Men. Their stratagems never ceased, and they called women calculating. “You’ll behave?”

“Get off your horse, Alice.” Ethan put his hands around her waist and lifted her easily to the ground. He didn’t let her go, but held her against him until her arms stole around his waist. “Let’s get something clear between us: I will not ever press my advances on you without your willingness. I could not, in fact.”

In contrast to his stern tones, his hands on her back were gentle.

“What does that mean?”

“Kiss me,” Ethan whispered, sealing his lips over hers. He took his time, but it wasn’t a cheerful little good-night indulgence. He brought her body close against his and angled her head with one large hand so she could not have avoided his kiss. His tongue was in her mouth, coaxing and teasing and implying a carnal rhythm that set up a low hum of need beneath the pit of Alice’s belly.

“Touch me, Alice,” Ethan whispered. “Put your hands on me.”

God above, it was a timely invitation. Alice wanted to burrow into him but settled for running her hands over his shoulders and arms. She swept her fingers through his hair, cradled his jaw in her palm, and rubbed her body along the length of his.

“Feel this.” Ethan took her hand and brought it to the evidence of his arousal. “This is proof I want you, and badly. But, Alice?”

She looked up at him in the moonlight, knowing if he took his hand away, she’d indulge the dangerous desire to shape and stroke him through his clothes.

“If you show me you don’t want me,” Ethan said, letting his hands fall to his sides, “I can’t sustain this. My flesh softens. I cannot consummate the deed. I am incapable of joining with you without your consent.”

“You’re capable now,” Alice said, trying to make sense of his words as she explored his length. “And other men don’t require consent.”

“I’m not other men. I have to know you’re not just willing, Alice, but enthusiastic about becoming intimate with me.”

Alice gave up the fascinating feel of him and stepped back. This topic was awkward and one he apparently needed to belabor. “I think we need to talk.”

“Come.” Ethan held out a hand and led her up the steps to the bench inside the gazebo. “We’ll talk.”

Something about him was off, not quite distracted, but not at ease. “Are you angry?”

“I’m… upset. Heathgate imparted some disturbing news, and I’m aroused, as proximity to you does that for me. But my ears function, and Nick understood my admonition to seek his bed.”

Men did not lightly admit to being upset. “Will I get another lecture from Nick in the morning about the need to tread lightly with his dear brother?”

That earned her a smile, bashful and a little exasperated. Alice catalogued it with the other smiles she’d hoarded up. “He lectured you? I would have liked to have seen that.”

“I’ll summon you next time. Greymoor preached at me too.”

The smile turned a trifle irritated. “I hardly know the man. What sermon could he possibly deliver when he’s hardly been a saint himself?”

“Your late wife was a trial,” Alice explained gently. “I am not to put you through that again. He was very oblique, all ‘one would be disappointed’ and ‘one observes,’ but I was given to understand that dealing with you dishonorably would be frowned upon. Your neighbors are protective of you.”

And the man’s eyebrows were every bit as fierce as his brother’s, despite his tendency to smile often when in company with his countess.

“You couldn’t deal dishonorably, not if you sprouted horns and a tail, you couldn’t. Still, I’m surprised Greymoor said anything.”

“He assumed the rights of a protective brother.” Alice reached a hand toward Ethan’s thigh then dropped it. “Your wife must have been quite something.”

She wanted to touch him, not simply sit beside him in the moonlight, and yet, she wanted to hear what he had to say, too.

“I chose very, very poorly, as did she. I like where your hands were, Alice Portman, so why don’t you touch me while you talk to me?”

He took her hand again, but only set it over his groin, then let his own hands fall away. Alice traced the considerable length of him, the breadth, trying to visualize what her hand stroked.

“I want to see you,” Alice said. “Really see you.”

He said nothing. Just unbuttoned his falls and then let his hands return to his sides. How long had he been waiting for her to ask?

“Look your fill. Some women find the sight alarming.”

“I’m not some women,” Alice said, regarding his lap dubiously. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Though why she’d bring up the topic now was a puzzle.

“You told me you’re not without experience, Alice.” Ethan stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “I couldn’t consider joining with you, otherwise.”

“I have more experience than I wanted,” Alice said on a sigh. “Or the wrong experience.” Her hand shaped him again, but still only through the loosened fabric of his breeches. “That scandal we haven’t talked about? I need to let you know the particulars.”

“If you need to. Only if you need to.”

The words caused her heart to lurch painfully but sweetly too. She could love a man who placed entire authority over such a topic in her hands, one who cared not one whit how wicked and sorry her past had been.

“You really don’t want to know, do you?” Alice drew her hand away, only to find Ethan’s fingers closing around her own and bringing it back.

“I have suffered some scandal,” he replied, closing his eyes as if to savor her touch. “And once somebody knows those things about you, it can become a burden between you. Heathgate…” He paused while Alice slowly drew down the flap of his falls then eased him out of his smalls. “Heathgate has that kind of knowledge of me. I’d relieve him of it if I could.”

“You’ll tell me.” Alice stroked a finger over the velvet head of his member. God in heaven, he was magnificent. “Someday?”

“If you want to hear.” He kept his eyes closed as Alice’s finger—just her finger—circled the soft, soft skin of his crown. Gently, Alice’s hand closed over his shaft.

“Tell me how to please you, Ethan,” Alice whispered. “I want to know how to please you.”

Thirteen

This was not what Ethan had planned when he’d brought Alice here, though it was what his body had planned the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Ethan closed his hand over Alice’s and taught her the easy, loose stroke that pleased and aroused in equal measures.

“But not faster or tighter, or I’ll spend.” He was going to spend, but he’d rather not lose control until he had the privacy of his rooms. Alice was a lady, not some doxy, and while not a virgin, she apparently lacked experience.

“This feels good to you?” she asked, shifting her grip slightly.

“Divine, but slow down, Alexandra. It can be too good.”

A considering silence, while Ethan’s arousal strained at the leash of his self-discipline.

“There is no such thing as too good. Let me pleasure you, Ethan. I want to.”

“Shouldn’t,” he muttered, letting his head fall back and his hips move in counterpoint to Alice’s strokes. “Kiss… Please, kiss—” He opened his eyes, searching for her. Thank all the gods of the night, she knelt up beside him and gave him her mouth. More roughly than he intended, he palmed the back of her neck and opened his mouth beneath hers, devouring her as his free hand cupped her breast.

She returned his kiss fiercely, growling at him as she knelt above.

That growl sang like an angel chorus through Ethan’s body.

A man gave up hope sometimes, because it was the only way to preserve his sanity. Ethan Grey had long since given up hope that desire might ever again be driven by not just his body, but also his heart.

When he kissed Alice, when he gloried to feel her hands upon him, he kissed hope itself. She was not simply a woman to him; she was Alice. She was all manner of pleasures and possibilities long since forsworn, and her touch said he could be that for her too.

“Holy…” His hand fell away, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief. “Perishing… Almighty… Alexandra…” His hips shoved hard against Alice’s grip, and his fingers closed over hers, forcing her to hold him snugly. His last coherent thought was that he should have tried harder to make this moment last.

“Oh, God… love.” His hips went still, but he kept his hand wrapped around hers, while his forehead fell to Alice’s shoulder. “Forgive me.”

“Hush.” He felt her lips against his hair. “Just hush.” She used her free hand to locate his handkerchief. Male passion was not a tidy business, and it took her handkerchief as well as his to deal with the aftermath.

“Was that comfortable, to be held so tightly at the end?”

Ethan gave her a weak smile. “Pray God you hold me that tightly often and soon.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Do you forgive me?”

Her expression shuttered as she folded up the handkerchiefs. She wasn’t overly fastidious—one more thing to treasure about her. “Forgive you? I do not comprehend the transgression.”

“I was selfish and vulgar and grossly… ungentlemanly,” Ethan began. “I did not plan this, Alice.” His hand traced her jaw. “I want it to be perfect for you. I want to be perfect for you.” That was a troubling realization, for he was doomed in every attempt at the goal.

“Perfect would be boring. This wasn’t boring.” She slipped her hand over his cock where it lay meek and receding against his groin. “I coupled with Mr. Durbeyfield once,” she said, her voice detached. “It did not stir me. He hiked my skirts and pushed around a bit while breathing leeks on my person. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was awkward, and hardly worth marrying for.”

He should be incapable of responding, given how she’d sated him, and given this peculiar turn of conversation. He was a brute, a boor… a man sharing the summer moonlight with his lady. “If you keep that up, you’ll be stirring me.”

“I would like to stir you.” Alice gripped him more firmly. “For it stirs me to see you so… overwrought.”

Spare me from determined women, Lord, but not quite yet. “I should have more control next time,” Ethan said, “and you should have less.”

“Less?” Alice cocked her head. “Control over what?”

“Slow down, sweetheart,” Ethan said, bringing her closer for a kiss. “At least let me pet you a little.”

“Pet me?” She drew back. “I’m not a cat.”

“No, but I want you to purr like one. Put away your toy for now, and let me have some time with mine.” Even in the shadowed moonlight, Alice’s features were fraught with misgiving.

Ethan spelled it out for her. “You wanted to give me pleasure. Will you allow me the same?” Fairness apparently won him what coaxing might not have, because Alice nodded once then drew in a breath, as if he’d called upon her to recite.

“What must I do?”

Trust me. “You must be honest with me. I want to learn what touches you like more, which you like less. I want to learn how to please you, and how to not offend you.”

How to pleasure her. He wanted to learn that more than he’d wanted to learn anything, ever.

“Offend me?” Alice regarded him curiously.

“Leeks,” Ethan said. “Leeks can offend.”

“I see.” She shifted and rested her back along the wall of the gazebo. Ethan sat beside her, his genitals half-exposed in his rumpled clothing. He started to tuck himself up, when Alice’s hand on his stayed him.

“I didn’t really look at you before. Mr. Durbeyfield wasn’t so obliging.”

“I can be very obliging.” If it killed him, he could be as obliging as she needed him to be. Slowly, Alice drew him from his clothing again. “If you tell me Mr. Durbeyfield taught you how to bring a man off, I’ll kill him. I won’t call him out, I’ll flat murder him.”

And this was not hyperbole.

“You taught me to do that, to bring a man off.” Alice stroked over him with curious, delicate touches. He was rapidly growing hard again, despite his every attempt to think of… the smell of wet chickens, tomato aspic, the feasibility of growing peaches commercially.

“Where are you in your cycle, Alice?”

He should not have asked that. Should not. Next he’d be asking her if she knew what a sheath was.

“I would need to consult a calendar. Did you like it when I brought you off?” She used the vulgar term as if trying to decide how it translated into Latin.