Chapter Thirty
Nicholas closed his fingers around hers as if she were something precious and pulled her gently to her feet.
The walk up the stairs felt not like walking into battle, but toward surrender. The hallway was empty, the house muffled around them. A maid passed at the far end of the corridor, eyes downcast, veering away. Bea’s cheeks burned. Nicholas’s grip on her hand tightened, reassuring.
At the top of the second flight, he led her to a door at the end of the corridor. He opened it and stepped back, letting her enter first.
His bedchamber was large and masculine, all deep blues and rich woods. The bed dominated the space—wide, high, curtained in dark fabric drawn back to show linen sheets. A fire burned low in the grate, filling the room with a soft glow.
Bea hovered just past the threshold, heart pounding.
Nicholas closed the door behind them and locked it with a quiet click.
“No one will disturb us,” he said.
“How comforting,” she murmured faintly.
He came around to face her.
“I know what this looks like,” he said. “I know what it is. I will not pretend this is honorable. But I also know that nothing in my life has ever felt as right as you walking into this room.”
Her throat worked. “I chose to come up here.”
“Yes,” he said. “And I’m infinitely glad you did. Come here.”
She did.
The moment she was within reach, his arms went around her, drawing her against his body with a hunger that stole her breath. His mouth found hers again, and she stopped thinking.
The kiss turned fierce, almost frantic, as if some shared instinct told them this was the last moment they might pause, question, retreat.
His hands slid down her back, over the curve of her hips, to the small of her spine.
He pressed her closer, and she recognized the hard, unambiguous evidence of his desire against her belly.
She gasped. His mouth swallowed the sound.
Her fingers fumbled at his waistcoat, pushing it back off his shoulders. It landed somewhere behind him with a soft thud. His shirt was next. She slid her hands beneath the fine linen, palms skimming over hot skin, muscles jumping under her touch.
He groaned into her mouth, a low, rough sound that made her toes curl.
Her hands found his muscled abdomen, and she pressed her palms flat against him.
“Bea,” he said against her lips, “if you keep doing that, I’m going to forget my own name.”
She smiled shakily. “Then I shall call you Nicholas, and you won’t need to remember.”
His answering laugh broke on a breath as she traced the line of his spine, feeling every inch of him. He pulled back just enough to look at her, breathing hard.
“You are going to be the end of me,” he said.
She thought wildly that she wouldn’t mind being the end of him if it meant she could also be everything in between.
Instead of saying any of that, she reached for the fastenings of her gown.
His hand caught hers.
“Let me,” he said.
The words sent a shiver through her.
She nodded, suddenly shy in a way she hadn’t anticipated. He turned her gently, so her back faced him, and his fingers went to the row of small buttons that marched down her spine.
He didn’t rush.
She felt each one, a tiny loosening, a gradual surrender. With every bit the gown gave, more of her skin met the air, and more of her reason fled.
His knuckles brushed her bare back. She shivered. He bent, pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss between her shoulder blades. Her knees nearly gave out.
Nicholas didn’t undress her all at once. No, he took his time, kneeling beside the bed and sliding off one glove, then the other, with slow precision. “I want to unwrap you like a forbidden gift,” he murmured, “and savor every part of you.”
He slid a hand under her skirts again, not to tease this time, but to remove them.
His fingers worked at the ties, the fabric falling away piece by piece.
The buttons at the back of her gown. Her stays.
Her shift. Her stockings. His hands reverent, his mouth trailing kisses along her ribs, the underside of her breasts, her belly.
“You’re exquisite,” he whispered, brushing his lips over the curve of her hip. “A goddess hiding in plain sight.”
She made a helpless noise and reached back to clutch at the bedpost for balance. At last, the gown slid from her shoulders and pooled around her feet in a whisper of silk. She stepped out of it, feeling more exposed than she ever had in her life, even though her chemise and stays still covered her.
“Turn around,” he said softly.
She did.
The way he looked at her then unraveled the last of her composure. No mockery. No smugness. Just heat and awe and a tenderness she had not been prepared for.
“Bea,” he whispered.
She turned, crossed the last step between them and kissed him, and the rest blurred, the tug of laces, the rustle of linen, the shock of his skin against hers, the way he groaned when she pressed herself full-length along the hard lines of his body.
She didn’t know exactly how they reached the bed. Only that his hands were on her, reverent and greedy; that his mouth traced a path down her throat, across her shoulders; that his breath grew ragged as he whispered her name.
Nicholas had her back pressed to the mattress in mere seconds. His jaw was at her neck, and she shuddered as he whispered in her ear, “Shall I touch you?”
Her answer was a glare, but her chin tipped up…defiant, aroused, glorious.
He took it as permission.
His fingers on her thighs slowly moved toward her center, and she gasped.
“I only need one word from you,” he rasped, the rough skin of his jaw sliding against her soft neck.
The only sound was her panting.
“Say yes, Bea. And I’ll give you pleasure you’ve never known.”
“Yes,” came the one word, unmistakable.
Nicholas let his finger find her then. Slide to the spot she most needed him. This woman was far too fiery and proud and beautiful to have never been given an orgasm until recently. She deserved another one. Immediately.
The moment his finger found the soft little nub of flesh, her head fell back to mattress, and she whimpered. His finger found the aching nub nestled in her folds and stroked…softly at first, featherlight, the barest brush of sensation that made her eyes flutter closed and her mouth part on a sigh.
Her panting increased, her gorgeous breasts rising and falling. He moved his head down to suck one succulent nipple into his mouth. But first, he was going to watch her face as she came on his finger. With nothing more than his touch guiding her to ecstasy.
He increased the tempo, watching as pleasure-pain streaked across her perfect features. Her brow knitted. She bit her lip.
“Do you like that?” he growled in her ear. “You want more, don’t you?”
All she could do was whimper in response. And when her hand moved down to grab his arm, at first, Nicholas worried she would push him away. But her hand clamped over his wrist. By God, she was holding him to her, making sure he didn’t stop.
She gasped again—part moan, part breathless anticipation—and that’s when he found her. Slick and warm and already trembling for him.
He slid one finger inside her deep heat.
“You feel that?” he growled. “How wet you are for me? Christ, Bea. You’re soaking. You want this. You want me.”
She couldn’t speak, only nodded, her body taut like a bowstring.
“I could make you come right here,” he murmured, circling that sensitive bud with maddening precision. “Right now. With nothing but my fingers.”
Her head thumped back against the mattress with a soft thud. “Nicholas…”
“That’s it,” he breathed, picking up the pace. “Let me hear it. Let go for me, darling. Let me ruin you.”
His free hand caught both of hers and pinned them above her head. Her body writhed against his, and he pressed closer, pinning her completely, his rough thigh between her smooth ones, his mouth at her jaw, her throat, her ear…everywhere.
“Tell me what you want me to do to you,” he whispered, his breath hot against her skin. “Say it.”
“I want…” Her voice cracked.
He nipped her earlobe. “Say it.”
“I want you to make me feel like you did last night.”
“You want me to make you come.”
“Yes, make me come,” she repeated breathlessly.
He groaned. “You do not know what those words do to me.”
He stroked faster, firmer, watching her face as he worked her toward the edge. Her brows knit. Her lips parted. She whimpered, then moaned, then bit his shoulder.
“Do you like that?” he rasped. “You want my mouth on you next? My tongue in place of my fingers? Like last night? You taste so good, my sweet Bea.”
She whimpered again. Her wrists strained against his hold.
“No,” he said. “I can’t let you touch me. If you touch me right now, I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do next.”
She frowned, but stopped trying to pull her wrists away.
“Good girl,” he growled, a feral grin spreading across his face. “You want it rough or gentle? Fast or slow? Shall I make you scream, or will you be quiet like a proper lady while I make you come again and again?”
She was shaking now, her entire body shivering with tension, her hips bucking against his hand.
“Look at you,” he said, utterly wrecked by the sight of her. “All undone. And I’ve barely begun.”
He leaned in close, teeth grazing her jaw. “After this, I’m going to spread you out and savor all of you. I’ll have your thighs over my shoulders, your hands in my hair, and my name on your lips until you forget your own.”
She let out a strangled cry, half shock, half desperate need.
“Oh, yes,” he growled. “I know. First, I’ll take you from the front.
Smooth and easy and slow. And then I’ll take you from behind.
Have you bent over the bed, over my desk—hell, over the pianoforte if you like.
Anywhere. Every way. As many times as it takes until you forget every other man who’s ever looked at you. ”