Page 34 of In the Prince's Bed
But it was too late to close that Pandora’s box. Now that he’d discovered how much his witticisms amused her, Alec lobbed them at her with appalling regularity. Soon she was weak from holding back her laughter, sure that she would perish of repressed hilarity.
“Remind me never to let that man near my horse,” Alec whispered as a particularly dreadful poet finished. “If he orders ‘my noble steed’ Beleza to ‘peregrinate along the Elysian plain’ with her ‘fortuitous fetlocks shimmering’ and her ‘mane aglow,’ she might just trample him underfoot. She hates it when her mane glows and her fetlocks shimmer—all the other horses poke fun. And exactly what paceis‘peregrinate’? Something between a trot and a canter, I suppose—”
“Stop it, I beg you,” she hissed, futilely trying to restrain her giggles. “When this is over, I’m going to kill you.”
Alec shot her a devilish grin. “Would that be with the ‘trenchant sword of Damocles’ or the ‘impenitent smoke of Vesuvius’s wrath’?”
“The linen handkerchief of Merivale. I shall strangle you with it.” She glanced at the dais. “Now hush—they’re introducing Sydney. Try not to be rude when he reads, will you?”
“Me, rude?” Alec retorted. “What’s ‘rude’ is the arrant nonsense these idiots call poetry. And if your Sydney—”
She reached over and pinched his bare hand as hard as she could.
“Ow!” He scowled at her.
“Don’t say another word, or I swear I’ll turn your hand black-and-blue before this is over.”
When she started to draw her hand back, he caught it in his. “I’ll be quiet…but only if you let me hold on to this.” His gaze hot on her, he enfolded her gloved hand in his large naked one, then drew it to rest scandalously on his thigh. His well-hewn, buckskin-clad, and exceedingly warm thigh.
Her breath caught somewhere in the vicinity of her lungs. Lord preserve her…he should not…she should not…
She cast a furtive glance around, but no one paid attention to them. Since they were alone in their row, their hands were hidden from anyone’s view. The very idea stopped her heart.
Private. Secret. Forbidden. Why must that hold such an allure? Guiltily, she glanced to the podium, where Sydney was arranging his sheets of paper.
Never mind. She didn’t want anything to ruin Sydney’s presentation, and if that meant letting Alec hold her hand, she would sacrifice. It had nothing to do with this cursed fluttering in her chest. Or the breathless anticipation of wondering what Alec would do with her hand.
Sydney cleared his throat at the podium, and only then did she realize she’d been watching Alec’s hand, caught up in the wildly exciting sensation of having her flesh sandwiched between the hard muscle of his thigh and his heated fingers. She forced herself to turn her attention to Sydney, to smile at him, topay attention.
Sydney was to read two poems, one about the Fall of Troy and one listed only as “title to be announced.” He began the Troy poem by explaining which version of the tale he’d relied on.
That’s when Alec’s hand moved on hers. At first he contented himself with skimming his bare thumb along the contours of her gloved one, but that didn’t satisfy him for long. Shifting their joined hands so that hers lay atop his, he began to drag her glove off with his other hand.
“No!” she hissed under her breath.
“Yes.” He smiled, the way Boney must have smiled when he chose the first prime bit of Prussia to conquer.
She tried to jerk her hand free, but he held on to it.
When she glared at him, he added in a whisper, “It’s only fair, sweetheart. You took away my other source of entertainment.” He tipped his head toward the dais. “Of course, if you want me to return to commenting on the verse…”
Gritting her teeth, she let her hand go limp in his.
“That’s better,” he murmured, then reached for her glove once more. He stripped it off each finger inch by inch, the way Alexander the Great himself had probably stripped the female captives he’d made his wives.
Heat rose in her cheeks as she stared at the dais, vainly trying to absorb Sydney’s words. Unfortunately, Sydney had read this poem to her before, so her mind readily drifted to the thrill of Alec baring her hand.
He tossed her limp glove into her lap. Then began the real distraction. Turning her hand up so that the back rested on his thigh and the soft palm lay exposed to him, Alec traced her fingers.
She swallowed hard. No man had ever touched her like this. Who could have guessed it would be so…so…
Erotic. This seemed every bit as naughty as the pictures in Papa’s book; especially since it was actually happening to her.
She could hardly breathe as he burrowed lightly in the crevices between her fingers, drew circles in her palm, then dragged his thumbnail up until he reached the pulse beating frantically in her inner wrist. Pressing his thumb against it as if to relish the throbbing of her blood, he stretched his other fingers wide over her open hand to multiply his caresses fourfold.
Lord preserve her, she might just faint. No, that was silly—what ninny would faint simply because a man stroked her hand…caressed her flesh…made love to each of her bare fingers…
“Did Helen grow to hate Paris’s touch / As she observed the smoking ruin?” Sydney read from the podium.
