Page 76 of Tempting the Scoundrel
Alexandra exhaled, leaning forward to press her cheek to his. She whispered into his ear, “ ‘We were standing on the verge of a lofty cliff that stretched precipitously forward like a crescent, and formed a bay on whose waters the moon, which had just risen, poured a flood of trembling silvery light; while, on one side, dark, ominous, and frowning, rose the mount, projecting far into the sea, and towering in its sullen grandeur above the rippling waves which bore their snowy wreaths of foam in tribute to its feet.’ ” She nipped his earlobe, gratified by his helpless noise. By how his hands gripped the side of the tub as if for balance. “ ‘Clear and defined against the moonlit sky,’ ” she continued, trailing her fingertips along the wet, muscular line of his shoulder, “ ‘with no trees or verdure to clothe its rocky steeps, there was something inexpressibly sublime in the aspect of this mountain, and the lonely character of the surrounding scenery.’ ” Nick tipped his head back with a groan as Alexandra licked the water from his throat. “ ‘No sound invaded the perfect quietude of the hour except the reverential murmur of the sea, and faintly in the distance, the voices of some fishermen, whose barks were gliding forth, their sails filling with the evening breeze, and glistening in the moonbeams.’ ”
“Where?” It was a breath of a word, as if he could barely find his voice.
“Ancona,” she said. “Italy.”
Nick’s eyes met hers. “I can produce witnesses who will testify to my adultery, if that’s what you want,” he told her, almost gently. “You ought to go to that place in Ancona and watch the moon rise over the sea. You ought to go wherever you wish.”
Five years they had spent apart, flouting the laws of physics when gravity should have pulled them together. And now it had, and their lives had collided, and Alexandra found that the ship she had imagined in her future was a lonely one indeed.
“It was never about Italy,” she said, taking his hand. She grasped the soap from the tub’s edge and lathered around his fingertips, massaging blood out of his skin to reveal the scars of his childhood. She ought to have asked him about these so many years ago. “It wasn’t about New York, or Greece, or France, or any of the other places on my intended journey. I always imagined a ship at sea, putting miles of ocean between us. I told myself that each place was an opportunity to write about new experiences, but the truth is, I wanted to be someone else for a while. Someone who did not know you, and couldn’t be hurt by you. I wanted to rebuild my heart.”
“Then you should write back to your solicitor. Tell her I will help with your case.”
Alexandra pressed a kiss to his fingertips. “You didn’t answer my question before. Do you wish to divorce?”
“If you want—”
“Nick. That’s not what I’m asking.” She held his gaze. “Doyouwish to divorceme?”
His expression softened. “No.”
“Good. Because I understand now that the reason my imaginary journey felt so lonely was because I wanted you with me. As my husband.”
Chapter 24
Thorne had to be dreaming.
What other excuse did he have for his wife telling him everything he had dared not hope? Dreams. Waking reveries. Some fever from which he’d wake and find her gone, returned to the sanctuary of her bedchamber, with their connecting door firmly shut. She had seen him, after all, when he’d returned from killing Sean Gibbons. He was not like her; he had not been covered in the blood of another in some mad dash to escape. It was no accident.
It was retribution. A message to Whelan: Thorne was no powerless, desperate lad scraping by to survive. He would not be threatened.
But when he had returned to the Brimstone, his old memories took hold. Once nudged loose, those recollections spiraled into a dark wave inside him, and he had staggered into his room with the intent of bathing and finding oblivion in a bottle of Irish whiskey.
His wife had burst through the door, this fey woman with her siren-like gaze. Not for the first time, he had stared down at blood on his hands and worried over sullying her, for what use did sirens have for mere men when the ocean promised freedom?
The letter she brought confirmed his worst fears, after all. She wished to leave him. To take a ship to other destinations. To find her freedom with the expanse of the sea. To object to a divorce meant holding her back. It meant caging her when she had made the choice to fly.
But no. She still had his hand in hers. Her touch was solid. She did not wish to leave him.
She wished for him to go into that ocean with her.
Wonder prickled over him, a sudden awareness that everything between them had shifted. On some level—in the outer edges of his mind—he had already accepted that he had lost her. That the time between them in Stratfield Saye had long passed, and there was no mending the harm he had caused. She had given him something precious: the days ahead. Without fear of discovery. Without the regret of dwindling time and its eventual loss.
It was a future of days spent with her.
And not a single one of them stolen.
“Are you all right?” she asked him, with a smile that exposed her nervousness. He understood, in that moment, how much her words had cost. She was allowing him to climb into the fortress she set around her heart. This, he knew, must have been terrifying; he had made that same choice for her so long ago. “Say something. Or are you—”
Thorne grasped the front of her dress and set his lips hard against hers. He was gratified by her laugh of surprise, by the light brush of her tongue against his as she kissed him back.
“You’re pleased, I take it,” she murmured against his lips.
“So fucking pleased,” he replied. She was so much more than he deserved. “Come here.”
He dragged her back against him, but it was she who took charge. Her kiss was fierce, her touch urgent. Such small gestures, but each one was a miracle: one hand sliding beneath the water to stroke his ribs, the press of her fingertips to his shoulder, her body set against his without a care for the bathwater sloshing over her dress. He had never before touched her without some sense of desperation, without a reminder that his time with her was as finite and fleeting as a summer storm. It seemed impossible, that he could take his time. That, as he slid a fingertip down her nape, he could pause to appreciate the texture of her skin. There was so much of her body he had yet to appreciate properly, so much that had not yet been given its due.
But Alex, bless her, had her own ideas. “Come out of that bath.”
