and capturing her mouth with his.
Not a soft or gentle kiss, either, but that of a man who deeply desired the woman whose body was pressed so intimately against his own, the throbbing of Alexander’s body increasing to an almost painful degree as Angelina rubbed herself sensuously against the hardened length of his erection.
If he wasn’t careful, this young woman was going to drive him out of his wits!
Alexander wrenched his mouth from hers, his eyes dark and stormy as he pushed her away once more. “You must get to bed now. Alone!” he added quickly when he saw her face light up expectantly. “We will talk again in the morning.” He marched forcefully from the bedroom to close the door firmly behind him.
Angelina was not at all perturbed by Alexander’s abrupt departure. No, she was not perturbed at all. Alexander St. Claire was everything and more that she could ever have wished for in the man who was to be her protector.
So much so that Angelina believed her heart may already have forgotten Miss Bristow’s warning as to the wisdom of falling in love with one’s protector …
CHAPTER FOUR
“IS IT NOT A GLORIOUS DAY, Xander!” Angelina prompted brightly the following morning as she breezed into his bedchamber shortly after nine o’clock.
There was a stirring beneath the bedcovers. “What the—!”
“But, of course, you cannot see how beautiful a day it is when your curtains are still drawn.” She crossed to the windows and pulled back both sets of curtains to allow in the bright sunlight. “There.” Turning back to the bed, she smiled warmly at Alexander as he attempted to sit up against the pillows.
The long darkness of his hair was endearingly ruffled from sleep, the deep brown of his eyes slightly unfocused and his face harshly beautiful in the sunlight. The bareness of his chest, with its light covering of dark hair, was also revealed as the bedclothes fell down to his muscled stomach when he sat up abruptly. Making Angelina curious as to whether Alexander might not be completely naked under the bedcovers.
“Good morning, Xander,” she greeted huskily as she crossed quickly to the bed to sit down beside him.
“Exactly what time of morning is it?” Alexander’s initial confusion with this intrusion into his bedchamber was fast evaporating as he recognized that intruder.
“It is a little after nine o’clock, I believe—”
“Nine o’clock!” he repeated thunderously. “What do you mean by waking me at this time? What do you mean by entering my bedchamber at all uninvited?” he added harshly. “Damn it, Angelina—”
“Angel,” she reminded.
He scowled darkly as he omitted to call her anything. “You should not enter a gentleman’s bedchamber in this brazen manner, let alone at this ungodly hour!”
She gave him another enigmatic smile. “You are scowling again, Xander.”
“Of course I am scowling!” he snapped impatiently. “I have been woken before it is even daylight by a young lady who—Good God, what is it that you are almost wearing?” He had been admiring the long fall of her un-confined golden curls when she suddenly flicked her hair back over the slenderness of her shoulders and he instead noted her attire. Or lack of it!
“Do you like them?” Angelina stood to give an obviously excited twirl so that she might show off her nightgown and robe.
Did Alexander like them? A certain part of his anatomy certainly appreciated the cream-colored garments, most especially the way the already sheer material was made almost transparent by the sun shining behind and through it. Attire surely more suited to a brothel than a bedchamber?
More importantly, to Alexander’s bedchamber! “Where did you get them?” he grated through clenched teeth as he held the bedcovers firmly over the swell of his arousal. This young woman was surely going to be the death of him—no doubt from the repeated and frustrated battering his self-control had suffered since she appeared so suddenly in his life the evening before!
Angelina appeared undaunted. “Miss Bristow accompanied me into Brighton and helped me choose them.” She beamed happily.
Miss Bristow again!
Alexander was fast coming to the conclusion that he wished to ring Miss Bristow’s overly instructive neck!
It was she who was responsible for Angelina’s lack of inhibition, and for the low neckline of Angelina’s gown and robe as it revealed the half-exposed pertness of her breasts above a slender waist and curvaceous thighs.
Alexander felt himself throb anew as he imagined parting those slender thighs to his avid gaze, his caressing hands, before pleasuring her with his lips and tongue until she screamed—
No, damn it, no!
Angelina was already under the mistaken impression that Alexander intended making her his mistress. If he were to seduce her, as the increasing ache of his penis told him he was so longing to do, then he knew he would be well and truly lost, totally enslaved by her beguiling loveliness!
He viewed Angelina through narrowed lids. “What sort of woman was this Miss Bristow?” Certainly not a lady, if her teachings to Angelina were anything to go by! What had Hopkins been thinking by placing a sixteen-year-old Angelina in such an establishment? Perhaps, knowing of Angelina’s background, the man had mistaken Alexander’s eventuaal intentions toward her.
“Oh, she’s a wonderful woman, Xander!” Angelina moved to once again sit beside him on the bed. “Very much a lady.”
“A lady!” Alexander repeated scornfully.
“Oh, but she is, Xander.” Angelina frowned. “She insisted on teaching ‘my young ladies,’ as she called us, all the social graces as well as our normal lessons. We had to learn to embroider, paint and play the piano before she would even consider telling us about our own sensuality.”
Alexander eyed her warily. “Your own sensuality …?”
Angelina gave a husky laugh. “Miss Bristow saw no reason why a woman should not enjoy the bedding as much as the man, and with that in mind—”
“Enough!” Alexander rasped as he held up a protesting hand.
Angel smiled warmly. “Many of the other girls thought some of the things Miss Bristow explained to us to be quite impossible, but I was sure that the right man—you, Alexander—would be interested in ensuring that I also experienced pleasure in our lovemaking …”
“Stop, Angelina!” Alexander said forcefully, realizing he would have to attend to having Angelina’s disruptive presence removed from St. Claire House as soon as possible. If he did not, he was sorely in danger of giving her that “pleasure” she spoke of so openly!
“Well … perhaps not now,” she allowed. “But tonight, once we have become better reacquainted …? Miss Bristow was at great pains to tell us lovemaking should be a mutual pleasure. Of all the senses. Vision. Touch. Hearing. Smell. As well as taste.” She licked her tongue slowly over the firm swell of her bottom lip as she said the latter.
Alexander found his gaze mesmerized by the eroticism of her tongue’s movement, in that moment easily able to imagine Angelina lowering her head to caress his erection in the same way.
Dear God, he ached intolerably just thinking of Angelina doing such things with him!
“Cease and desist, Angelina!” he muttered agitatedly. “And kindly remove yourself from my bedchamber at once. As I am now fully awake I may as well take my bath.” He glared at her.
She stood slowly, the sunlight once again making the material of her nightgown and robe transparent. “Perhaps I might help you with your bath, Xander, and we could become better acquainted in that way? I could wash your back and chest and—other things.” She threw back the bedclothes to fully expose the