Defiant Captive Page 19

  Slowly, the warmth of his body penetrated her numbness. She felt his hard, muscled thighs at her hip. "Am I?" she whispered. "And who will save me from you?"

  With a curse the Duke of Hawkesworth forced her back against his chest. "No one," he rasped. His eyes were gray like scudding seas as her breath played against the triangle of skin where his shirt opened to his neck.

  And suddenly, it was not enough for him — not nearly enough.

  Not enough freedom. Not enough joining of warm naked skin. Hawke's eyes closed and his hold tightened until he was raw with the awareness of her unsteady heartbeat, the husky timbre of her voice, the sweet fire of her body against his.

  His fingers slid deep into her hair. He gazed down into the haunted depths of her aquamarine eyes and felt himself drown. There had been another pair of blue-green eyes once, he remembered, but this time Hawke was drowning in a way he had never known with Isobel.

  "No one at all." Half dreaming, he turned so that his lips traced the lines of her tears and his tongue tasted the warm salt upon her cheeks. This time he knew he wanted all of her and must have her assent in the taking.

  Alexandra heard his rough whisper, heard the ragged note of passion, as well as something else that eluded definition.

  "Let me go!" she cried.

  "Even now you ask that?"

  "Now and always! I will never stop fighting until you release me!"

  "And I will never stop until I've made you mine. Till I've put my mark upon you." Hawke anchored her face with his strong bronzed fingers. "Until you admit that you feel this passion flaring between us."

  "Never!" Alexandra cried, struggling wildly against his touch.

  "Shall we put the matter to a test?" As he spoke, his hands slipped inside the gaping neck of her borrowed jacket. His long fingers traced the delicate hollows of her collarbone. "Prove to me you are indifferent, and I'll let you go," he dared.

  Hope surged in Alexandra's heart. Here, at last, was her way of escape. "And you will honor your promise when I do?"

  "If you do," Hawke corrected. His eyes shimmered with silver flecks, as fluid and changeable as the stream that flashed by their feet. "Yes, in that case I give my word I will release you. Now you must give yours; if you fail, you will cease this pretense and come to me willingly, as my woman."

  "You will certainly lose, Your Grace!" Alexandra said defiantly.

  "Then give me your word!" Hawke demanded.

  "I give it," she snapped impatiently. "Now begin, that we may the sooner be finished with this farce."

  Slowly, Hawke smiled, his hands gently grazing the upper swell of her breast. "What's the hurry, my dear? Do you fear to lose?"

  "Bastard!" she rasped through gritted teeth. "I have nothing to fear from you!"

  His smile widened and his hands dropped, tracing her breast to find the impudent bud at its center. To her fury, the crest immediately furrowed and grew taut beneath his fingers.

  "You will lose, my little hellcat. And the loss will give both of us infinite pleasure."

  "Never!"

  His touch grew demanding. "Tell me, Alexandra. Tell me you feel this fire as I do."

  "I don't!" she cried angrily, twisting beneath his hands, her breath coming hard and jerky.

  Immediately, Hawke's fingers spread, capturing her entirely within their span as his thumbs rasped her nipples to raw awareness.

  "Liar," he taunted, his silver eyes inches from her face.

  "Nothing! I feel nothing! You can't force desire!"

  "Ah, but in your case force is not necessary." His fingers tightened, and each hand captured a taut nipple, sending agonizing flashes of pleasure through her body. "Tell me, little hellcat," he whispered, "tell me this pleases you." Slowly and very deliberately, he pushed her back against the grass, capturing her beneath his thighs.

  To Alexandra his voice sounded thickened and strangely uneven. She strained away from him, terrified of the flood of feeling his hands provoked. Dimly, she realized that their bodies had become the field of a battle older than time.

  He straddled her fiercely, a primal aggressor, every inch rigid, throbbing male as he anchored her wrists to the ground. And his granite challenge brought Alexandra's stubborn pride flaming to life with an equal fury.

  She forced her eyes closed, unwilling to give Hawke a glimpse of the embers he had so expertly stirred to life. But sightless, she felt him in a hundred new ways — the warm musky fragrance that was uniquely his, the hot rushes of breath that stirred a curl across her collarbone, the dark force of desire that strained his own breathing.

  The touch of his skin became a torment. Almost as if he knew this, Hawke did not move, branding her at wrist and thigh where their bodies met. She struggled once against his iron grip, but it was ineffectual, and they both knew it.

  She was like a small night creature caught in the jaws of a hardened predator.

  Suddenly he shifted, and his breath warmed her chest. Then there was only searing pleasure as his hot tongue circled and covered the hungry aching crest of her nipple.

  Alexandra cried out at the sudden assault, stunned by the scorching waves that shot through her body. "No," she moaned, but her point was lost because at the same moment she arched beneath him.

  Hawke's tongue missed nothing in its expert tracing — hard and wet, then smooth and stroking. "You will tell me," he whispered against her silken skin. "This time I'll have the words, by God."

  She shuddered, twisting beneath him — whether to evade or meet him, she dared not consider. Her young vibrant body burned inside and out, awakened by his masterful touch to a shattering sensuality.

  He turned her body traitor again and again, until she had to bite her lip to hold back the moans that threatened to burst free. His mouth forged an exquisite pleasure, so keen it bordered on pain. Alexandra felt all her inner barriers threatened by the silken bonds of passion that danced between them, breast to mouth, thigh to thigh.

  "Torment and my delight," Hawke whispered against her burning skin. "Give yourself to me, swan! Give me your fire. I promise I will return it twofold."

  "Never!" she whispered, her body twisting wildly beneath him, her struggle more eloquent than any words. "Stop —"

  "Say the words, Alexandra," Hawke ordered hoarsely. "I will have them this time."

  Her body shifted urgently, fighting his fire and his power, desperate to escape his drugging touch. Her fingers strained against his iron grip, and for a moment she did not know whether they fought to bring him closer or to push him away.

  "Tell me," he said raggedly, and Alexandra suddenly knew that this was as hard for him as it was for her.

  A moan escaped her throat. "I cannot. After the things you've done, I must always fight you!"

  "Look at me, swan."

  Unwillingly, Alexandra obeyed the dark pull of his rough voice and saw his eyes were smoky with passion and a torture of his own.

  "There are no reasons. There is nothing else but this power, this rare and wonderful fire that flames between us. It is as old as the earth itself, and as natural. You feel it as I do."

  "Release me," she whispered raggedly. "Don't do this."

  "I must, my exquisite swan. You will be mine." With excruciating slowness he turned her wrist over and brought his lips to taste the pulse that throbbed wildly there. "A woman of fire and ice." His lips traveled up her sensitive inner arm to the hollow of her elbow, which he teased with his tongue. "All damnable pride one moment and shattering vulnerability the next." He raised his head and studied her flushed cheeks, unable to hide the smile of triumph that curled his lips. "My woman."

  Alexandra trembled at the relentless command in his smoky eyes. "I belong to no man!" she cried.

  "Acknowledge it, my beautiful swan. You belong to me now." Deliberately, he surveyed her creamy skin, which flushed beneath his rough scrutiny.

  She was drowning in his clear silver gaze. But a person is never truly captive, Alexandra told herself desperately. There
is always some remnant of strength — some vestige of will, however small. A spirit never belongs to another unless given freely in love.

  Love? How could love enter into this harsh bargaining? What room was there for love in the angular lines of that hard, tortured face above her?

  When finally she spoke, it was the voice of a stranger — fierce, hoarse, ripped from the very core of her being. "You are a liar and a rogue, the very scum of the London streets! I admit nothing, do you hear, nothing except that I loathe you to the very depths of my being!"

  Long fingers wove through hers, clenching tightly, pinioning her against the grassy bank. His eyes had gone gray and bottomless. They missed nothing — not the darkness that trembled in her eyes, not the hoarseness of her voice, not the delicate flush upon her ivory skin.

  "You will," Hawke vowed roughly. "Before we've finished I'll have the words, even if I have to wrench them from your lovely throat."

  Slowly, he lowered his powerful body. Alexandra shivered as she felt the rugged imprint of his taut manhood against her thighs. Unconsciously, her mouth softened for his touch, yet he did not give it. Her tongue came out to moisten her lips, and she knew a raw hunger for the taste of him.

  Still he did not move. She felt his warm breath and the throbbing of his heart long moments before his lips took hers in fierce, hungry domination.

  His mouth was sweet and hard upon her, marking her in the thousand indefinable ways that a man marks his woman. She was liquid fire beneath his tongue as he surged deep, then retreated, a sensual imitation of the greater joining to follow. Alexandra moaned raggedly, molding her mouth to his even as she twisted against his iron frame.

  Hawke's hand slid to her knees, lifting the skirt that was by now only a little damp. Long, masterful fingers swept her inner thigh. "Goddess, you are. Queen of my swans," he whispered as his teasing fingers rose higher. "I must give you my brand. Here. And here. No one else will ever taste you." His weight shifted, and he pushed up her skirts, bringing his mouth to the satin skin at the top of her inner thigh. "My swan mark, here. You'll be for no other man." His lips were restless fire as he pulled the soft skin into his mouth, sucking roughly, then nipping her with his teeth.

  Alexandra moaned at the dark erotic strokes. She thought of his mark upon her, and against every instinct it set her aflame.

  There was a tiny snap as he released her and pulled away to survey his work. "A crescent moon. That shall be your swan mark. And only I shall know where you carry it." Hawke's voice was raw. "See my mark upon you, Alexandra."

  Alexandra lowered tremulous eyes and saw the small wine-colored crescent upon her pale thigh. She gasped at the power of that erotic sign and felt suddenly the power of his claiming.

  Branded by his passion. Marked, forever. His woman.

  Madness! Unthinkable!

  Her eyes were tormented when she raised them to his face.

  "No," he rasped, "this will be a new beginning between us.

  Forget the past and everything before this moment. Give yourself to me," he whispered. "Let me teach you the ways of love. I'll keep you safe — and well satisfied." Strong fingers stroked her thigh, then climbed to find her wild tangled silk and the honeyed depths beyond. "Ah, love, at last! So sweet. So hot. Let me taste your sweetness."

  His velvet tongue was upon her, coaxing, tormenting, driving the last shreds of reason from her mind. "Let me go!" she begged.

  Then she thought no more, for her whole being gathered into a shimmering core of raw nerve endings, and with a choked cry she shattered beneath his demanding touch, fighting him even as he swept away the last barrier of her pride.

  And then Hawke set his swan mark upon her — unseen, immutable.

  For all time.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The flimsy wooden door of the Lion smashed in two, and fragments of wood flew across the whole width of the crowded room.

  "Where is 'e? Where's the bleedin' bastard?" an angry voice bellowed. The owner of that voice came into view a moment later, a stocky man, dressed all in black, his bulk vast muscle without the slightest ounce of fat. With a graphic curse he kicked away the splintered wood and stepped into the smoky room.

  Like restless shadows the occupants of the nearby tables scuttled away from his angry glare. The room grew totally still.

  "Where's the nib cove?"

  Rose Watkins had heard the explosive crash from the next room, where she'd been busy watering a tub of gin. Now she strode into the uneasy silence, her hands balled on her hips. "What the bleedin' hell've ye done to my door, Tom Taylor?"

  "Ye'll be worryin' about the hole where yer head used to be if ye don't tell me where Telford is!" the man in black snarled. Just then, two more men stepped through the ragged hole where the Lion's door had once stood.

  "Stow the whids," Rose snapped, sliding her hands into her pockets and feeling the comforting outline of the pistol concealed there. "Follow me to the back room, so we can discuss this proper like!"

  In the silence a new voice was raised — a soft flat voice from a table near the foot of the stairs.

  "I fancy these persons must be looking for me, Mrs. Watkins. Bring us some brandy — unwatered for once, if you please."

  The nervous onlookers squeezed toward the door, opening a clear space down the middle of the room.

  The man at the far table carefully straightened the lace at his cuff, then turned to study the three men before him. "I am James Telford. But I cannot conceive what business you claim with me."

  The man in black strode across the room and leaned over to stab the table with thick, scarred fingers. "Did a job for ye, cove. Reck'n ye figured we'd not be comin' back fer payment. But we did. So ye better pay up. Here and now, if ye know what's good fer ye."

  Telford's flat, emotionless eyes surveyed the stocky man. "But I've never seen you before in my life. You must have taken me for someone else." He shrugged dismissively, and his slim fingers dropped to the arms of his chair.

  "Like hell, I have! Hired us to crack a crib over Alfriston way. Lost my two best men in the bargain. Now ye'll pay up, or I'll —"

  "Or you'll what?"

  The man curled over the table blinked at the cool, dispassionate tone of that strange voice. "Why, first I'll stuff that fine lace down yer bleedin' throat, and then I'll —"

  A trill of lilting laughter halted the man's angry tirade. Infuriated, he turned and looked up into the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

  Her eyes were the color of the morning sky, Tom Taylor thought dimly, and her hair the color of sunset. He could not draw his gaze away as the woman moved gracefully behind Telford and laid a slim hand tipped with bloodred nails upon his shoulder.

  "Dear James, you do associate with some of the oddest creatures. What is it the man is threatening to do?"

  Tom Taylor blinked, suddenly recalling his mission and his betrayal. He shook his head, cursed crudely, then focused on the gentleman in the crimson waistcoat once more. "Five hundred pounds, ye bastard! On the table. Now."

  Telford smiled gently, a thin quirk that barely touched his lips. "Very well. I see I have no choice but to reward you as you deserve."

  The man in black waited silently. His two companions sidled closer behind him, greedy for their share of the purse.

  Without warning three blasts rocked the room. The table splintered and human blood and skin and bone sprayed from the spot where seconds before, three greedy men had stood an angry vigil.

  For long moments no one moved. Then slowly the gentleman in the crimson waistcoat lifted his hands from beneath the table. Carefully, he laid two silver-handled pistols side by side upon the scarred wood.

  The woman behind him quietly added a third pistol to the line. "A very good shot, James," she said silkily. "I rather fancy we both are."

  Rose Watkins was the first to move, stepping over the grisly red debris staining her floor.

  "Sorry to cancel my order, Mrs. Watkins," Telford said with a faint smile. "Bu
t I fear that Mr. Taylor and his friends won't be joining me after all."

  "Yer a bleedin' cool one," the Lion's mistress said with reluctant admiration.

  The flat eyes of the man before her registered no emotion at the compliment. "And now, Mrs. Watkins," he said softly, "I believe you once told me you might fetch me anything in London." The colorless eyes narrowed, suddenly very intent. "Anything at all."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  For long minutes the two people on the bank did not move. A soft wind stirred the long grass, and beside them the stream murmured on. A bird trilled from a shadowed hedge. A large fish darted sharply from the water and fell back with a rich plop.

  Alexandra's eyes fluttered open.

  Her skirts were bunched up to her waist, and a man's heavy body slanted across her, pinning her to the ground. Silver eyes plumbed her very soul.

  She remembered where she was, and with whom. Suddenly, all the color drained from her face. "What have you done to me?" she cried, her voice raw and tormented.

  Hawke did not move. For a moment it was as if he had not heard. His hand did not waver, nor his gaze, but through his fine cambric shirt she felt the wild drumming of his heart, echoing her own. Only a muscle flared against the hard line of his jaw.

  "I've won our wager, Alexandra," he said at last, his voice oddly gentle. "You are mine now, marked with the fire of our passion and with the ecstasy I will bring you again and again as my woman."

  An errant beam of light played across her unruly curls, turning them a blushing gold. How impossibly lovely! Hawke thought. How unbelievably responsive!

  Fire in his hands, after years of Isobel's ice.

  He studied her eyes, the color of the dawn sky, cloudy and haunted, shadowed in the wake of her passion. Her fire was everything he had ever dreamed of, and Hawke knew then that he had to have her.

  Forever.

  From the bank above them a pebble rolled free and slapped hollowly into the streaming current. Somewhere beyond, a horse neighed restlessly, then another pebble spun into the water. For a moment neither of them heard, their world drawn too taut to permit intrusion.