The Ghost Read online

  Every man had his breaking point, and Alex Seton had just found his. It had been hard enough to try to send her away when she appeared in his room like some erotic fantasy, standing one gentle push away from his bed in a chemise that revealed far more of her incredible body than it hid. But when she’d touched him, put her hand on his cock and squeezed, he lost whatever final vestiges of control he possessed.

  It felt so good he didn’t want her to stop—ever.

  It shouldn’t be that easy. He shouldn’t be that weak. But there was no way in hell he had the strength to push her away again, especially with her soft plea echoing in his ears.

  But he wasn’t happy about it. She was manipulating him. He knew it, and she knew it. But it was working, damn it. He knew that if he sent her away, she wouldn’t be coming back. And that he couldn’t concede. He would hold on to her any way he could.

  With a groan, he took what she offered and covered her sweet, red mouth in a hot, furious kiss. He’d never kissed her like this. He’d never kissed anyone like this. The bands of control, the chains of civility that had defined him had ripped free, revealing the fierce, primitive marauder underneath who wanted to plunder and conquer.

  He took everything she offered and more, moving his mouth over hers in a wicked frenzy of lust and desire. He filled her mouth with his tongue, leaving no part of that sweet cavern unconquered and unplundered.

  He kissed her until they both had lost their breath, until moans dissolved into pants that only increased the urgency. Until the fever that had taken hold of him inflamed them both. Everything seemed heightened—intensified. The smell of her hair was more floral, the honey taste of her mouth sweeter, the velvet of her skin softer. The passion between them hotter. The ache in his chest tighter.

  This meant something. It had to mean something.

  He was moving too fast, but he couldn’t hold back. She wouldn’t let him. She wrapped her hands around his neck, stretched against him, crushed her breasts to his chest, and returned the frenzied kiss with something akin to desperation.

  He felt her urgency as powerfully as his. Her tongue circled and sparred, egging him on with every stroke. He couldn’t get enough—couldn’t go fast enough.

  He touched her body as if it belonged to him. As if he had every right to cup her breast and run his thumb over the taut tip. As if his hands were meant to span the delicate circle of her waist. As if he’d held the taut curve of her bottom in his hand a thousand times to lift against him.

  But pressing wasn’t enough for either of them. He started to circle his hips in a slow, hard grind and his head nearly exploded behind his eyes. He could feel her heat through the thin layers of cloth, hear her moans of pleasure, feel her dissolving against him, and it drove him wild.

  Heat and passion engulfed him, took over, and possessed him with a madness he’d never experienced before. He didn’t recognize himself. The only thing that mattered, the only thing he could think about, was making her his.

  He eased her back onto the bed and came down on top of her—or rather, half on top of her as his body stretched along the length of hers.

  His mouth was on her lips, her throat, her breast. He didn’t take time to open her chemise—he didn’t have time—he just sucked and circled her nipple with his tongue through the fabric until he’d drawn her as tight as a bow. Until she was arching and straining and begging for his touch.

  He gave it to her. Sliding his hand under the edge of her chemise, he found the soft place between her legs warm and slick with need.

  The moan of pleasure she made when his finger slid inside her nearly undid him. He had to clench his teeth against the pressure pounding at the base of his spine. Pressure that had nowhere to go and wasn’t going to be able to wait much longer.

  But he would give her pleasure before he took his own release, damn it. God knew, he wasn’t going to last long once he was inside her.

  He stroked her. Soft and gently at first, and then with more urgency as her need intensified.

  He stopped kissing her to watch as her lips parted with sharp, uneven little breaths, as color flooded her cheeks, as her back arched, and finally as her beautiful eyes fixed on his and widened with surprise right before she broke apart. Surprise, damn it. That had been new.

  It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and the intensity of emotions swelling in his chest hurt.

  But the cries of release were like a siren’s call to his own need. Whether this was wrong or right no longer mattered. He couldn’t have turned back if he wanted to—and he sure as hell didn’t want to.

  He didn’t hesitate as he worked the ties of his braies.

  The feel of him pushing between her legs brought Joan harshly back to reality. She jolted from the dreamlike haze with something akin to panic as Alex nudged the thick head of his manhood deeper and deeper inside her.

  Wait! This isn’t . . . I didn’t mean . . .

  It wasn’t supposed to get this far. She was supposed to be in control. But then he’d started kissing her, and she’d completely forgotten about the powder and the missive she needed to find. After he’d touched her, she’d lost the power to think at all.

  The feel of his thick, callused finger sweeping over her—touching her—so intimately had made every inch of her body come alive. She’d never felt anything like it. The need, the frenzy, building inside her had been indescribable. When the sensations reached the apex and seemed to break apart . . . she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Literally. She swore her heart stopped beating.

  It had been so wonderful, so beautiful, so perfect that when she realized what was happening, guilt and shame made her panic.

  She shouldn’t have come here like this; it was wrong. What they had was special, and it felt as if she’d somehow tainted that by using it against him. He would hate her if he ever discovered the truth. She knew how much he hated deceit and subterfuge.

  She made a sound of surprise when he closed the last few inches with a thrust. Surprise, not pain. At least not that kind of pain. He was a big man, and his size was making itself known with a certain amount of discomfort as her body struggled to accommodate him.

  Their eyes met. She tried to pretend she did not see the flicker of disappointment in his gaze, but the knife of pain that twisted between her ribs proved otherwise.

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Had he thought it all a lie?

  It wasn’t. Not all of it, at least. And not the important part if that look in his eyes was any indication.

  She was not a maid. She had lain with another man. But . . .

  She wanted to tell him how different it was. How this was nothing like what had happened before. How what had been taken from her coldly and cruelly at the age of fifteen when a man she’d trusted—a man she thought she’d cared for—had held her down and forced himself between her legs, was nothing like what was happening between them now. How that man had taken something from her that day that she’d never thought to get back, but Alex had made her feel again.

  But would it really matter?

  He must have read some of the torment in her eyes. “Are you all right?”

  She wanted to tell him everything, wanted to tell him of the man who’d forced her, wanted to confess her shame at her reason for being here, wanted to tell him that the feel of him inside her—of them joined together—made her feel alive.

  Wanted to tell him that if things were different she could fall . . .

  They aren’t different, she reminded herself; she couldn’t say any of those things. They would only make him ask questions that she could not answer. Questions that would be dangerous and could prevent her from doing her job.

  So instead of telling him the whole truth, she told him only part of it. “I’m perfect.” Their eyes met, and despite the intimacy—or maybe because of the intimacy—a blush stole up her cheeks. “You feel good.”

  It must have been the right thing to say, because he threw back his head and gr