, I—”

“You do, sweet. Though I don’t quite understand your resistance.” His grin grew wolfish as he scooped her up into his arms. “But I think you
may be right to make absolutely sure. You’d best try me out first, before you go marrying me.”

“Try you out?” He’d gone completely mad.

“Just like you would good horseflesh, Talia.”

“Whatever do you mean, Alex?” And why were they on the way to the bed?

“Ride me hard, madam.”

“What? To where?”

He laughed broadly, the sound of him rumbling through her. “Right here in this bridal bed of ours.”

Our
bed.

“Test my gait, sweet,” he said, shifting her weight in his arms then letting her slide slowly, wondrously down the length of him until she was standing on the bedside step, at eye level with him.

“Alex, I—”

“Do check my teeth on your ride, my lady”—he caught her earlobe and nibbled, tugged—“my tongue”—he trailed his lightly along her shoulder—“oh, and my…spur”—his grin grew wickedly wise as he held her hips against his, against the perfect outline of him.

“Your…oh, Alex!”

“My prick, then, love.” It was lovely and hot and full of life. “Rock-hard and ready for your pleasure, as you can feel for yourself.”

She’d never seen him like this, never felt such breathless ecstasy. “Alex, I shouldn’t!”

Oh, but how she wanted to, wanted him with all her heart. Couldn’t help arching her back toward him, or her sigh, long and deep as he trailed his bewitching mouth along her jaw and down her neck, nibbling and laving and kissing.

“I want you all for myself, Talia. To taste you here—” He lingered as he untied the lacing at her breasts that had so confounded them both the night before, leaving his steamy kiss in the hollow there.

“And touch you, Talia.” She watched in shameless fascination as he then untied the drawstring at the neck of her chemise.

“To fill you with myself.” He looked directly into her eyes. “Marry me, my love.”

“Oh, Alex, if only—”

“Aye, if only I hadn’t been so stubborn and arrogant.” He took his sweet time working his fingers down the front of her kirtle, tugging out the laces, tantalizing her with unspoken promises, lighting her imagination.

And her belief in miracles, because that’s all they had left.

“You’ve been perfect, Alex.”

He hummed his approval against her throat, slipping his hand between her chemise and her kirtle to cup her breast. “And you are beautiful, my love.”

She might as well have been as naked as a dewy spring morning for the shimmering bliss he was
causing with his audacious kiss, for the exquisite aching between her legs, as though his hand was playing there.

Or his mouth.

“Alex!” She stopped herself from asking him if such kisses were possible, or proper, or if he’d consider it, because he was bending her backward over his arm, his spicy breath steaming hot against her nipple, fire flickering from the end of his tongue, right through two layers of cloth, and all she could do was to cling to his neck and press herself against his mouth, her hips against his hardness, his lovely spur.

She wanted more of his delicious torment—to feel his skin against hers, but couldn’t think beyond grabbing fistfuls of his tunic and urging his hips and his feral hardness against her, which seemed to make him growl.

And then she finally realized his meaning, his threat to dally with her, to torment her.

“Is this what you meant by dallying, Alex?”

He lifted her upright, and smiled, skiffing his fingers through her hair. “First, the wedding night, my love, and then the wedding. Is that all right with you?”

She nodded, banishing the chiding voices that warned her to run from her lies, from him, the man she loved, who made her laugh and who rescued rabbits.

Who might have been able to talk the king into
turning the war, turning their lives around to the sunlight. She hadn’t asked and couldn’t now, for the lump in her throat.

And the bed had never seemed so vast and inviting. Four-posted, and lushly draped, heaped with pillows and her counterpane.

A perfect dallying place, where she could welcome his impossible madness, where she could cling to him and pretend it would all last forever.

“I love you, Alex.”

“I know.” He grinned, then pressed his mouth against hers, again and again, slippery hot and slanting, breathing like a hunted stag.

And she was quite sure that he did love her as dearly as she loved him.

“Then dally with me tonight, my love.”

Because it was the only night they’d ever have.

“O
h, my dear love,” Alex said, feeling greedy and unworthy of the remarkable woman, dizzy and aching with the need for her, “I’m going to do far more than just dally with you.”

Her eyes grew wide and welcoming, her fingertips toying at his nape, raking through his hair. “You plan to torment me then?”

“Till you’re crying out for me to stop.”

He heard the hot little sigh that caught in her throat and sent a surge of fire zinging through his groin. A sure warning to him that if he didn’t take his time, if he didn’t focus clearly on the journey instead of on the prize, he might just lose it all.

“You’re amazing to me, Alex. So different than I’d first imagined.”

He couldn’t help preening under all that heat,
or thinking himself the luckiest man on the great, green earth.

“God, Talia, you’re beautiful.”

She was so much more than just that; but she shied some as she stood in front of him on the bedstep, then smiled and threaded her fingers through his hair, drawing him closer, her eyes brook-clear as she whispered,

“So far I like this dallying, Alex. I’m looking forward to being tormented by you.” And then she kissed him, fully and fiercely, dancing her tongue against his, leading him and then following.

“And riding you here, Alex.” She moved her hips against him. “Riding this.”

“Talia!” He groaned and pulled well out of her reach, his restraint at the edge of its limits.

She stood there looking innocent and well kissed. He’d managed to loosen the lacing of her kirtle all the way down to her waist, her soft linen chemise beneath that, hanging deliciously off one shoulder, bunching where he’d been exploring her breast.

An unwrapped package, waiting just for him.

“You’ve too many clothes on, my love,” he said, not knowing until too late that his brain would seize up completely as he watched her shrug out of her kirtle in a single motion, the bulk of it landing in a heap around the bedstep.

“Better?” she asked, tossing him a flirting smile.

“Oh, much.” He slipped his hands around her
waist, then lifted her off the step and set her on her feet. He’d been aroused by the woman since the moment she first smacked him in the helm, roused and ready to fill her with himself, to lose himself inside her.

She took an unsteady breath as he brushed her chemise off her shoulders and let it slip down her arms. The sleeves caught up at her elbows, her breasts bobbing, beckoning.

“Oh, God, Talia.” He stopped just to stare at them, to marvel at the ivory softness, a perfect fit for his palms, at the dark rosy tips, crested and so sweetly ready for him.

He caught her waist between his hands and tasted her throat, kneeling slowly as he followed a steaming trail over her collarbone and then down the vanilla fragrant vale between her softly rising breasts.

She hummed as he traveled, trailing her fingers through his hair, swaying against him in a rhythm that matched his own heartbeat.

“Are you dallying with me now, Alex, or tormenting?” Another singing sigh. “Because what you’re doing feels a whole lot like torment to me.”

“Dallying only, my love.” Her nipples were but a breath away from his mouth, teasing and taunting him. He cupped the buoyant shapes, then caught a bud between his lips and drew her inside his mouth.

“Oh, Alex, that’s—” She gasped and blew out a
long sigh. “Oh! Ohhhhh!” She grabbed the back of his head, pulled him closer.

She tasted of her bath, honey sweet and heated, grew impatient with her arms trapped by her sleeves.

She shrugged them off, letting the linen bunch at her hips, then fall to her ankles, all the while keeping hold of whole hanks of his hair, pleading with him to continue, when he couldn’t stop if he tried.

“I want to feel you, Alex!” She was thoroughly naked and moving against him like a warm, springtime breeze.

“Oh, my dear Talia, I don’t know if I can take much more of this.” He was rock-hard and throbbing, on the verge of taking her here on the floor, sitting or standing—needing to thrust himself into her.

“I do recall that you’re the one who’s being given a trial run, Alex.” She grinned as she shoved at his shoulder and stood free of him, leaving him breathless and grunting like a bull. “And I think you’ve got too many clothes on.”

Alex staggered to his feet, stunned by her boldness, pleased to his bones to have a wife who would seduce him. He reached for his tunic, but she stayed his hand.

“Let me, my lord.” She was sloe-eyed and impatient as she unbuckled his belt and helped him
out of his tunic, then his linen shirt, leaving his erection straining against his leggings and braes.

“Oh, my!” she said when she saw it. She looked up at him and smiled, her eyes bright with pure, lustful admiration.

“Take care, Talia,” he said, knowing that he ought just to shuck the lot without her help. But she was purring, slipping her arms around his waist.

“You’re so warm,” she said, sliding her palms down his hips and over his backside, pressing her cheek against his chest. “And hard, Alex, everywhere.”

“And you’re softer than down, Talia.” Drawing a breath was difficult; his hands played at her hips, freely fondling her, meeting her rhythm.

“These go too, Alex. Your braes.” She planted a long, succulent kiss in the center of his chest, then stepped back and studied him. The tops of his braes, the drawstring that held them up.

And his erection.

“Your spur, Alex?” She looked up at him from beneath her dark lashes, spots of color high on her cheeks. “Larger than I’d imagined.”

“You’ve imagined me? My…spur?”

A shy smile flitted across her cheeks. “Aye, Alex. And it looks to have a mind of its own.”

“God, yes it does, love. Though we are in perfect agreement at the moment.” He drew a deep
breath through his nostrils and gathered her against him, the closeness keeping her in check.

He slanted a kiss across her mouth and then another, just that, kisses only while he shuddered and slowly regained control of his senses.

“Your braes, Alex,” she whispered amongst all that deep kissing, nibbling at his lips, nuzzling his chin. “You’re still wearing them.”

He gazed down at her, at all that eagerness. “So I am, my love.”

“I want to see what you’re offering.”

“Oh, Talia, as you wish.” Great God, he’d almost given her away to some ungrateful baron.

Her quick fingers went searching, found the drawstring and tugged. That would have been bearable, just, had she stopped then and there. But the knot held stubbornly, and she was far too curious.

“Oh, Alex.” She covered him with her hand through the bulging linen.

Alex took a breath the moment he could, then clamped his hand over hers to stop her exploring. But that seemed only to encourage her.

“Oh, I like you here, Alex.” She made an admiring little sigh and squeezed him lightly, shaped her fingers around him.

“Talia, stop!” He grabbed her hands safely away, kissed her fingers.

“But, Alex, I’ve seen nothing of you yet. Your teeth, of course—they’re straight and white and
strong and, well, you nibble with skill. And your tongue is excellent. But your spur, Alex, remains a mystery. And hardly something that you can hide from me.”

He couldn’t find breath or brains enough to reply. But when she reached for him again, he held out his hand and stopped her in her tracks.

“You’ll wait there, Talia.” He bent and shucked his hosen and braes, braced himself for any reaction.

But when he looked up at her, she was boldly appraising him, from head to toe to erection.

“Well, you can do a whole lot of dallying with all that, Alex.” The woman was mischief to her soul, grinning at him in triumph.

“Talia!” He lifted her into his arms, and she climbed eagerly into his embrace, wrapping her bare legs around his waist as though it were the most natural thing in the world, sultry where her desire met the hot length of him, staggering him with the need to plunge, to stroke and taste her where his hands were laced together, where she was soft and slick.

“We’ve been in this position once before, Alex.” But that particular time she wasn’t naked or rocking against him, or making love to his mouth, or murmuring something about her dreams and their children.

“You won’t clout me in the head this time?” he asked as he collected her kisses.

“As long as you behave.”

“I don’t plan to do anything of the sort.”

She grinned. “I was hoping so.”

Talia had been taught not to stare at extraordinary sights, oh, but this male part of Alex had been too spectacular to look away.

His spur, indeed! Provocatively rigid, dramatically displayed below his slender waist, thick-veined and pulsing.

And now he’d fit the length of it along her cleaving, and she could hardly breathe for the hot bliss of it.

The man himself was bronze-muscled, his eyes as hungry as his mouth as she clung to him, and he carried her to the edge of the bed.

“I love you, Alex.”

His smile went crooked as he lay her back against the mattress and braced his hands on either side of her head. “That’s some kind of miracle, sweet.”

“Oh, yes, Alex!”

He hovered for a long time, kissing her, dallying with his mouth while the humid heat of him brushed against the inside of her thighs.

“Tell me, love, why you and Jasper were in the collapsed passage?” The man asked that kind of a question, then planted a distracting kiss on her nipple, nuzzled there until she could barely breathe.

The passage.

Please God, don’t let him be merely taunting me here.

“Jasper had come to show me the trouble there. Heavens, Alex.” His touch fuddled her completely, struck the breath from her. He teased at her breasts, made her squirm and rise up to meet him while he pulled and licked, sending bits of starlight from her fingers.

“You terrified me today, my love.”

“I’m sorry.” She slipped her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer.

“When I heard that you were somewhere inside the collapse, I came running.” He was so large as he leaned down to kiss her mouth, his arm muscles bunching and quaking, his breath coming in ragged bursts.

“I didn’t mean to worry you.” She hadn’t meant to love him either, but some things were just so easy to do.

“Let me take care of it next time, Talia.” He began trailing his kiss downward, from one rib to the next.

“Aye, Alex. I promise.”

“But as punishment, my love, I’m going to have to torment you.” She felt the smile he was trying to hide against the underslope of her breast.

“I was hoping so.” Though she couldn’t imagine what he could possibly mean.

She had spread her legs indelicately around his, and now he was doing something that had altered
her pulse. She felt soft and pliable and wondered what he was thinking, where he was going when he knelt between her thighs.

She sat up on her elbows, her imagination running quickly alongside his large hands as he brushed them across her belly. “Alex?”

He was smiling at her, a cagey look in his eyes. Another of his secrets that left her light-headed and aching.

“Your promise, Talia, before I continue.”

“Promise? What do you mean?”

But he was already landing a kiss on her knee—on the
inside
of her knee. And then the inside of her thigh.

“That, you’ll come find me when you see problems at Carrisford.” He’d spoken this across her belly, sent his words steaming through her most private curls, dancing them there.

Tormenting her. “Oh, yesssss, Alex!”

“Your promise, love.”

“Carrisford.” She’d heard that. And something about her problems belonging to him now. “I’ll come find you, Alex. Alex! Oh! Was that your tongue?”

It was. The tip of it. And then his kiss and his nuzzling. Right down there at the very joining of her thighs.

“You taste of sunlight, Talia.” His words broke against her curls. And another kiss. A searing, slick bolt of fire.

“I think I’m going to faint, Alex.”

“You won’t if you just breathe, my love. Now your promise, Talia, or I’ll stop.”

“You wouldn’t.” But he did, and she raised up on her elbows, to stare right into his eyes.

“Trust me, Talia. Let me take care of you and these people you love like I should have done. Let me love them, too.”

What an impossible man. “I promise to try my best, Alex. By my heart, I will do my best.”

He spent a very long time looking into her eyes, surely finding love enough there to blind him to her horrible deceit. He smiled, the devil in him returned.

“Well, then, my love, just to show you how deeply I accept your best promise…” He seemed to take great pleasure in parting her slowly with his fingers, in seeking something else from her.

“Oh, Alex, please!”

“I warned you that I’d be tormenting you.” Another of his kisses, deeper yet, probing, his fingers inside her, sliding and slipping, nuzzling her as though he were kissing her mouth until she was ready to explode.

“Enough, Alex!”

He raised his head from his tormenting her, smiling, leaving her limp and unfulfilled, craving him as he caught her hips and carried them up against the pillows.

“Not nearly enough, Talia. Though I’m nearly
out of self-restraint.” He was kneeling on the mattress, in the space between her thighs, braced on his hands, his great staff, his spur, dazzlingly large.

She reached out to touch him there, but Alex grabbed her hand and pinned it to the pillow. “God bless you for the thought, my love, but I would not last a second longer if you did what I think you were going to do.”

“I was just going to wrap my fingers around you, Alex.” She raised her hips to try to meet the heat of him.

“As I thought.” He rested his forehead against hers.

“And kiss you as you just did me.”

He drew in a deep breath, then opened his eyes to hers. “I love you, Talia.”

Alex couldn’t have dared hope for all this ungoverned curiosity in a wife. Just now his joints ached, and his muscles had long ago cramped into thick knots. He wanted her like he wanted sunlight, wanted to be inside her.