Ravished by the Rake Read online

  Dita surrendered to his skill and to the sensation. She made no attempt to stifle the moans of pleasure as he began to suck and tease and nibble at the hard, aching knots, his hands cupping and caressing her breasts, lifting them to his hungry mouth. They were alone at the top of her fairytale tower and nothing, now, was going to stop the full consummation of their love.

  It seemed the most natural thing in the world to be here, naked, with Alistair, all pretence and misunderstanding stripped away. She felt no shyness when he lifted himself on his braced arms to gaze down at her, nor alarm when he lay back beside her and began to caress her breasts again, then her belly, then the sensitive mound with its tangle of dark curls.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ he said. ‘We have made love and every time, it seems, there has been no time, or our emotions were getting in the way of knowing each other.’ He slid down the bed and parted her thighs. She opened to him, blushing a little as he touched her there, opening her with gentle fingers. ‘So soft and plump and wet.’

  Dita closed her eyes as one finger slid between the folds, exploring intimately. She tightened around him as he eased a second finger into the aching heat, but it was not enough—she wanted him, needed him, there. She tried to say so, twisting, lifting her hips, and he chuckled, a wicked, affectionate sound, and did that thing with his thumb that made her gasp with pleasure.

  ‘Now, Dita?’

  ‘Yes.’ He moved up her body, covering her and she wriggled to cradle him, relishing his weight and the sensation of leashed power in the muscles she could feel tense under her spread palms. ‘Now,’ she urged as she felt him nudge against her, large and hard and potent. ‘Oh, now, Alistair.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said as he moved and she gasped at the sensation, still not used to lovemaking. But the pressure, the fullness, were exciting and she arched against him, wanting more, wanting all of him. He lowered his head to take her mouth and surged and they were one again and she laughed against his lips and felt his smile curve in response.

  He was right; there had been so many things wrong when they had made love before—guilt and secrets and anger. Now she could think of nothing but Alistair’s body, hot and strong and relentless, driving into her with a rhythm that was as elemental as the sea and as dangerously exciting. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of his body and the tang of their mutual arousal and her ears were filled with the sound of their breathing, the roar of her blood.

  She felt him lift away, his arms braced. It pressed his pelvis tighter into hers, drove him impossibly deep within her and she opened her eyes to see he was watching her, his tiger eyes burning gold with passion. She was so tense it was painful, so tight that she felt she would die of it. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Let go, Dita’, and everything peaked and then untangled in an explosion of pleasure and she lost herself in it, in him—drowning, yet safe.

  Dita woke and found herself hot and sticky and entangled in Alistair’s arms, pressed as tightly against his body as she could be. ‘Mmm,’ she said, eyes closed, kissing damp, smooth skin and working out that it was his shoulder.

  ‘Awake?’ He lifted the hair away from her face and she wriggled round to smile up at him. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you, too. Which is,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘an extremely satisfactory coincidence.’

  ‘I think satisfactory may be an understatement,’ Alistair said. He rolled her gently on to her stomach and began to lick his way down her spine. ‘What a very lovely back you have,’ he mumbled, his voice indistinct as he kissed the sensitive dip right at the base. ‘Let us try something very, very slow.’ He slid one hand under her, found the place that gave such exquisite pleasure and began to tease it, his other hand holding her down.

  ‘Oh, peaches,’ he said, nipping the swell of one buttock with his teeth while she whimpered and writhed. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

  ‘Yes! No … Oh … no.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Dita said. She had no idea what the time was, but the shadows were lying long across the floor and the breeze from the open window was cooler now.

  ‘Ravenous,’ Alistair said. He was lying sprawled on his back, one arm flung across his eyes. ‘You have exhausted me, you witch.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Dita rolled over, propped herself up on one elbow and cupped her fingers around the weight of his testicles. ‘Look—you have woken up.’

  ‘Food, you bad woman,’ Alistair said, and sat up to swing off the bed before she could tease any more. ‘Is there water?’

  ‘Cold, but I expect that’s no bad thing.’ Dita got off the bed, too, conscious of stiff muscles and a not-unpleasant awareness of her insides. ‘Here, in the dressing room.’

  Half an hour later they returned to the library. ‘We’ll go down, shall we?’ Alistair said ‘It isn’t fair to ask them to haul a big dinner for two up all these stairs.’

  She was feeling far too happy to mind the studious way the footmen ignored the fact that Alistair had appeared, apparently out of nowhere, and the smooth way in which Gilbert announced that a dinner for two was even now in its final stages of preparation.

  Alistair’s valet came in as they were settling in the salon to wait for the meal to be served. ‘A package has arrived for you, my lord. It seem to have been delivered after your departure from London and they had it sent down, post haste, in case it was urgent.’

  Alistair turned the small parcel over in his hands. ‘A London post office stamp and no seal impressed in the wax. I wasn’t expecting anything.’ He opened it, shedding several layers of brown paper and stared at what was revealed. ‘Dita, look at this.’

  It was the small oval box that she had given him. ‘Open it,’ she urged and he slid back the lid to reveal the Noah’s Ark animals still packed tight inside. ‘Is it the same one?’

  In answer he turned the lid over and showed her the initials, AL. ‘I marked it.’ He took out the little carvings and shook the box. A few grains of sand fell out. ‘It has been wet—see the stains on the wood?’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘I left it on the table in the cuddy. I had been showing it to Mr Bastable before dinner. It could have escaped the wreck and been washed out and on to a beach somewhere. But who would know to send it to me? And why anonymously?’

  They eliminated everyone they could think of by the time dinner was announced. ‘All the survivors took ship back to the mainland and no one on the islands would know it was mine.’

  Dita twisted the miniature figure of Noah in her fingers. ‘Averil?’ They stared at each other, silent with the weight of speculation. ‘I felt that she was still alive,’ Dita murmured at last.

  ‘A mystery.’ Alistair took the scrap of wood from her and put it back safe in the box. ‘We have had our miracle—perhaps, after all, against all the odds, Averil has experienced one, too. We can only wait and see.’

  They were sitting at a small oval table, close enough to touch. Dita looked up and caught the butler’s eye. ‘Gregory, would you all kindly leave us for a few minutes?’ They filed out, expressionless, and she got up, walked around and placed her hands on Alistair’s shoulders from behind, bending down to rest her cheek against his.

  ‘It is a miracle, isn’t it?’

  He put up his hands to capture hers. ‘A miracle that we’re alive, that we’re together, that we love each other. Every day from now on is going to hold that magic for us.’

  ‘And every night,’ she whispered in his ear.

  ‘Oh, yes, my love. Believe it. Every night.’

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication o
r any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  First published in Great Britain 2011

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Melanie Hilton 2011

  ISBN: 978-1-408-92352-8

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Copyright