Tony grabbed her hand and kissed it, laughing. He looked over at Douglas to see his cousin frowning at him, murder in his dark eyes. As for Melissande, there was not only murder in her beautiful eyes, there was also dismemberment, if Tony didn’t miss his guess. He was excessively pleased. He would never in his life forget their lovemaking in the garden. He rather hoped Melissande was pregnant. She certainly deserved to be.

“Ah, it is a pity to miss any of the drama.”

Alexandra laughed. “You keep that up and you won’t be alive for the rest of the drama.”

The evening ended at two o’clock in the morning. Alexandra was still too excited to be tired, but the lavender feather on her mother-in-law’s turban was listing sharply to port; Aunt Mildred was no longer tapping her toes to the beat of the music; Uncle Albert was snoring softly against a potted palm. Douglas emerged from the cardroom, five hundred pounds richer, to take his place beside his wife as their guests departed.

“You were a success,” he said, “but I still don’t like your breasts sticking out like that.”

“I think you were a success yourself, Douglas, particularly with those black knee britches of yours molding your thighs and well, the rest of you. I imagine all the ladies remarked on your male endowments.”

She turned immediately to speak to Sir Thomas Hardesty and his wife, complimenting them on their lovely daughter, Melinda Beatrice, winking at a hovering Tysen whilst she did so. To her surprise Sir Thomas held her hand overlong and there was a definite loose look about his mouth. Douglas was stiff as a poker until they took their leave. “That damned old lecher. How dare he ogle you like that!”

“It wasn’t really ogling,” Tysen said. “He is short-sighted, that’s all.”

“You are becoming more of a fool by the day and it is excessively irritating. I should have sent you with Ryder. He would have beat the naïveté out of you.”

“Well,” Alexandra said after Tysen had given his brother an uncertain look and taken himself off, “Lady Hardesty was, I believe, ogling you a bit too.”

“You will pay for your quite inappropriate observations, Alexandra.”

She gave him a sunny smile. “Why don’t you call me Alex?”

Melissande and Tony came over and Douglas looked at the two sisters standing side by side. One was so achingly beautiful that it made a man’s tongue stick to the roof of his mouth just to look at her; and the other . . . Good Lord, just hearing her laugh made him hard and sweaty, and made him think about her lying naked beneath him. She didn’t look at all dowdy standing next to Melissande. He wanted to kiss the tip of her shiny nose.

Douglas couldn’t wait to let his hands dive into her bodice and pull it away from her breasts. He followed her into her bedchamber, dismissed her maid, and did just that. When his hands were cupping her breasts, he sighed with pleasure, closing his eyes. Then, suddenly, he felt her hands on his legs, moving up and toward his groin. He froze. Then her hands were molding him and he wanted to yell with the pleasure of it.

“Ah,” she said into his mouth as he kissed her, “I love lust, don’t you, Douglas?”

“Blessed hell,” he said and had her stripped within a minute. She gave no thought to the beautiful ball gown that had cost him at least one hundred pounds. She was too busy undressing him, stroking him, caressing him, staring at him as she touched him.

Again, there was no time, no overture, no prelude. He was on top of her, panting, his big body shaking, and she arched up against him and he came into her. She was ready for him, always ready, and the power of him made her cry out and lurch upward. She grabbed his head and brought his mouth down to hers and she kissed him, biting his lower lip, her hands wild on his shoulders and back even as she pushed upward against him, bringing him deeper.

For one single instant, Douglas managed to regain his sanity, and in that instant, she climaxed, and he watched her eyes go vague and soft and he kissed her mouth, taking the gasping cries into his. But it was just for an instant, one small instant, then he was raging over her again, beyond himself, surging into her, and it wouldn’t stop. He felt her hands on his buttocks and that sent him over the edge. “Alexandra,” he said, then collapsed on top of her.

They were lying half off the bed. He was very heavy but she didn’t care. She wondered if it would always be like this—this fierce wild lovemaking, always so fast, so hard and deep. She knew she wouldn’t mind a bit; she was always with him, just as frenzied, just as urgent. Douglas would accept nothing else. She said, when she was able to draw a complete breath, “Am I pregnant, do you think?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I made you pregnant the first time I took you.”

“Well, then, if you are right, I will be proved worthy. That’s what everyone wanted, isn’t it? A Sherbrooke heir?”

“Yes. As I recall, you volunteered to produce the heir.”

“Yes,” she said readily, “I’ll give you half a dozen heirs if you wish. I should like to have a little boy who looks just like you, Douglas.”

He didn’t like the way her words made him feel. He grunted and said, “I am tired. You’ve worn me to a bone. Go to sleep.”

“If you could control your lust, perhaps you would have more energy to talk to me.”

“Go to sleep, damn you.”

She did, a smile on her lips.

&nbs

p; When Alexandra awoke the next morning, she was in her own bed but Douglas wasn’t. She sat up, missing him, for it was his habit to awaken her with kisses, with his hands between her thighs, touching her, making her ready for him even before she was fully awake. She was alone. She didn’t like it one bit.

I made you pregnant the first time I took you.

Tags: Catherine Coulter Sherbrooke Brides Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net