Page 179

Slowly Alice backed towards the chaise longue, and Sinjin followed as he refused to let her go.

When she finally sat down, he fell to his knees and deepened the kiss.

A flick of his tongue along the seam of her lips granted him leave to plunder her mouth with his tongue.

She slid her tongue along his and their mouths mated in a long sensuous draught.

When he could no longer breathe, he drew back slowly and rested lips against her cheek.

“What are we doing?” he murmured.

“I was hoping you knew.” She kissed his chin and placed the pads of her fingers inside the open neck of his shirt, resting them over his pounding heart.

He stilled and leaned back enough to look at her carefully.

“What do you want to do?” The danger of that question did not escape him.

His mind was working by way of instinct alone.

His cock, currently hard as stone and pushing to the front of his breeches, likely had a great deal to do with his misfiring brain.

“Alice, I have been trying to tell you something.” He shook his head.

“All the letters we’ve written, and now I can’t come up with the words.

” He’d never been so woolly-headed in his life.

For a man who knew every weed and flower by name when he looked into her crystal blue eyes his mouth went dry and his tongue refused to move.

Then Alice was no weed or flower, she was an entire garden. “I can’t?—”

“Then show me, Sinjin. Show me what you are trying to say. You asked me what I want.” She took his mouth in a deep soul-burning kiss. “I want everything. With you.”

His blood fired in a rush through his veins.

His heart raced and then slowed as if not beating at all.

He stood and removed his waistcoat, then pulled his shirt over his head.

Alice pressed her palm to the taut hard flesh of his belly.

He watched her explore the lines of his hips and the ridges of his ribs with her fingertips.

Every memory he had of Alice the girl and Alice the woman kaleidoscoped into the image before him of a golden-haired siren hungry and desirous of him.

He lifted her legs onto the chaise and pushed the stack of blankets to the floor.

He would show her the depth of his love. Words had escaped him, but his body wanted nothing more than to speak for him. He reached for the ties at the back of her dress.

A lice was suffused with a heat that had little to do with Sinjin’s perfectly maintained conservatory.

He worked to loosen the ties, tapes, and buttons of her dress with such tenderness every brush of his fingers sent rivulets of fire dancing over her skin.

Once her dress and stays were loosened, he used his palms to slide them down past her arms, across her belly as she raised her hips to help him rid her of those garments.

She shivered and he chuckled darkly. He took her mouth in a shocking open-mouthed kiss.

A delicious heat ran from her mouth directly to her quim in an aching sensation that surprised and intrigued her.

Her nipples chafed against the thin fabric of her chemise until he covered them with his hands and began to massage in ever more insistent pulses.

Alice moaned and bit her lower lip. When he removed one hand, she gave a little gasp of complaint that turned to a sharp cry when he took her nipple between his teeth and sucked through the muslin.

He stopped at her cry, but she clasped his head and held him in place.

Sinjin tugged at the hem of her chemise and worked it up to her breasts.

He released her sensitive nipple long enough to whip the last of her clothing over her head and toss it to the floor.

This time he returned to her other breast and licked and suckled until she thought the ache and darts of fire would drive her mad.

He sat up to gaze at her, his fingers still pinching and caressing and teasing her breasts.

He cupped them both in his hands and kissed them each in turn.

“You are exquisite, Alice,” he said softly, his voice rough and rasping.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

” She reached up to caress his face. When she ran her fingers across his lips, he drew one into his mouth.

Her body took on a life of its own. Her legs moved restlessly back and forth.

She tried to sit up to press her naked flesh against his bare chest. He held her to him for a moment and they both shuddered at the erotic pleasure.

He lowered her back to the chaise and began a trail of kisses between her breasts, down to her belly, lower and lower until his mouth touched her quim.

She froze in a moment of utter confusion until the first stroke of his tongue between her nether lips.

Her hips arched of their own accord. He placed his hands on her thighs and parted them a little to begin an exploring kiss of her cunny that had her gasping and crying out, her hands threatening to shred the blanket beneath her.

“Sinjin,” she cried. “What are you—Oh! Oh! Don’t stop!

Don’t!” She fought between trying to move away from the exquisite torture and trying to get closer.

The storm still raged outside. Though early afternoon the sky was black with streaks of lightning illuminating the clouds.

That was how she felt, like a dark cloudy sky sparked over and over by bolts of fire.

Her heart pounded, and she could not catch her breath.

Her body seemed to crest as if over an ocean wave.

Higher and higher she flew until she screamed, and every nerve seized at once.

Tremors continued to roll through her though she sensed Sinjin had suddenly sat up.

The warmth of his body and the fire of his kiss between her legs began to fade.

Suddenly he was back, kissing his way up her body in passionate nips and searing presses of his lips that sent shivers coursing through her like the rain coursing over the glass roof of his conservatory.

Braced on his hands he held his body over hers, touching in places.

He’d removed his breeches and boots. His skin was hot and hard, carved into muscles she’d never realized he possessed.

She caressed the powerful lines of his arms and chest.

“Tell me you want this.” His voice was hoarse with an emotion she’d never sensed in him before but she loved the sound.

She loved him. And she wanted him as she’d never wanted anyone or anything ever before this moment.

She was a virgin, but she was no innocent.

Her Uncle Daedalus’s wife, Sinjin’s own sister, wrote some of the most enlightening books on what happened between a man and a woman.

Alice wanted those things to happen to her, with Sinjin.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Please, Sinjin. I want you.” She raised her hips and felt the heavy weight of his cock between her legs.

He brushed against her, using each brush to wet his cock in the liquid heat he’d coaxed from her body with his wicked tongue.

She sensed the blunt tip at her entrance and wrapped her legs around him.

They thrust together as one. Gasped as one.

After a slight sting and hesitation, her body opened to him and they were joined completely.

“Good?” he breathed.

“Hmmm. Yes.” She ran her hands over his shoulders and clasped his back tightly.

He withdrew slowly and slid back inside her in one lingering stroke.

She began to thrust against him. They panted in unison as they reached a rhythm all their own.

Alice could not get close enough to him, could not get enough as his body carried her onto those waves once more.

Their voices met in a mixture of groans and inarticulate cries, faster and harder until she dug her nails into his back, threw back her head and called his name into the storm over their heads.

He thrust a few more times and moaned her name as the hot wash of his seed filled her.

When he collapsed atop her he tried to roll away, but she held him fast.

He murmured her name over and over and kissed her neck and shoulders until he rested his head on her breasts. She stroked his hair and caressed him. The words she longed to say stayed stuck in her throat. An uncertainty she’d never felt about him before crept into her mind.

“Was that better than Ravenwood’s kiss?” he asked sleepily.

“Worlds better.”

“I should hope so.” He sighed and dragged a blanket from the floor. Between the two of them they managed to spread it over their cooling bodies. “We shall have to go soon. Your uncle will send out the Runners.”

“Not just yet.” She was suddenly desperate to keep him in her arms, to make the moment last as long as possible. “We have time.”

T he skies were still dark, but the rain had lessened to a light drizzle by the time Alice dressed and made ready to return home.

She’d managed to slip off the chaise and leave Sinjin sleeping.

She smiled as she remembered how Danders said Sinjin seldom slept, but when he finally did, he slept like the dead.

Her clothes were still damp but dry enough for the ride home.

One of the Perritons’ coachmen would be happy to drive her to Berkeley Square in Frederick’s carriage.

She’d found Sinjin’s journal on his work table.

For a long number of minutes, she’d stared at the page she needed and debated what to do.

In the end, she ripped the page out and stuffed the folded piece into her reticule.

If she and Olivia accomplished their plan, he might never know, but if he did…

Lightning lit up the sky, and an ominous roll of thunder shook the glass panes of the conservatory.

As quietly as she could, Alice walked back to the circle of rose bushes and stood over the chaise.

Sinjin looked like one of those Greek statues of a sleeping hero.

She saw him through very different eyes now.

He was strong, powerful, loving and far more accomplished as a lover than she’d ever considered.

She’d save the questions about where he’d learned all of the delicious things he did to her for another day.

“I love you, Sinjin Perriton,” she said softly. “No matter what I decide to do.”

She was glad of the rain as Frederick’s carriage glided smoothly through the streets between St. James Square and her uncle’s home. For some reason she had begun to weep the moment the coachman pulled out of the mews away from the conservatory and the trusting man she’d left sleeping.