Guy de Rochemont was there.
Her pulse froze. Then surged. She must have made some small noise in her throat, her hand flying upwards. Did she try and speak? She didn’t know. Only that Guy had cut right across her.
‘Where is he?’ he asked, his voice casual. But there was the edge of a whip in it.
‘Who?’ Alexa’s brow furrowed as she tried to breathe. Tried to reel in all her senses, emotions that were suddenly flying haywire, as if an electric field had arced through the room.
Guy—Guy is here—here!
The consciousness of his presence transfixed her. Stifled her lungs.
‘Lover-boy,’ said Guy.
Alexa stared. Stared at the figure seated as she had seen him so often, shadowed by the dim light. She didn’t answer—couldn’t answer. Had no idea what he was talking about. No idea about anything at all other than the overpowering consciousness of his presence.
With a sudden fluid movement he jack-knifed to his feet, crossed towards her. His pace was feral, and Alexa felt a flare deep within her.
‘You didn’t bring him back here?’ The voice was harsh.
The question had tormented him all the way here—all the time since he had ushered Louisa to the steps of her friend’s house, bade her goodnight, his mouth saying words that were appropriate, his mind somewhere completely different.
Making his decision.
Issuing the requisite instructions to his driver.
He still had the keys to Alexa’s flat, and as he’d walked in he had known that the only thing on his mind was whether she was going to come back here alone, or go home with the man who had replaced him. Or bring the man back here.
Now, with a surge of raw, visceral emotion, he knew she had done all that he’d desired—come here, and alone.
Alexa still looked blank. Was still incapable of any coherent thought at all. Only of raw, surging emotion.
A rough sound came from him, as if dismissing his own question. He closed in on her, and Alexa felt raw emotion surge again. His hands clamped on her upper arms—hard, like a vice. Her eyes flew to his. She felt that surge seize her lungs. Felt her eyes arc into his, burning green, burning into her. He was saying something to her. Something she did not understand. Whatever language it was, the words were beyond her. Everything was beyond her. She knew only the emotion surging in her, only the hard clasp of his hands on her bare flesh, only the drowning of her eyes in his.
And the feral curve of his lips as he held her, pinioned. There was an unmistakable, irrefutable message in his burning eyes. To which she could give no answer other than the one her own eyes were giving.
For one long, timeless moment he held her, as her lungs seized, frozen, unbreathing, and then slowly, achingly, agonisingly slowly, his mouth started to lower.
‘No man but me, ma belle Alexa,’ he breathed. ‘No man…’
Then his mouth was branding hers with his possession.
And in his tensed, steel-coiled body, the lash of his anger was finally extinguished. The hard, unbroken armour of his iron self-control finally pierced.
It was later. Much, much later. How much later Alexa didn’t know. Couldn’t know. Time had stopped.
Only her senses were alive. Senses once submerged, suppressed, for four long, empty, meaningless months.
Now released again. As if from a casket, buried deep.
Broken open.
Limbs splaying, spreading; hands clasping, holding; mouths seeking, devouring; bodies winding, binding. Fusing.
Fusing into one. One living, moving body. Arcing. Moulding. Melding.
On, and on, and on.
Until all was gone. All. And now she lay there, in the slackening circle of his arms, her hair a shroud around his shoulder, her brow against the smooth, damask marble of his chest, with nothing left in her. Only the plunging of her heart.