Rebellious Rakes. Bronwyn Scott

and the discipline of pacing his desire to hers. Their eyes met one more time, one last time. He was looking for consent, waiting for it, she realised, when many men would have been hasty in their lust and seen to their own wants first. Alyssandra gave the signal. She wrapped her arms about his neck and took him full on the mouth, leaving no doubt as to what she wanted.

      He thrust, and her body welcomed him, stretching, accommodating as they took up the rhythm, finding one another in the motion of joining and parting only to join again, each time more intensely until the rhythm consumed her, defined her. Nothing existed outside of this. There was only Haviland, there was only pleasure and it pushed her, he pushed her with each stroke towards some unknown cliff.

      This pleasure, brilliant as it was, was unsustainable. It would end. She knew it empirically. They could not keep it up for ever. Haviland’s shoulders were sweat-slicked with effort, her own legs strained from wrapping about him, but unwilling to release him. And yet it built, achieving the unattainable. She heard herself cry out, a series of sobs strung together between ragged breaths, desperate and satisfied at once. She felt the muscles of his arms tighten where she gripped them, felt his body tense, his muscles gathering themselves, her own body matching his. He gave a hard, final thrust and pushed them both into completion, into fulfilment.

      This was new territory. It was her first coherent thought when she could think again. Long after Haviland had rolled to one side and taken her against him, his arm slung comfortably across her hips, she’d simply felt. She’d felt the rhythm of their breathing start to slow, their bodies start to cool, a hundred other sensations, not the least being the irony of feeling such completion while feeling as if her body had shattered into a thousand crystal shards, each a shining point of light.

      Her body had awakened and it was greedy. Having discovered this place where nothing mattered, nothing existed but pleasure, her body wanted to stay. But to stay, it would have to happen again. Could it? Clearly it didn’t always happen. It had never happened...before. She gave a little moan and pushed the thought away. There was not room in this bed for memories or for comparison. Or for hopes. Tonight existed in a vacuum, one time only.

      ‘How are you?’ Haviland’s voice was at her ear, warm and comfortable as if they were more than acquaintances who’d found temporary pleasure together.

      ‘Fine. I was just thinking,’ Alyssandra murmured, turning over to face him.

      ‘Don’t do it. Thinking is dangerous.’ He smiled at her, the sight of it warming her. Probably because he did it so seldom, not a genuine smile, anyway.

      ‘You’re very handsome like this.’ Alyssandra pushed a strand of dark hair back from his face.

      ‘Like this? Do you mean naked?’ Haviland chuckled.

      She shook her head and smiled. ‘No, just being, I don’t know, relaxed, as if the mask you show the world is off and you’re very simply yourself.’

      His eyes drifted away from her, and she felt a moment’s anxiety over having gone too far, which seemed absurd in the extreme considering what they’d already done tonight. A simple observation shouldn’t tip the balance. Yet when his eyes strayed back to hers, she knew it had.

      ‘Do you know me so well after an afternoon and an evening spent together?’ His tone carried a hint of sharpness beneath the quietness.

      She met the challenge and placed a hand against his chest. ‘I know how you look when you kiss me and there has been plenty of that.’

      ‘How is that?’ The fire was starting to stir in his eyes again. He was going to forgive her intrusion into his privacy.

      ‘Like a man who could be happy,’ Alyssandra whispered and decided to push her advantage. She pressed against him and kissed him, effectively distracting them both from any chance of dangerous thinking. She didn’t want to contemplate what lay beyond this night, nor did she want to contemplate why Haviland was so very private. ‘Private’ was often a polite euphemism for secrets. People who were private had something to hide. People like the Leodegrances.