This time it was not so gentle. Alex’s lips captured hers and took them with all the passion she had always sensed was in him. Joanna yielded to the danger and the excitement, sliding her arms about his neck, pulling him closer. The kiss was so urgent and primitive that she shook with the power of it. It called to an answering need in her. Gone was the ice maiden, the woman David Ware had scorned as barren and frigid. Her mind spun as she realized that she had never felt like this before, never experienced this intensity, this utter desire. It was what she had searched for and never found. She made a small, surrendering noise deep in her throat and felt the harsh need surge in him as he gathered her closer, every hard line of his body taut against hers. There was a tense, heated spiral of desire tightening within her. She wanted him to make love to her here, in this inn parlor with the wild noise of the crowd in her ears.
When he finally released her Joanna pressed her fingers to her mouth in disbelief and felt her lips swollen and moist from the demand of their kisses.
“Well,” Alex said, “that was interesting.”
Interesting? Was that what he called it? Joanna stared at him in outrage. He had kissed her with lust and sweetness and a fiery heat that had her body still humming and he thought it was interesting? Really, she thought, he only needed to speak to annoy her.
“I am glad that you thought so,” she said frostily, trying to damp down her feelings.
His grin was pure wickedness. He looked damnably pleased with himself. Joanna’s annoyance grew.
“I suppose it was a little more than that,” he said.
“You flatter me,” Joanna said. “I should like to know how you can kiss me like that when you profess to dislike me so heartily.”
“It seems that I do not need to like you to kiss you,” Alex said. His gaze was dark and hot. “Nor do you need to like me to kiss me back.”
She felt color flare into her face. “It is unaccountable, is it not,” she said, “for I do not like you at all.”
“And yet.” Alex ran his finger down the curve of her cheek. Her skin seemed to warm to his touch; she resisted a powerful impulse to turn her face against his hand, seeking further caresses. She was simultaneously mortified and fascinated by her response to him. She could feel the arousal building deep inside her again, tight as a knot.
“And yet you want me,” Alex said.
“I want a carriage with matching grays and a diamond necklace from Hatton Garden,” Joanna said, “but it is not going to happen, just as any sort of affaire between us is not going to happen.”
“Is it not?” His voice was dangerously soft. His hand fell to the hollow at the base of her throat, his touch as gentle as the brush of a butterfly’s wing. Joanna could feel her breathing catch. She knew that the pulse there would be pounding; her heart was racing so fast now that she could feel the beat of it against the silk of her bodice. Alex ran a finger along her collarbone, dipping his hand beneath the ruffled neckline of her gown to caress the upper curve of her breast in a touch that was fleeting and yet wrenched so deep a sensation from Joanna that her knees almost buckled beneath her. Her nipples hardened instantly and a tiny gasp broke from her lips. Alex’s gaze was intent, dark, focused, utterly consumed with desire. He slid the slippery silk from her shoulder and his lips replaced his fingers, drifting down across the tender skin of her neck and the delicious line of her breasts to dip into the hollow between them, his tongue flicking, hot and shocking against her skin.
Joanna’s mind spun with dark, erotic images, her body melting into slow, luxuriant pleasure. It was like a game, a dare, a test of how far he could push her, and she knew she should stop it, stop him, but she did not want to because she was trapped in a web of sensual delight.
She felt his palm against her breast, warm through the silk of her chemise. The spread of his fingers against the slippery richness of the silk made her gasp again, the thought of his hands on her body with only the thin material between setting her shaking. She reached out to steady herself and her hand brushed the edge of the table, her wedding ring catching on the wood. It was a tiny thing and yet it caught her attention, not because she felt that she was in any way being unfaithful to David’s memory-such a thought was laughable given their estrangement-but because it reminded her who Alex was. Her late husband’s best friend, a man who disliked her and yet could make such exquisite love to her that her body hummed and sang under his touch.
Wrenched by a spasm of self-disgust, she pulled back and he let her go. He was breathing as hard as she was. His gray eyes were smoky dark.
For a moment neither of them spoke and then Alex smiled. “So,” he said, his voice very soft, flagrantly seductive. “Have you changed your mind? Can I come with you?”
Joanna was so disoriented that for a split second she wondered what he was talking about. Then she remembered. Spitsbergen, the Arctic, the voyage.
She stared. “Did you kiss me simply to try to seduce me into consenting?”
Alex looked amused at the chagrin she could not keep from her voice. “No,” he said. “I would not have stopped there if I was trying to seduce you.”
“I stopped,” Joanna said. “You did not.”
He shrugged. “I might have known that we would quarrel about that, as we do about all things.” He shot her a challenging glance. “You enjoyed it.”
Her chin came up. “So did you.”
“On that we do agree then.”
Again there was a taut silence.
“How vexing you are,” Joanna said. “How maddening it is that I can find you so utterly infuriating and yet—”
“And yet you wish to tear my clothes off and make love to me?” He smiled at her evident outrage. “Forgive me, you know how very direct I can be.”
“What I wish to do or do not wish to do makes no odds,” Joanna said. “You still cannot come with me to Spitsbergen.”
The words came out with stark finality and Alex looked taken aback.
“You refuse me-after that?”
“That was a mistake, Lord Grant.” She stepped back to try to gain some breathing space. “David’s daughter is the only thing that brings us together, Lord Grant. I am going to fetch her from Spitsbergen. You will be going wherever the Admiralty posts you, I imagine.” She held his gaze. “And since you have always made it so clear that you desire no emotional ties or responsibilities, perhaps you will wish to exercise your guardianship via the lawyers in future?”
Alex looked angry now. There was an ominous stillness about him. “Are you still trying to imply that I shirk my duty?”
“No,” Joanna said. She pressed her damp palms together. “No, of course not. Not in any material sense at least.”
“And I do not intend to evade my responsibility to Nina either.” Alex moved restlessly. “So I will accompany you on the journey and keep you safe. You can scarcely offer her a good home if you are sick or injured or dead.”
“But I do not want you with me,” Joanna argued, feeling her temper rising again, irritated by his stubbornness. “I have told you! Can you not see—”
“I can see that you are afraid of our attraction,” Alex said bluntly, “and that is why you are denying me.” His eyes were an intense dark gray. “You are afraid that if we spend time in one another’s company we will become lovers because that is what we both want.”
Joanna’s throat dried at his words. That was precisely what she was afraid of.
“We might, of course, kill one another first,” she said politely.
Alex