The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

Without another word, Douglas picked her up and held her tightly against him. Her breath was warm on his cheek and then she kissed him, a light kiss, one with her lips closed, a virgin’s kiss, an innocent kiss a girl would give her uncle, and it pleased him and drove him mad with lust. He dropped her to her feet and took her hand, dragging her into his bedchamber. Once there, he turned to face her and pulled her up against him. She kissed him again, this time on his ear and then she lightly bit his earlobe.

He ran the last few feet to his bed. He was breathing hard, and it was going to be touch and go. “Now, listen to me,” he said, forcing himself not to touch her, just to look down at her, sprawled in the middle of his bed. “I don’t want you to touch me or kiss me again. I don’t know what the matter with me is, but I can’t take it, Alexandra. Do you understand?”

Even as he spoke the words, he remembered again Ryder telling him he was a cold fish. Cold, ha!

Her eyes were large with astonishment as she stared up at him.

“I know you don’t understand, dammit, just tell me that you do, all right?”

“I understand, Douglas,” she said, and reached up to clasp her arms around his neck, drawing him down. He fell atop her, his mouth was on hers, and he was kissing her again and again, whispering for her to part her lips, and when she did, he groaned into her mouth, and didn’t stop. “Alexandra.” He said her name over and over, and he didn’t want to stop kissing her, not until he had no more breath, not until he was dead, and then he’d stop, maybe. He managed to jerk off his dressing gown, but the touch of her flesh against his sent him over the edge. He was on top of her, hard against her belly and he wanted to fit himself between her legs. He reared back and pushed her legs wide apart. He fell on her again and his sex was pushing against her and he thought he would die if he couldn’t come into her this instant, this very moment in time. He held on, but his tongue was wild in her mouth, deepening, his tongue touching hers, and the heat of her made his heart pound and speed up faster and faster. He raised his head and stared down at her. “I don’t believe this,” he said, and kissed her again. Her arms were around his back, her fingers digging into his shoulders, and she was moving beneath him and he jerked back to look down at her body, open for him, his for the taking, and he saw that she was pale, her face as white as her smooth belly, and he looked at her sprawled legs and felt himself tense and tremble, and he couldn’t believe it. He sat back on his heels between her legs and stared down at her. “You are incredible,” he said and his hands cupped her breasts, kneading them, and then he was leaning down, suckling her nipple and Alexandra, shocked, terrified until this moment, yelled.

Her back arched up, and at her response, Douglas went mad. His hands were all over her, everywhere he could reach, and he was pleased she was small and that his hands spanned her belly and at the same time his fingers were delving through the dark red hair that covered her woman’s mound and she was wet and he was so relieved, so maddened with lust, that he simply couldn’t wait to soothe her, to prepare her. He lifted her off the bed and brought her to his mouth.

Alexandra had no time for shock at this act. His tongue was hot and wet and all she could think of was, “Oh my God, something is going to happen to me!” And then it did, quickly, and she was screaming with the pounding and the scalding heat between her thighs and his mouth deepened and a finger gently came into her and she lurched up, her hands fisting in his hair and she shuddered and cried out and his words burned into her as she spun outside herself, yet deep into herself, and he was there, and he was saying, “Yes, come to me, Alexandra, come, come . . . yes. You’re mine now and that is a woman’s release . . . come.”

The powerful burning and clenching eased and in the next instant, his fingers were stroking her there, parting her, and then he was easing inside her and she wanted to tell him to stop because it hurt and she knew it couldn’t work for he was large and he would tear her, but his fingers were on her slick flesh again, probing and caressing, and she was sobbing with the power of it as he came more deeply inside her.

“A

lexandra, look at me!”

She stared up at him. His face was taut, there was sweat on his brow, he looked to be in pain, and he groaned, his powerful back arching, and he lunged forward, and she screamed for the pain was deep inside her, tearing, rending, and there was raw pain and more pain. He came down over her, balancing himself on his elbows, but he couldn’t stop himself. He was panting now, and he looked both incredulous and beyond reason, and he was pumping deep within her, hard and fast, and faster still, and the pleasure was forgotten and she was crying.

Then he froze over her. She was surprised that he was utterly still. She looked up at his face and saw the look of astonishment and intense satisfaction written there. Then he moaned long and deep, and his dark eyes were vague and wild and she felt the wetness of him at her womb. And it went on and on, and she was slick now and the pain had lessened.

Just as suddenly, he was lying on her, breathing painfully hard, crushing her into the mattress, and it was over and she was wondering what had happened and what more would happen. After some minutes, Douglas raised himself on his elbows. He looked down at her face. He stared at her for a very long time. He frowned.

He said finally, his voice harsh and angry, “My God, I don’t believe this. It shouldn’t have happened. It never has happened before. It wasn’t what I wanted, expected. Damnation!”

He pulled away from her, aware of her flesh quivering as he pulled out of her. He rolled off the bed and stood there for a moment, staring at her. “Go to sleep,” he said, and to her astonishment, he turned and left her, going into the countess’s bedchamber, jerking the door closed behind him.

CHAPTER

15

THE SCREAM BROUGHT Alexandra bolting up in bed. It was loud, piercing, and it was coming from the countess’s bedchamber, the bedchamber she wasn’t in. She jumped out of Douglas’s bed, realized she was quite naked, and grabbed the counterpane, wrapped it around her as she dashed to the adjoining door and flung it open.

There was a maid, Dora by name, fifteen and foolish and thin, and she was shrieking, her hands covering her face, and she was staring at the bed through her fingers.

Douglas was sitting up in bed, staring in some confusion down at his naked chest, now covered with hot chocolate. The white sheet came only to his belly.

Alexandra skidded to a halt, staring.

Douglas raised his head and yelled at the maid, “For God’s sake, you silly wench, shut up!”

Dora clamped her jaws together. She began to wring her hands. Alexandra quickly came into the room, and Dora, seeing the mistress she’d expected instead of His Lordship who was amazingly naked, said, “Oh, my lady! Oh dear! ’Tis His Lordship and I thought it was you and I gently shook your—his—shoulder and he came up and he doesn’t have any clothes on and it scared me so that I spilled the chocolate all over him and I burned him. Oh my lady!”

Alexandra looked at Douglas. There was chocolate matting the thick hair on his chest and staining the white covers. His hair was tousled, his jaws dark with whiskers, and he looked so beautiful to her that she couldn’t understand why Dora had been shrieking. If she had discovered him thus, she would have leapt into the bed with him and kissed him until she was breathless.

She said to the maid, “It’s all right, Dora. You may leave now. Fetch some warm water and washcloths and towels. Hurry now, His Lordship can’t be all that comfortable with the chocolate on his chest.”

Alexandra turned to her husband. “Are you all right? Did the chocolate burn you?”

He looked vastly irritated. “Dammit, no, but she startled the devil out of me, the hysterical little—”

“You probably scared her more, being in my bed.”

She managed to hold herself quiet until Dora let herself out of the bedchamber. Then she laughed and laughed, so hard that tears pooled in her eyes. She hugged her stomach, bending over, still laughing.