One Night of Sin by Gaelen Foley Page A

me, Alec,” she breathed.
    He stood up, lifting her with him. She clung to him, her hands locked behind his neck. He made her feel so feminine, carrying her into his bedchamber as if she weighed no more than a feather. She just stared at him, half besotted; she left her last maidenly doubts by the door. He walked across his chamber toward the magnificent alcove. Becky could feel the invisible draw of the ornate towering bed behind her, like another presence in the room, as if the carved cupids round the gilded dome were watching. The mirrors reflected the three candles that burned there, bathing the velvet-draped alcove in a wash of flickering light.
    “Nervous?” he asked softly, nuzzling her nose with his own.
    “N-No.”
    “Liar,” he whispered. “It’s all right. You won’t regret it.”
    “I know.”
    He set her down on her feet at the bottom of the mahogany bed-steps. Her heart pounding, Becky turned slowly to study their opulent playground for the night.
    Alec touched her chest, slipping the silk dressing gown off her left shoulder. She blushed in lingering modesty, not wanting to part from it quite yet, not that it hid much now, with the cloth belt undone. The robe hung open, but her arms were still threaded through the capacious sleeves; the garment half flowed off her, loosely garlanded through the crooks of her elbows to drape behind her like an elegant India shawl.
    This pleased Alec, judging by the lustrous glow in his eyes.
    “You are an exquisite woman,” he whispered hoarsely. He lifted her hand from her side and kissed her knuckles, then escorted her slowly up the bed-steps.
    Becky hesitated at the top step and turned to gaze at him uncertainly.
    His stare was gravely worshipful. No man had ever looked at her that way. She bit her lip and put her resistance aside for once and for all. There would never be another night like this, she knew. The future was dark, but come what may, this honeyed memory would be her secret, her own delicious indiscretion.
    Her heart beat faster as she crawled toward the headboard and then sat in the middle of the vast mattress, bracing her hands behind her. It was very cozy under the bed’s sweeping draperies. She glanced up at the underside of the dome and found it whimsically painted with blue sky and puffy white clouds. How very
Alec,
she thought, looking at him again with a lazy smile.
    Her position afforded her a breathtaking view as her sun god came walking up the bed-steps with an air of predatory languor. He went down on his knees at the foot of the mattress and stared at her as he approached on all fours.
    Anticipation gave her such a tremor that she suddenly was glad he wore those loose linen trousers. She was still quite intimidated by that part of him that she had first encountered full-on in his dressing room.
    His knowing half smile soothed her fears.
    “Trust me,” he whispered as he moved atop her, his advance coaxing her onto her back. Her heart pounding, she lay back slowly under him, resting against the satin bolsters of the headboard.
    Alec reclined on his side, partly atop her. Below the waist, all of him was pressed firmly against her body. Distant piano music and the light beating drum of rain on the window glass infused the charged silence in the alcove. Propping his elbow on the bolster by her head, Alec rested his cheek in his left hand; his right went exploring.
    When he touched her, an indecent wave of relief rushed through her. She luxuriated in his caresses. Closing her eyes, she drew in her breath and dropped her head back, reveling in the gentle warmth of his hands and the coolness of the rain-scented air against her bare skin. She could not bear for him to stop.
    His hand glided over her body until she was quivering. His mouth followed, first at her throat, her pulse hammering in the artery beneath his lips. He became more aggressive, claiming her neck in a deep, open-mouthed kiss, all but biting her. She surrendered completely to him