Chapter Twenty-One
The carriage rolled past the first stretch of park walls, the city sounds dimming, the air turning greener, quieter. Somewhere outside, a horse whinnied. Hooves clipped. Distant laughter floated like something harmless.
Inside the carriage, everything felt…not harmless at all. First, Nicholas moved to sit next to her. Then he shifted again—just enough that his knee brushed hers.
Bea went very still.
Nicholas’s eyes dropped for a moment to the point of contact, then lifted again, dark, assessing. “You’re tense.”
“I am not.”
“You are,” he said softly. “It’s rare.”
Bea’s eyes flashed. “Stop talking.”
Nicholas blinked, delighted. “Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, expression the picture of attentive obedience. “As you wish.”
Bea narrowed her eyes. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you can be obedient.”
Nicholas’s smile sharpened. “On the contrary, if you wanted obedience, you should have chosen another suitor.”
“You are not my suitor. I am not marrying anyone!” Bea snapped.
Nicholas’s gaze dipped to her mouth again, slow and deliberate. “Who said anything about marriage today?” he murmured.
Bea’s breath stalled.
Because suddenly she understood what he was doing—exactly what he had done in the coach yesterday.
He was taking the thing she refused to say out loud and laying it between them like a dare.
Fun.
Temptation.
A kiss without consequences.
But did she dare? Especially now that he clearly suspected she was connected to B. Adroit?
Bea’s fingers curled around her reticule so hard they ached. This wasn’t only about Nicholas. It was about drawings—and her revolt. She wouldn’t trade those things for a few moments of pleasure, no matter how tempting.
But was it possible to have both?
“Take care.” Nicholas’s voice lowered, velvet-smooth. “If you’re going to glare at me like that, you’ll set my coat on fire.”
Bea tipped her chin. “Then step away before you burn.”
Nicholas’s mouth curved. “You don’t want me to step away.”
Bea held his gaze—steady, unblinking. She exhaled once, slowly, and let the decision settle in her bones. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”
The carriage hit a small dip in the road, rocking them. Bea’s shoulder brushed his—an accident, nothing more.
Except Nicholas didn’t move away.
And this time she didn’t retreat.
His hand lifted, hovering for a beat near her cheek as if he were asking permission without words.
Bea stared at it.
At him.
At the wicked patience in his eyes, as if he were willing to wait all day for her to admit what they both knew.
Her throat tightened with the sheer maddening pull of it—the way he could be clever and kind one moment, and then unapologetically seductive the next.
First, he had made her feel as if she mattered.
And now he was making her feel as if she was wanted.
Bea swallowed.
Nicholas’s thumb brushed her cheek—barely a touch, barely a claim.
Bea’s breath shuddered.
“Say it,” Nicholas demanded.
Bea glared at him. “Say what?”
“What you want,” he replied, voice low, eyes steady. “Just once. I won’t have you accusing me of forcing you into anything. You want this as much as I do. I know it.”
Bea’s entire body felt too hot, too awake, too alive.
She looked away for half a second—toward the curtained window, toward the safe world outside.
Then she looked back at him.
At his mouth.
At the faint curve of his smile, as if he already knew how this would end.
Bea’s pulse thudded. “Oh, shut up,” she hissed.
Nicholas’s eyes gleamed brighter. “Gladly.”
Bea leaned in, furious at herself for doing it—and furious that she wanted to do it even more. But if she kissed him, it would be because she decided to—because for once she wanted something without thinking about it endlessly first.
“Shut up,” she said again, closer now, a hot whisper, “and kiss me.”
Nicholas’s smile vanished. Not into softness. Into something sharper. Hungrier. As if she’d finally given him permission to stop pretending this was a game.
“Yes,” he murmured.
Nicholas’s hand slid slowly along her hip, not fumbling, not presumptuous—asking and guiding all at once. He wanted her to feel every moment, to understand why she was trembling. And he wanted to make her tremble even more.
His lips brushed against hers, softly at first, but not tentatively. Merely playful—an easy, testing touch that stole her breath and then gave it back. He wanted to hear her decide to take more.
Bea’s fingers tightened on his coat, not pulling him away, not yielding entirely either—holding him there in that delicious, undefined middle space.
“Still glaring?” he murmured against her mouth.
“Still talking,” she whispered—and then she lifted her chin and met him properly.
Nicholas made a low sound that wasn’t quite laughter. His mouth slanted over hers again, lingering this time, tasting rather than teasing. He nudged at her lower lip—once, twice—patient, a man with all the time in the world, until Bea parted for him with a moan.
“That’s it,” he breathed, guessing that praising her would make her furious enough to give him exactly what he wanted.
It did.
Bea kissed him back with sudden heat, a sharp press of mouth to mouth that turned his indulgent control into something ragged.
Nicholas’s hands slid to her face, steadying her as the carriage rocked, fingers splaying along the curve of her jaw with quiet certainty.
He deepened the kiss, slow at first—drawing it out, letting her feel every shift of pressure, every careful drag of his lips over hers, until her breath stuttered.
Bea’s palm flattened against his chest. His heartbeat pulsed under her glove—too fast for a man who liked to pretend nothing could touch him.
“Again,” she demanded when he broke away just a fraction.
Nicholas’s eyes gleamed. “So commanding.”
“Do it,” she whispered.
He did.
Nicholas kissed her again, mouth opening on hers as if he meant to devour her stubbornness at his own unhurried pace.
One hand moved down to her waist, and a thumb stroked there once—an almost absent caress that sent heat curling through her.
Bea made a small, traitorous sound and surged closer, closing the space completely.
She was done with courtesy and consequences.
Nicholas’s breath hitched. The next kiss was not playful at all.
It was hungry—still controlled, still deliberate, but edged now with the kind of need that made a man forget to be clever.
His fingers slid up her side, catching lightly in the fabric at her ribs, and Bea’s hands went up—one to his shoulder, the other slipping into his hair at the nape of his neck before she could stop herself.
It was absurdly soft.
Nicholas went still for half a heartbeat, as if he were startled by the intimacy of it.
Then he groaned, low and helpless, and the kiss turned molten.
His hand slid to the back of her head, not forcing, not trapping—guiding. His fingers threaded into her hair, loosening pins with a skill that suggested far too much practice, and Bea’s pulse skittered at the realization even as she clutched him harder.
“Nicholas,” she breathed into his mouth, a warning she didn’t quite mean.
He answered by kissing her more deeply.
His tongue traced the seam of her lips in a slow, coaxing stroke—an invitation more dangerous than any command.
Bea shivered, then opened for him with a fierce, reckless decision, and Nicholas took it—tongue to tongue, warm and intimate and unpardonably delicious.
The kiss became a tangle of breath and heat, his mouth moving with patient certainty as if he meant to teach her exactly how far pleasure could be taken in the space of a few stolen minutes.
Bea’s fingers tightened in his hair, tugging just enough to make him curse softly against her mouth. She felt his smile there—wicked, satisfied—and she bit his lower lip in retaliation.
Nicholas made a sound that was pure approval.
The carriage lurched gently over cobblestones, and they rocked together, foreheads nearly touching, mouths still chasing, refusing to let the kiss end.
Nicholas’s hair was mussed beneath Bea’s hands, falling out of its perfect order; Bea felt her own pins giving way, strands slipping loose around her face.
When Nicholas finally pulled back, it wasn’t far. Just enough to breathe—just enough to look at what they’d done.
Her lips were swollen. Her breath was uneven. A lock of her hair had fallen across her cheek, and Nicholas—still too close—tucked it back with a thumb that lingered at the corner of her mouth.
Bea glared at him out of habit.
Nicholas’s eyes flicked to her lips, then up again, dark with triumph.
“You’ve ruined my hair,” Bea said, voice unsteady.
Nicholas’s smile was slow and sinful. “I’m just getting started.”
Her only answer was a delighted smile.
His hand moved—slowly, deliberately—to the neckline of her gown. He hesitated only a second, seeking her eyes. She didn’t look away. She didn’t stop him.
He tugged down the edge of the fabric, revealing the swell of her breast above her chemise.
Her breath stuttered.
He lowered his head.
Her hands flew to his hair…but she didn’t push him away. She held him. Urged him.
Nicholas pushed her back down onto the seat, as his lips closed around the hard peak of her nipple through the thin linen.
His mouth was warm and teasing at first, then sucked her with deeper intent as she arched into his wet heat.
A trembling sigh broke from her throat—quiet, shocked, utterly undone.
He groaned at the sound.
He drew the fabric lower, just enough to bare her fully, and his mouth covered her again—hot, hungry, reverent. His tongue circled the little bud, slow and decadent, and she gasped, her fingers tightening in his hair.
“Nicholas…” she whimpered.
He dragged his mouth along her, tasting, savoring, letting every suppressed desire he’d been carrying pour into each heated stroke of his tongue.
She writhed beneath him.