Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Julia already knew the answer to her question. Of course she did. On the basis of what Nicholas had already told her, she would be very silly not to know. But she needed Nicholas to say the words anyway. To have him tell her the truth.
“Four years ago, I was already an established figure in Society. As such I was aware of many of its secrets,” Nicholas continued instead of answering her question directly.
“Publicly, at least, I was known as an unattached gentleman. So it was agreed that I was in the privileged position of being able to interact with both the gentlemen who frequent the same clubs as I, and the ladies at Society events.”
“Flirting and having affairs with those Society ladies, you mean,” Julia accused.
His jaw clenched. “Only if you choose to look at that situation in so rigid a fashion.”
Her brows rose. “What other way is there to look at a situation where you admit to seducing women for the information you hoped they might share with you?” she scorned.
Nicholas’s nostrils flared. “I admitted to flirting, but I did not say I have ever bedded any woman for the sake of the Crown. I am loyal to the King, the Prince Regent, and to my country, but I am not willing to whore myself for any of them in order to gain information on their behalf.”
Julia’s cheeks felt heated again. “The ladies of Society say otherwise.”
“To hell with what those ladies say.” Nicholas moved so that he was half sitting beside her in the bed, his jaw tight, his eyes as dark as night.
“I am telling you that, no matter what any of those ladies might claim to the contrary, I have never bedded nor had sex with any woman in order to seduce information from her about her husband or her friends or relatives. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe me?”
Julia gazed up at him searchingly, seeing the anger blazing in the depths of his eyes and the temper visible in his flushed cheeks. Those brown eyes dared her to disbelieve him.
“I believe you,” she finally murmured. “But I am curious as to why those ladies would claim such a thing when it is patently untrue?”
“Pride.”
“Pride?”
He nodded, his mouth twisting. “The ladies you are referring to would never want to admit to their friends, after we had indulged in a public flirtation, that they had not been privately seduced by the Earl of Wolfingham when so many others claimed to have been.”
Julia frowned. “But you could so easily disprove their claim by announcing it to be a lie.”
“I never have,” he drawled.
“No,” Julia acknowledged slowly. “Have you never indulged in carnal pleasure?” Impossible to think this could ever be true when Nicholas was so handsome, charming too, when he wished to be.
He winced. “Is there a right or wrong answer to this question?”
“There is only a truthful one.”
“Well, then, of course I have indulged,” Nicholas admitted. “But not for some time and never with any lady in Society.”
Julia’s cheeks were hot because of the subject they were discussing, but she was determined to learn all that she could while Nicholas was willing to talk. “Why not?”
“Because three years ago, the lady to whom I am betrothed had her sixteenth birthday.”
Her eyes widened. “You have not…indulged these past three years because of me?”
“No.”
It sounded too good to be true to Julia.
A Julia who had discovered during this revealing conversation that she very much disliked the idea of Nicholas being intimate with other women.
That, in fact, no matter what she had told herself in the past, this jealousy had been at the very root of the distrust she had felt toward him all these years.
“But those other ladies still confided private things to you about themselves and their husbands?” she persisted.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“In the hope of persuading me into seducing them.” His grimace showed he was not being conceited in that claim. “And, on occasion, those husbands who believe themselves to have been cuckolded by me have paid thugs to attack me, or they have personally challenged me to a duel.”
She gasped. “The Prince Regent has outlawed duels.”
Nicholas smiled wryly. “And gentlemen with more stupidity than sense will always circumvent that rule. I have a knife wound in my shoulder and two scars from bullet holes, one on my chest and one on my back, to prove it.”
Julia stared at him with wide and shocked eyes. “Will you show me?” she invited huskily.
“I made a promise to myself that I would only reveal those scars to my fiancée or wife.”
“Of which I am neither,” she acknowledged heavily.
“I could make an exception,” he continued lightly. “If the lady asking me to bare myself to her assures me there is a great possibility, even a certainty, of her becoming my fiancée and my wife in the near future, then I believe I could be persuaded into unfastening my nightshirt.”
Julia giggled. “My father’s nightshirt.”
“Hm,” Nicholas acknowledged ruefully as he looked down at the voluminous garment. “It is the least attractive piece of clothing I have ever seen or worn.”
“What do you usually wear to sleep in?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh.”
He chuckled. “Your father and uncle thought the nightshirt more proper in front of the servants.”
Julia eyed him quizzically, appreciating this talkative Nicholas, at the same time as she knew there were still questions between them that needed to be answered.
“Is it because you were, and still are, a member of the Prince Regent’s personal secret army that you did not join any of Wellington’s regiments fighting Napoleon? ”
The humor immediately faded from Nicholas’s eyes. “I was of more use to the Crown by remaining in London Society.”
She winced. “Was your family aware of what you were doing?”
His jaw tightened. “A secret must be kept exactly that if it is to remain a secret.”
“You did not tell them,” she realized heavily.
“No.”
“But if Freddie had known, perhaps he would not have behaved so recklessly and joined a regiment himself!” she accused.
A nerve pulsed in Nicholas’s jaw. “Perhaps.”
“Why have you told me not just your own secret, but also that of four other gentlemen, two of them my father and uncle?”
His smile was mocking. “Because now that I have done so, my only choices are to kill you or insist you marry me.”
“Nicholas!” she admonished.
“At last…” He stared at her with warm chocolate-colored eyes. “It is the name you always call me during my sexual fantasies.”
Julia gasped, her cheeks burning. “You have had sexual fantasies about me…?”
“Constantly,” he confirmed. “I have done so for some time,” he admitted softly.
She gazed at him with wide eyes. “How long?”
He shrugged. “Since it was legal for me to do so.”
“I do not know what to say…”
“Perhaps we have said enough words for now?”
Had they? Julia certainly felt as if they had shared enough for one night. Too much so, perhaps, now that she had all that secret knowledge rushing around inside her head.
“I should very much like to kiss you,” Nicholas admitted huskily.
Julia would like that too. “As I would like to kiss you. But I should also very much like to see the scars upon your chest and back.”
Nicholas’s heart soared at the thought of what Julia’s request might mean for their future. It was not exactly an acceptance of their betrothal, but nor was it any longer a complete rejection of it either.
“I am going to remove this never-ending nightshirt now,” he said dryly. “Will you remove your own nightgown for me?” he requested softly as he sat up to pull up the nightshirt and tug it over his head before discarding it onto the floor.
* * *
Julia was mesmerized as she stared at the naked width of Nicholas’s chest. A light dusting of hair surrounded the dusky nipples before veeing down his abdomen and then lower still.
She could see two scars on the front of his body, the long, thin one obviously made by a knife, and the puckered one where a bullet had struck him.
When her gaze moved lower still, she froze and simply stared at his naked cock. Long and thick, it curved up, the bulbous and blood-engorged glistening tip almost touching his navel and surrounded by yet more dark hair at its base.
He held out his hand to her. “Julia.”
Her throat moved, and she swallowed hard as she continued to hold his gaze as she slowly pulled up the material of her nightgown before removing it completely. Her chin rose as she stood naked before him.
She heard Nicholas’s breath catch in his throat. “Dear God, you are even more beautiful than I imagined,” he finally managed to choke out. “Come to me, Julia. Please.”
She ignored his outstretched hand as she instead quickly climbed onto the bed, her moment of bravery over. Now she desperately needed to pull the covers over her nakedness.
Nicholas was having none of it, instead throwing the bedcovers aside and moving so that he was now above her and lying between her parted thighs. He held her gaze for several seconds before lowering his head and claiming her lips with his.
He had kissed her before, but this was deeper, more intense. Her neck arched as she parted her lips to allow his tongue entry, as aroused by the passion of those kisses as his groans said that he was.
He raised his head. “You taste delicious.” His breath was hot against her skin as his lips kissed a trail of heat down her throat to the hollows at the base of her neck.
The rasp of his tongue felt deliciously arousing against her flesh as it moved lower and he kissed and suckled her nipples.
The unfamiliar sensation sent shockwaves of pleasure surging through her, and she hungered for more of that same intimacy.
But Nicholas slid lower down her body instead, his hands on her hips as he held her legs apart.
Julia’s back arched the moment she felt the rasp of his hot tongue between her thighs. “Nicholas—”
“Trust me,” he urged, hands still on her hips. “Please, trust me, Julia,” he encouraged gruffly.
She did. Despite all that had gone before, all that still lay unresolved between them, Julia knew that she trusted Nicholas completely to control their pleasure.
She answered him by allowing her legs to relax and fall farther apart.
Nicholas growled in acceptance of her surrender, lowering his head again to kiss and lathe the wet lips between her thighs and the sensitive nubbin nestled in the folds above.
Julia had never experienced anything like this before. The waves of pleasure, the surrender in the act, the trust necessary to allow such intimacy. She gave it all to Nicholas at that moment.
And he gave her back previously unimagined heights of ecstasy as he took her to the pinnacle of that pleasure and beyond.
Not just once, but over and over again.
“Let me touch you now,” she finally pleaded, sure that his cock must be ready to explode.
“Watch me instead,” he encouraged as he turned onto his side and took his cock in hand, the stroking up and down the length resulting in a viscous release from the slitted top. A release that he used to lubricate those increasingly fast strokes.
“I want to taste you as you tasted me,” Julia pleaded. “Please.”
Nicholas studied her for several seconds before nodding. “Come down here to me then, and I will show you what to do.”
She would probably be a little embarrassed by her eagerness to comply once she could think beyond this moment, but for now, she could only slide down the bed to where her face was mere inches from Nicholas’s cock.
It was even thicker and longer now, with that viscous release coating the blood-red top.
Julia didn’t wait for Nicholas to guide her; instead, she instinctively lowered her head and took that bulbous tip into her mouth. Her own groan mixed with Nicholas’s as she tasted the salty earthiness of his release.
Her movements were instinctive as she curled her fingers about his length, stroking up and down as she sucked on the mushroomed top.
“I am not going to last— I am going to release, Julia!” Nicholas warned seconds later.
Julia’s answer was to suck his cock harder, rewarded seconds later with the first of the hot and flavorful spurts of his release. She continued to suck and stroke until she was sure she had drained him dry.