Wild Wind by Patricia Ryan Page B

asked me to marry him.”
    “He doesn’t love you. He loves a woman named Violette.”
    “I know. He told me last night.”
    “Did he tell you he’s only marrying you to get out from under his brother’s thumb?”
    “I know why he’s marrying me, Alex,” she said quietly, her voice a bit more steady. “I’m no fool.”
    “Then why are you doing this?” he roared.
    “Alex, please!” She darted an anxious glance toward the door.
    Resting his hands on his hips, Alex stared into the rushes and concentrated on slowing his breathing. In a more subdued voice he asked, “Are you hoping he’ll transfer his affections from Violette to you? If so, you’re deluding yourself. He’ll love her till the day he dies.”
    She turned away from him slowly, her arms wrapped around herself. “You’re so young, Alex.”
    “I’m only two years younger than you.”
    “Aye, but there are so many things you don’t understand.” The back of her long neck, revealed by the braids draped over her shoulders, was graceful and perfect and luminous as white marble. Oftentimes he’d been tempted to kiss it.
    He took a step toward her. “I understand more than you think. I know you set your sights on Milo, encouraged him even as you spent every afternoon with me...”
    She pivoted to face him. “That’s not true, Alex.”
    “I may be young, but I’m not a fool either, Nicki.” He stalked toward her and she backed up, eyes wide. “Milo is a man—a man of learning—and I’m just an uneducated boy. That’s it, isn’t it?”
    “Nay!”
    “A harmless puppy who follows you around slavishly, lavishing you with attention—”
    “Nay!” she cried, stumbling backward. “Alex, please—”
    “Desperate for some morsel of affection. Irritating, but slightly amusing. Is that how you think of me?”
    She tried to sidestep him, but he seized her by the arms and backed her roughly against the wall. His heart drummed in his ears; his chest heaved.
    “Is that what I am to you?” His gaze traveled from her face downward, lighting on the thick plaits of golden hair resting against her chest. Letting go of her arms, he wrapped one hand around each braid, high up, and slid them down slowly. The slick ropes felt heavy and cool against his palms; the white satin ribbons tickled slightly, making him shiver.
    “A harmless, smooth-faced boy?” he murmured, stroking the braids downward. Against the backs of his hands, he felt the birdlike racing of her heart, the soft rise and fall of her breasts. “A boy who’s content to merely hold your hand...who would never think of doing more...”
    His knuckles grazed her nipples through the sleek tunic. Her indrawn breath stirred a quickening in his loins. Moving fractionally closer to her, he glided his hands upward, back over the little crests, and down again, feeling them stiffen as he stroked them.
    She closed her eyes; her throat moved as she swallowed. “Alex...”
    “I think about it all the time.” Releasing the braids, he closed his hands over her breasts, all the while watching his actions from above, as if it were not he, but another man, taking such scandalous liberties with the undefiled Nicolette de St. Clair. He felt the weighty resilience of warm flesh through silk, the rigid peaks so sensitive that she gasped every time he touched them.
    It was a kind of panic driving him, he realized, a frantic dread of losing what he’d shared with her—and the bitter awareness that what had been the fiercest passion to him might only have been a summer’s diversion to her. Panic turned to hunger as he fondled her—a primitive hunger, a desire to possess her, make her his.
    “I lie awake at night thinking about it,” he said gruffly, lowering his head. “About you.”
    “Please go,” she whispered raggedly. “You shouldn’t be here. Mama’s right—I’ll be ruined if anyone knows that you’ve been—”
    Alex silenced her by closing his mouth over hers, his hands trailing upward