Starlight (36 page)

“You do this to me.” She bit the stiff tendon that climbed his neck. Sparks dashed behind her eyelids when he grunted. Each press of teeth pulled a different noise from him. She feasted on skin and sound. “Alex, you drive me mad when you fuck me.”

“Bloody Christ,” he gasped.

“I want everything you can give me.” She shook, so near to her release. “Now, my love. God,
now
.”

He rasped a strangled sound. His hips stiffened on a deep drive. He shook from thigh to shoulder, and ground his head back into the pillow. Polly thrust two fingers between her thighs. She closed her eyes and took the image of his bliss with her into the dark. Her body jerked, a long sigh eased clear of her lips, and the dark exploded into a brilliant field of white.

As full morning lit the ceiling, Alex lay still, remembering the myth of Helios riding across the sky in his chariot. The ancient Greeks had believed him the personification of the sun’s blaze from east to west. Alex had never put stock in mythical explanations of how heavenly bodies moved or how they
were created. But he’d read stories from the Greco-Roman, Norse, and Egyptian canon to his younger sister, Vivienne, when she’d first arrived at their father’s New York brownstone. Barely eight years old and half wild, speaking only French, she had surprised them all by quieting for Alex when he read.

So he’d learned myths for her. Their power was in binding him to the sister he adored.

With Polly curled against his side, her breathing quiet, he wondered how Viv fared in Cape Colony. Or Gwen, his little ray of sunshine. Or Gareth, so full of potential and mirth. Alex missed them dearly and owed them all letters, even as he awaited news from them. Only to Vivienne, however, would he confide the wonder and uncertainty of that morning.

I’ve married, Viv. She’s penniless, mulishly stubborn, occasionally vulgar.

Burying his nose in Polly’s hair, he breathed deeply. The tightness that had been lodged in his chest since childhood was no longer so easy to find. He had to search for that reflexive morbidity. He wanted to be free of it now. Polly had given him a gift and a goal he’d never knew he needed.

But, good God, Viv, she’s beautiful and terribly clever.

And how she makes me feel . . .

Polly stirred gently. Her hands gripped his waist, even though her eyes remained closed. She hummed a contented sound as she blinked to full wakefulness.

Alex kissed her forehead. “Good morning.”

“Mornin’.”

“Your accent is almost impossible when you’re groggy.”

“Och. No teasin’ now.”

But she was smiling already, as if daring him to do just that. To keep teasing until nothing mattered other than gathering more and more of her radiance.

Viv, you really must meet her.

I love her.

He touched two fingers to his lips and smelled Polly’s scent. On his skin. Threaded through the sheets and in the air. Oh, yes, he loved his new bride.

Yet why did he hesitate in telling her? Perhaps because he had forced her to wed. He had taken her from her home, and had taken from her the calling that defined so much of her life. And through it all, he kept the secrets of the mill masters. She would not forgive him for that.

More time. He needed more time to set everything to rights. Then he could confess the emotions that banged so fiercely in his heart. He would say it out loud and turn this capricious union into a lasting one.

She sat up and stretched. The pose offered him a breathtaking view of her back, where lush, vibrant hair trailed down to just below her ribs. Tempting twin divots marked the tops of her buttocks. With her arms over her head, she arched slightly, reminiscent of the way she’d arched while riding him. In three-quarter profile, her breasts stretched upward, too. Her nipples were pert and upturned, just like the tip of her nose.

Alex traced his hand up her side. He barely touched that soft flesh before she collapsed in a heap of giggles.

“So there’s your ticklish spot,” he said.

Pulled tight into a ball, she peeked out from beneath the shield of her hair. “Impossible man. I didn’t know what sort of monster I’d awaken.”

“Never poke a bear while it’s sleeping.”

“A bear?” She giggled again, then flipped her hair aside. Hands interlaced over his chest, she rested her chin atop them. Magnetic green eyes—eyes he’d been lost to for a long time—looked up at him with lurid delight. “You do rather remind me of one when you take your clothes off.”

“Excuse me?”

She pushed her fingertips into his chest hair. And scraped him. She smiled at his soft hiss. “No one would ever guess you hide this lovely body beneath your business suit. So strong. But you’ll give yourself away if you let that beard grow.”

Alex rubbed a hand over three days’ growth on his chin and cheeks. He’d never been lazy about his appearance, but other concerns had eclipsed his regular priorities. “I’ll shave.”

Polly frowned slightly.

“What?”

“I wish you didn’t have to,” she said. “It felt . . . wonderful.”

“Where?”

She blinked, seeming aghast. Only for a moment. “On my tits, love.”

Alex grabbed her around the waist. “Foulmouthed temptress.”

“Or you could always call me your wife. That works, too.”

Both of them went still. Their gazes locked. They hadn’t spoken about
any
of it—just went about their separate days and joined in breathless passion at night. Two married people lived under that roof, but they had yet to acknowledge the fact.

He sat up. “I’ll look like just another Scotsman if I keep the stubble. Seems my father passed on a touch of ginger I hadn’t known was there.”

Polly wasn’t letting him go. Up on her knees, she curled along his back. Breasts, stomach, hips. All for him. He felt the urge to shout for joy—and run to hide. He’d never known a woman more bent on having what she wanted. Clever hands mined the hard, tense places along his upper back. He remembered that long-ago evening at Idle Michael’s when she’d tended to his scrapes and cuts. How could he have known what pleasure yet awaited them? The groan she pulled out of him was completely unavoidable.

“But I
like
Scotsmen. They look burly and strong, like I’d be protected forever.” She pressed her lips down along his nape. “Isn’t that what you’ve offered me, Alex? What you promised my da?”

He turned his head and caught the back of hers. They kissed like that, as if they couldn’t even wait to face each other. Desire he’d thought thoroughly sated swelled so suddenly that he forgot to breathe.

This was what he’d been missing. All he’d never had.

“Yes,” he said against her wet lips—that lovely wide mouth with its teasing mischief. “It’s what I promised.”

She mussed his hair and climbed off the bed with
the enthusiasm of a girl half her years. But she wasn’t smiling anymore. A sense of foreboding he couldn’t ignore gathered like a cloud over his happiness.

“Polly? What is it?”

“I’ve spoken to Tommy,” she said. “Since the wedding.”

He froze in the motion of sitting up. That meant she’d ventured into Calton, while he’d been arguing with men of business or bending over the journals that blur into lines of ink. He’d just . . .
assumed
she would stay home. His instructions had been for her own good, but he’d been a fool to believe Polly would give it all up. Knowing her history with Tommy added a surprising edge of jealousy.

“Why?”

Green eyes flashed before she hid them away, looking out the front window. She still wore no clothes. Was she doing it on purpose? The effect was undeniable. He traced the line of her buttocks even as his mind burned with a hundred terrible possibilities.

“He wanted to meet me because he’d heard we were married. I needed the chance to explain myself.”

“Who told you where to find him?”

“I’ve known where he was.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t about to hand him over to the police, now was I?”

She finally grabbed his dressing gown. If she’d planned to hold this conversation while nude, she thought better of it now. Yet Alex did not breathe
easier. He pushed off the bed and shoved his legs into a pair of trousers.

“I had no need to tell you,” she continued. “I’m not a prisoner here. And besides, it wasn’t your business.”

“My mill nearly burned to the ground. You’ve been hiding the prime suspect. Then you sneak out of my house like a fugitive, to meet a man who
is
one. Jesus, Polly, you make it damned hard to keep you safe when you run through Calton looking for trouble. So tell me. How the hell is that not my business?”

“Your mill. Your house. Your business. And now I’m
your
wife. I’m to be dragged along with no say in anything! There’s a difference between being protected and being claimed by a tyrant.” She tossed her hair back. That God almighty stubborn chin volunteered to lead her resistance. “Speaking of tyrants, you might be interested in something he heard. Something about how the masters are set to decrease wages to compensate for recent losses.”

This was it. She knew.

Alex ran his hands through his hair. Feeling dangerous and barely in control, he stalked across the bedroom. He wanted to shake Polly until she begged and apologized—for what, he didn’t know. For turning him inside out? For making him regret the decisions he’d needed to make?

“Tommy’s not wrong,” he said at last.

Her laugh was a ragged, pathetic thing. “But not you. I told him that you’re different. Give me that much, Alex.”

She looked at him with a hope he could not honor. Just as he’d feared, he was out of time. He shoved his surprising, amazing desires into a box and closed it. Locked it. Buried it.

“The decision was unanimous,” he said soberly. “For the sake of the mill, I need to stand with the other masters.”

“You
sided
with those bastards?” Hurt registered so plainly across her dear face. Skin illuminated by the gathering sunlight pinched around her mouth. She pulled into herself, tightening the robe, hunching her shoulders. “For how long? How long have you been pretending to give a good goddamn about finding out the truth? Or about helping the weavers?”

He stared her down. She was as angry as he’d ever seen.
Good
. Because he was about to explode. “Since the morning before we saw the aurora. I agreed at the meeting that followed.”

“So tell me, was spending time in Calton just a lark? You shouldn’t have been an astronomer or an industrialist, Alex. You should’ve been an actor, because I believed you actually cared.”

Alex snagged her chin and held fast, even when she tried to jerk away. “And you,
wife
. I actually believed you wanted to learn the truth about the fire. How long have you been hiding Tommy?”

“Weeks. And a good thing, too. He’d have been hanged before being given a chance to defend himself. You saw what the police did to stitch me up. I dare you to argue he would’ve been treated fairly.” Alex felt her teeth grind together beneath his fingertips.
“In the meantime, you lied just long enough to twist me into this bloody marriage.”

He grasped her upper arms. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy this morning and I’ll call you a liar right back.”

“Let go of me! You don’t like being called a master, yet look what you’ve become. You’ve taken everything from me! I
trusted
you.”

“I can understand relenting for the sake of your family. Marrying me would protect them. Christ, I even encouraged that.” His mind rebelled against the memory of her daring words and how eagerly he’d drawn them in, like a lad with his first filthy fantasy. He clasped his fists at his side, standing silent and still in the bedroom that shared their mingled scents. “But did you marry me for the union?”

Those beautiful lips, still swollen from his kisses, tilted into a sneer. “Had I wanted anything from you that badly, I would’ve jumped at the chance to marry you. I’d have tattled to my da after our first fuck.”

“No, you knew exactly how to play me. Sex and innocence and prying under my skin.”

She slapped him. The shock banged through Alex’s skull. “I don’t recall dragging you into a factory office and forcing a kiss. Yes, I talked with Da about approaching you, getting to know you better. We needed that opportunity, just like you needed information from me. So don’t you dare tell me this was some sordid trickery.”

Polly rubbed her palm while Alex rubbed his cheek. “To think,” she said, breathless now, “I defended you! To everyone! I told Tommy outright that you wouldn’t side with those fat cats and their
greed. You believe you’ve been taken as a fool, but that worthless honor is mine. You thickheaded
idiot
. I fell in love with you! I’ve sat in this house like a prisoner. Waiting. I’ve shared your bed and your body every night. Still waiting.”