The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [107]
The figure shimmered softly and Alexandra suddenly wasn’t certain whether or not it was her, no, not her . . . or was it? She was losing her mind, she was guessing a ghost’s intentions. It was madness.
“What the hell is going on here? Alexandra, who are you talking to?”
The figure shuddered, gave off a soft glittering light, then simply faded into the wainscoting.
Douglas came through the connecting door. He was quite naked.
“It’s all right. I was just entertaining my lover. But now you’ve chased him off.”
She didn’t realize her voice was shaking, that she sounded as if she were about to be shoved off a precipice, but Douglas did. He came across the room and looked down at her for just an instant before coming into bed with her. He drew her tightly against him, felt the shudders of her body, and simply held her. “It’s all right, it was just a nightmare, nothing more, just a nightmare.”
“Oh my,” she said finally, her face buried into his shoulder. “It wasn’t a dream or a nightmare, I swear it to you. Goodness, Douglas, I not only saw her but I also spoke to her. I started thinking I understood her.”
“It was a dream,” he said firmly. “That damned ghost is a collective figment. You dreamed her up because I wasn’t here to love you until you were exhausted.”
“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”
“Naturally not. I am not a silly twit of an empty-headed female.”
“You have seen her, don’t lie to me, Douglas! When? What was the circumstance?”
He kissed her temple and hugged her more tightly to him, pressing her face into his shoulder. When she spoke again, her warm breath fanned his flesh. “I told her that I wasn’t a virgin and that you weren’t dead; I asked her why she was here. She was warning me but I’m not sure it’s me who’s in danger . . . maybe it isn’t, but then you came in and she left.”
“Yes, I can just imagine it. She floated away, her shroud wafting romantically around her.”
“I want to know when you saw her.”
Douglas kissed her temple again, but his thoughts were on that night when Alexandra had run away from him yet he’d heard her crying in here and he’d come in and seen her . . . not Alexandra, but her, that damned ghost. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “No.”
He stiffened then. “My God, do you realize that I’m not attacking you? I haven’t got you on your back? We’ve actually spoken together for at least three minutes, and we’re here naked and—” She turned up her face then, and he felt her warm breath on his mouth and he kissed her.
“Well, damn,” he said, and swept his hands down her back until they were cupping her buttocks and he was turning to face her, his sex hard and thick against her belly. Her arms were tight around his neck and she was kissing him wildly. It was difficult but he managed to get off her nightgown.
He was breathing hard and fast and when he knew that it was going to be closer than he’d thought, he lifted her leg and came into her. She gasped with the surprise and pleasure of it, and then she did more than gasp because his hands and his fingers were caressing her woman’s flesh as his mouth was hot on her breast.
“Douglas,” she said, and climaxed with a choking cry.
He pushed her onto her back to come more deeply into her and when she lifted her hips to draw him deeper, he cried out, tensing over her before pounding into her, his seed spewing inside her.
“Oh Douglas,” she whispered against his neck. “She did sort of float.”
“Blessed hell. She wasn’t here, it was a silly dream. You were susceptible because you hadn’t had me—like a tonic—before you fell asleep. You won’t see that damned ghost any more tonight. Now be quiet.” He pulled her on top of him, arranging the blankets over them as he did so. “All you’ll think about is me. You understand?”
“Yes,” she said, kissing his throat, his ear, his shoulder. “Just you and the wonderful lust you give me. Isn’t it nice that we’re leaving for London in the morning? Perhaps that’s what she was trying to tell me. There were so many more men for me to lust upon.”
“You are as amusing as a boil on a backside.”
She laughed and kissed the spot