Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

His mind suddenly cleared. “What are you saying? How could you have seen me?”

She wanted to yell at him that it didn’t matter. “You were in the Golden Chamber. I was beyond the glass, watching you. I thought you knew.”

“No, I did not know, Giana. What man would want to be observed coupling with a whore?”

“Many men did,” she said, the absence of his mouth bringing her reason. “And they were all the same, except—”

“Except me.”

“Except you,” she repeated. “You were different. I think you are too vain to allow a woman to fake passion with you.”

He pulled himself up beside her again and watched her eyes darken with disappointment. “It is not just vanity. I enjoy bringing a woman to pleasure. It makes the experience more complete. Now, I have nothing more to say for the moment. Do you?”

“No.”

He smiled as he leaned down to kiss her. He would never have to worry about Giana faking anything with him.

He circled her waist in his hands, enjoying the feel of her, and trailed his tongue over her belly. He gently rubbed his palms over her nipples before his hands swept down to grasp her hips. Her body was open to him, and he caressed her, pushed her beyond herself. He felt her legs stiffen and heard her cry out, tossing her head wildly on the pillow. He held her in her pleasure for another moment, then reared back and thrust himself into her.

“Giana,” he said, and captured her mouth.

She tasted herself, and the knowledge that he had known her so intimately made her wild. She wrapped her legs about his hips, drawing him deeper, and moaned into his throat. She felt his body shudder and tense, and she kissed him wildly, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, just as he was thrusting into her body.

Alex moaned and fell heavily on top of her, holding her languid beneath him.

“I think,” Alex said at last, “that the Van Cleves and the Saxtons have at last consummated their merger.”

He felt her lips curve into a smile against his throat. He closed his hands under her back and pulled her against him.

“Well, Giana, is it to be the butcher knife?” He dropped a light kiss on the tip of her nose.

“Only if you leave me,” she said.

She clasped her arms tightly about his chest and wriggled close against him, keeping him deep inside her.

“Women are supposed to want to talk after lovemaking,” he whispered against her forehead.

“How odd,” she said.

He felt her eyelashes sweep closed against his shoulder. He cast a jaundiced eye toward the lamps that were still lit in the room. Perhaps later, if she pulled away from him in sleep, he would douse them. He found himself thinking about the myth so many men chanted as gospel. Their wives, those paragons of purity who were too good, too beyond the cravings of the flesh, to do anything but their duty, silently and stoically, in the dark. He guessed that Giana could be that way, with another man. Perhaps that was vanity on his part, but then, he would be the only man ever to possess her. He fell asleep, a half-smile on his lips.

Alex started awake. A strand of hair was in his mouth and there was a warm body pressed against him. He cocked his eyes open, startled to see sunlight bursting into the room. He looked at the clock on the table beside the bed, and cursed. He had wanted to love Giana awake, but it was nearly eight o’clock, and their ship sailed in but an hour.

“Giana,” he said against her forehead.

She grumbled in her sleep and buried her face into his chest.

“Come on, laziness, we must hurry.” He lightly slapped her bottom and unwrapped her arms and legs.

Giana took in the two of them, naked together on a dreadfully rumpled bed, and gulped.

“A little late for that, princess,” Alex grinned. He bounded out of bed and stretched vigorously, delighting in the suppleness of his body. “If you hurry, you’ll have time for a bath. Shall I order one up for you?”

She gulped again as his eyes traveled down her body, “Yes, please,” she said.

“We’ll have our breakfast on board the Halyon. Call me if you need any help with your buttons.”

He caught her chin between his hands and dropped a light kiss on her lips. “We’ll talk about dessert after breakfast.” He strode naked from the room, his dressing gown tossed over his arm, whistling a sea ditty whose words, thankfully, Giana didn’t know.