Page 43 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
His eyelashes clumped above his eyes, which were the same brilliant blue as always—cut gems. “If that had been my intention, we would have traveled south by now. Instead, I’m finding excuses to keep you here, because I can’t quite seem to commit to sending you away.” He brought his hand through the air in a sharp cutting motion. “Until I returned here, I thought I knew precisely what my future entailed, and now I know nothing for certain.”
She approached again, braving the freezing rain and putting a hand on his chest. “You know one thing for certain,” she murmured.
“What is that?”
“That you want me.”
He shuddered, as though the thought physically pained him. Yet he could not deny it.
“Is it so wrong to want your wife?” she asked, looking up at him now. The rain darkened the sky, made everything appear in shades of grey—save for his eyes. They had followed her from childhood, and they would follow her into the rest of her life, no matter what happened here. “Why did you come out to this lake?”
He glanced away from her, but made no attempt to move from her hand. “I needed space to think.”
“And you chose the rain?”
“I chose this place because it reminds me of someone I met long ago.” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll catch your death.”
“Wait.”
She had so many questions, and more than anything, she wanted to know who the lake reminded him of. But if she asked the question and revealed herself to be that person, it would complicate matters still further. Would he want to have married the same girl he had rescued?
Would that even matter?
His eyes searched hers. “For what? It is freezing, Lydia.”
“You feel warm to me.” Her hand traveled up his chest, to his neck, his skin indeed warm against her palm. “Why are you fighting this, Alexander? Why are you so angry at the prospect I might want to get to know you better, or that we might become married in more than name alone?” Finally, she reached his cheek, and as the rain thundered around them, she reached up on her tiptoes. She balanced herself on his shoulder. “Don’t run from me. If you truly don’t want this, tell me to my face. Don’t hide from me.” She took a single rain-flecked breath. “I am your wife.”
“Damn it all,” he muttered, and then his hand was at her waist, fingers digging painfully in, and his mouth was on hers, kissing her the way she had always imagined a man like him to kiss. Not with restraint, not with the control he exhibited in every other aspect of his life, but with steel-melting passion.
Heat, urgency, need, she tasted all on his tongue.
Perhaps he had run, but he had wanted her to catch him. His mouth told her that.
She wrapped her hands around his neck, drawing him to her. She forgot about the rain, or the fact her gown was soaked—except for the way it made the heat of his palm scorch through to her skin. Or the way his cheeks were slick with water.
But her own cold? She felt none of it. Nothing in the world existed save for Alexander. He kissed her roughly, as though his life was ending, a drowning man desperate for his final breath. As though she was his beginning and end, a curse and redemption all at once.
She kissed him back as though he were her husband.
She kissed him back as though she could love him.
There were no lies between them here, no deceptions, no games. She could hardly even remember her purpose. To provoke him past the bounds of no return? To ensure that he would not send her away without tasting her first?
Her goals seemed laughable now, because as his palm traveled roughly up her body to cup her breast, she could hardly imagine why anyone would do this for any reason other than for the experience itself.
With a snarl, he pushed her through the door. She absorbed his anger, chased it with her tongue. The rain faded to a distant patter, and her back collided with a wall. Yet for all his roughness, his hand came to cup the back of her head so she didn’t hurt herself. Even as the edges of his control frayed,revealing something terrible and hungry and wanting within, he was gentle where necessary.
Her heart squeezed.
But then he was kissing her again, biting her lip so hard she clenched around nothing, and she forgot to be touched by his tenderness, because this was all so consuming, she couldn’t think past it.
Later, she would lie in bed and think about the caged aggression of his mouth—the way he demanded with his kiss, the way he took and took—and the consummate gentleness of his hands, the way he worshiped, not defiled, her.
But that was later.
In the moment, she was his creature, formed by him, molded by him, made entirely for him.
“I cannot think straight around you,” he breathed raggedly, and it sounded like a curse.
