‘Do you feel better now?’ he asked.
She raised her face to his, giving him a teary smile. ‘I’m sorry. It—it’s just that I didn’t think it would happen again after I left America.’
‘These things have a habit of recurring when you least expect them.’
Angelina felt the strength of his arms and the warmth of his masculine body. Slowly the fear began to recede, but she made no effort to free herself from that tight circle of arms—and Alex had no intention of letting her go while she was content to remain there. She could feel the hard muscles of his broad chest and smell his maleness and the spicy scent of his cologne. A tautness began in her breast, a delicious ache that was like a languorous, honeyed warmth.
As he sensed the change in her Alex’s arms slackened. His senses were invaded by the smell of her. It was the soft fragrance of her hair—the sweet scent of roses mingled with a musky female scent—that made his body burn. Curling his long masculine fingers round her chin, he tilted her face up to his. She was calmer now, her eyes large, black and soft, her eyelashes moist and glistening. Gently he brushed the remaining tears from her cheeks, his fingers infinitely gentle.
It seemed a lifetime passed as they gazed at each other. In that lifetime each lived through a range of deep, tender emotions new to them both, exquisite emotions that neither of them could put into words. As though in slow motion, unable to resist the temptation Angelina’s mouth offered, slowly Alex’s own moved inexorably closer. His gaze was gentle and compelling, when, in a sweet, mesmeric sensation, his mouth found hers. Angelina melted into him. The kiss was long and lingeringly slow.
Raising his head, Alex gazed down at her in wonder. Her magnificent eyes were naked and defenceless. ‘My God, Angel,’ he whispered, his voice hoarse, ‘you are so sweet. The next time you disobey me, instead of lashing you into submission with threats of physical punishment, in future I can see I shall have to change my tactics.’
‘Oh?’
‘All I have to do is kiss you into compliance.’
Angelina was full of remorse and regret for that unpleasant incident earlier. ‘I did behave badly, didn’t I?’ she whispered, her words filled with shame and a hundred other things Alex could not identify. ‘I’m so sorry I hit out at you, Alex.’ A knot of tenderness swelled in his chest as he watched her take his hand in both her own and press her trembling lips gently to the place where she had accidentally caught it with her nail. ‘I should not have scratched you—I didn’t mean to. It was unforgivable of me.’
Deeply touched, he smiled down at the incredibly desirable young woman who was setting his body on fire with her innocent gesture. Her beautiful profile was solemn. ‘You may feel free to scratch me whenever you wish, providing you kiss it better afterwards.’
‘It was wrong of me to take Forest Shadow without your permission. I know that now.’
Alex sighed, placing a kiss lightly on the soft curve of her cheek. ‘Yes, it was. I was almost driven out of my mind when I discovered you’d taken him. He is barely broke to the saddle and still a bit wild and hard to handle—even for me.’
Angelina’s heart jumped with elation. ‘So you were concerned about me?’
‘I told you. I was out of my mind with worry. That was why I was so angry.’
His expression was touching, his words so sincere, that Angelina forced down a lump forming in her throat. ‘I—I didn’t mean what I said.’
‘What didn’t you mean?’ he murmured, nibbling her ear.
‘When I said I hated you. I don’t.’
‘I know,’ he answered, gently drawing the curtain of hair from her face and draping it over her shoulder.
‘You do?’
His eyes fastened on her lips once more. ‘Your lips have just told me so.’
With her heart pounding turbulently Angelina saw his eyes translucent in the ghostly candlelight, his lean features starkly etched. ‘Oh?’
‘Another kiss I would have, Angel—to confirm what your lips first told me,’ he murmured.
She shook her head in feeble protest. The insistent pressure of his body, those feral eyes glittering with power and primeval hunger, washed away any measure of comfort she might have left. A strange, alien feeling fluttered within her breast and she was halted for a brief passage of time when she found her lips entrapped with his once more, and though they were soft and tender, they burned with a fire that scorched her. Closing her eyes, she yielded to it, melting against him.
Alex tasted the sweet, honeyed softness of her mouth, finding himself once more at the mercy of his emotions, when reason and intelligence were powerless. Savouring each intoxicating pleasure he gloried in her innocence, her purity, painfully aware of the trembling weakness in her scantily clad body pressed against his own.
Alex’s conscience, which he had assumed was long since dead, chose that moment to resurrect itself. Expelling a ragged breath and out of sheer self-preservation, he flung himself away, raking fingers of angry self-disgust through his hair as he fought to reassemble his senses and bring his desire under control. Devil take it, he cursed silently as he fought to tame his body’s fierce, frustrating urges, what the hell was happening to him? He was using Angelina as he would one of his sexually experienced mistresses. But she was not like them. She was uncompromised and untainted. Compared to them, she was a gullible child.
Kissed and caressed into almost unconscious sensibility, a moment passed before Angelina realised something was wrong, that there was an unexpected lull in their kiss. She opened her eyes in a daze of suspended yearning, newly awakened passion glowing in the velvety depths of her eyes. ‘Alex?’ she murmured, reaching out and lightly touching his bare forearm, feeling empty and unable to understand why he had stopped kissing her.
Turning his head, he looked at her, his gaze smouldering, his breathing ragged, the throbbing ache in his loins reminding him how much he wanted to make love to her, how close he had come to taking her. With her hair tumbling around her in a glorious silken mass, she lay like a beautiful, pagan goddess among the ruins of her bed. He stilled her fingers tracing up his arm. It was a provocative movement and she was too innocent and inexperienced to be aware of the devastating effect it was having on his already ravaged self-control. Riven with guilt, he raised her hand to his lips and pressed them to the soft centre of her palm.
‘We must stop now, Angel, before things go too far for us to draw back.’ His voice was tight. He was unable to believe this innocent temptress had surrendered in his arms, returning his passion with such intoxicating sweetness that had almost shattered his self-control. Unwittingly he had released the raw sensuousness he had known all along lurked beneath her veneer of prim respectability.
Alex wanted Angelina more than he’d wanted anything in his life…more than he could believe possible. The weeks of being around her, of self-denial and frustration, the tension and explosive emotions her nearness elicited by her stubborn refusal to be dominated, had been hell. Like a siren in Greek mythology whose singing was believed to lure sailors to destruction on the rocks, Angelina’s weeping had lured him into her room, and her vulnerability had finally broken all bounds of his restraint.
‘This shouldn’t have happened. It was a mistake. When my uncle left you in my charge I agreed to take care of you until he returns. I will not break that agreement by seducing you. Not only would I be failing in my duty to my uncle if I did that—but I would also despise myself. I should not be here alone with you,’ he said, getting off the bed.
Angelina drew the covers around her. ‘Thank you for coming, Alex,’ she whispered, reason beginning to return.
‘I