by Brenda Joyce
Hadrian grimaced and rode off to find her, wondering what could have possibly happened now. Five minutes later he came upon her a mile down the trail, where it was still wooded and shady. She was walking her mount, in no hurry at all. He rode directly to her. She saw him and the air heated up and sizzled between them.
“What happened?” he said brusquely.
“He picked up a stone.”
The Duke abruptly slid down from his black, trying to concentrate on the issue at hand. He handed his reins to Nicole without a word, but their fingers brushed. He cursed silently, kneeling beside the big black gelding and picking up its hoof. “It’s not too bad, but he should be walked back.” Finally, his gaze lifted to meet hers.
She stood very still. Her cheeks were flushed from the wind and the sun and her eyes were silver and bright.
“I will walk back with you,” he said, handing her the reins and taking those of his stallion.
“You don’t have to,” she said, not moving.
He didn’t answer. He was too aware of her. He moved ahead of her with long, purposeful strides, as if to outwalk her. He heard her following.
They walked in absolute silence, only the breeze in the trees making any noise. Yet Hadrian knew not only that she was behind him, but that she was just a few feet away and to his right. He could feel her presence and something else, something he was too experienced not to recognize, the heavy sexual tension that was enthralling her as much as it enthralled him.
Why did he want this woman so much? Was it because she was forbidden to him? Was it because she was so different? Was it because she was, on the one hand, so proud and strong, and on the other, so vulnerable? He wanted an answer, but knew he would not find one.
He was sweating. He wanted to rip his coat off but he was suffering from arousal and he did not want to expose it. To expose himself and his own sad lack of control. He closed his eyes briefly, telling himself that if he did not have control, he was nothing more than a beast. No more than Francis. He had managed to fight the temptation she offered these past weeks, he must not surrender now. While he fought with himself, he listened acutely to her: to her footsteps, to her soft, slightly shallow breathing. And finally it was Nicole who broke the silence.
“Why did you come back here?”
He stopped abruptly, but did not turn. His hunter pawed the ground restlessly. “It occurred to me that, after your performance earlier today, you might have done something else as reckless and as rash.”
Nicole had paused too, abreast of him. “But why did you come back?”
He faced her. “Foolishly I thought you might be in some distress.”
She smiled.
He grimaced.
“You came back to rescue me.”
The Duke did not deny it. “Apparently it is a new habit of mine.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You minded the other day.”
She looked him in the eye. “No, I didn’t. That was a sham.”
They stared at each other. The moment was pregnant with too many possibilities. It was too intimate. The Duke shattered it purposefully. “You rode like a maniac today. Tell me, are you always so reckless? I begin to fear that you are.”
Her chin came up. She had opened her jacket and her lush bosom heaved. He remembered that she did not wear corsets. “I did not. I am an excellent rider and I took no real chances.”
“No real chances? You took every chance! One day you’re going to kill yourself!”
Her voice, when it came, was whisper-soft. “Do you care?”
He was not able to answer, he refused to answer—refused even to inspect his own feelings. “There is a stream off of the trail,” he said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “You must be thirsty. Let’s water the horses and have a drink.”
The stream was just a few minutes from the trail. Both horses were now cool enough to drink and they eagerly lowered their heads to the water. The Duke stood apart, unmoving. Nicole dropped to her knees and unabashedly began cupping water in her palms, drinking thirstily.
He watched her. Again he was struck by how she was everything the ladies he knew were not. She drank with abandon, spilling as much water on her shirtfront as she managed to imbibe. Then she splashed her face, briefly lifting it to the sunlight seeping through the trees. He was as unable to take his eyes from her as he was unable to stop wanting her. Suddenly aware of his regard, she stilled and looked up.
There was awareness in her gaze. Awareness and anticipation. He knew she would not refuse him, not today, not now. Hadrian found himself walking toward her. His heart was hammering, a dull roar in his ears that shut off any protest he might mentally make to himself. Slowly she rose to her feet.
His hands closed over her arms. “Tell me no.”
She shook her head, denying his request. “Yes.”
He covered her mouth with his, all of his resistance crumbling in that precise moment. There were no games, now, no pretenses, not for either of them, and Nicole instantly flung her arms around his neck, clinging. Hadrian embraced her as if she were something wild and precious which he had caught and which at any moment he might lose.
Their tongues mated in fierce abandon, a prelude to how they, too, would soon mate.
They sank down to their knees in the wet, loamy bank. He could not claim enough of her. His hands moved over her jacket, pushing it open. Her soft cries encouraged him. He pushed her onto her back, delving into her shirt and the chemise she wore below. He touched her bare breast.
He let her flesh fill his palm and overflow. He was a quiet, controlled lover, but now he wanted to groan like an animal, he wanted to express his profound pleasure. He did not, stroking her ceaselessly instead, aware of the feeling of explosive need—and heady jubilation—rising up in him.
Nicole gasped in pleasure as he ran his hands over her flesh, over her hard, tight nipples. When he pushed her clothes aside and lowered his face to her breasts, another groan escaped her.
He had to at least call her name, he had to. “Nicole.”
She clutched at his longish hair, at his head. “Hadrian.” It was a sigh.
He did not pause, teasing her distended, yearning flesh with his mouth and tongue. “Tell me to stop.”
“No. Don’t stop, Hadrian, don’t ever stop.”
He closed his mouth on one pink tip and at the same time closed his mind to the knowledge of what he was doing. Nicole arched off of the ground. He sensed how precipitously she hovered near her climax and his body went wild in response. Not being the kind of lover who freely murmured endearments and promises, he made his promises with his body.
Promises which, in a saner moment, would be impossible to keep.
Nicole began returning his caresses aggressively. Her hands were on his skin, beneath his shirt. His own hands were sliding up under her skirts, along her cotton-clad thighs. She cried out his name when he touched her. Never had his name sounded so wonderful before.
Determination to see her fulfilled in his arms swept him. He would do everything in his power, too, in order to achieve this. Sweat beaded his brow. “Die for me, Nicole,” he commanded, touching her, kissing her.
Soon he was rewarded. She cried out, arching in abandon in his arms. He felt her spasms, strong and rhythmic and intense against his palm. And when she had stilled he felt an intense satisfaction which he had never experienced before.
She looped her arms around his neck. “Oh,” was all she said.
That one word conveyed everything. It had been her first orgasm. She was not experienced. She was undoubtedly a virgin. She was certainly Lady Shelton. The Duke’s gaze swept her, from her flushed face to her spread thighs, where her skirts were tossed up high on her waist. He had been about to reach for his trousers, to free himself, but his hand was frozen. Now was not the time for his conscience to intrude, reminding himself of who she was—and who he was. But it was too late. He closed his eyes, fighting himself. Thinking too clearly.
He had given her her first climax, and if this continued, he would be her first lover. It was so very wrong.
Without a sound he wrenched himself away from her, flinging himself onto his back in the wet, muddy grass.
Nicole sat up. She was shaken to the core of her being. Although she was certainly more knowledgeable than most young women as far as the topic of sex went, she had never even considered the possibility that it could be an earth-shattering experience. Still breathless, she looked at the Duke of Clayborough.
He lay on his back in the muddy grass, as stiff and unmoving as a board, except for the fact that he was panting and out of breath. Nicole remembered how abruptly he had moved away from her and she understood that while she had experienced all that lovemaking could offer, he had not.
She trembled, her gaze sweeping over him. He was the most magnificent, virile man she had ever laid eyes on, and seeing him in such a state of raw desire fed her own hunger, a hunger she had thought assuaged. Something else swept her too, something sweet and aching and terribly tender. “Hadrian?” she whispered, love rising up and flooding over her in one swift, absolute tide. She touched his cheek.
He jerked away from her and was on his feet in one lithe movement. “Don’t touch me!”
She recoiled, shocked by the anger in his tone, and by his rejection.
“And don’t look at me as if I’ve just kicked you in the ribs!”
Nicole stiffened. “I’m sorry.”
He ignored her, striding to the stream. She could not help but notice that he was still aroused. He waded into the middle of the brook and plunged beneath the water’s surface.
Nicole cried out. The water was frigidly cold. He was mad! “Hadrian,” she gasped when he rose to his full height, shivering. “You will catch your death!”
“You will be my death.”
She regarded him uncertainly. “Do you mean…the death you once referred to…what happened today?”
“No! That is not the death I mean!”
“Why are you so angry? What have I done?”
“Everything,” he growled, his gaze sweeping over her.
That did not explain anything to Nicole, and she watched him submerge himself again in the icy stream. Slowly she got to her feet, terribly afraid that they would not be able to recover the warmth and intimacy which they had just shared, for a chasm leagues deep already seemed to be opening between them. She must do something to defuse his inexplicable anger and she must do it quickly. She picked up his jacket, and when he stood again, the water cascading down his lean, hard body, she said, “Come here.”
The glance he gave her was rude, but he waded from the stream, shivering anew. Nicole placed his jacket on his shoulders, rubbing him as if it were a towel she held. He snatched the coat from her and removed himself from her touch. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he snapped.
Was she? “Would that be so terrible?”
“You are the only woman I know who would ever admit to such a thing. This is not right!”
“When we’re together,” she said, very softly, “nothing is more right.”
He stared at her. His gaze was inscrutable.
Although her manner was bold, inside she was quaking, because so much was at stake. She approached him, touching him. This time he did not move away. “Why did you pull away from me just now? I am not a complete fool. I know that there is more. Don’t you want me?”
For a long moment he did not speak, and Nicole was afraid of his reply. “I wish I did not want you,” he finally said tightly.
He did not seem happy about the matter. Apprehension filled her. She touched him again, taking his hand. “I want you, Hadrian. I still want you.”
He did not pull away from her, standing completely still. “You are merciless. Can you not see I am trying to be noble?”
“Right now I don’t give a fig about nobility,” she murmured, her hand tightening on his.
He pried her palm from his. “This is intolerable, it cannot continue. I take full blame for what has passed. Virgins are for marrying, not for this.”
She was unable to keep the hope from leaping in her breast. He knew she was a virgin, was he implying that he should marry her? His feelings had seemed as intense as hers, surely there was more involved than just desire. Would he break it off with his fiancée now that he realized how he felt? Would he offer her marriage? “I cannot continue this way either. I cannot stand being apart from you.”
“If you still think to seduce me, you are doing an admirable job.”
Nicole stepped back. His words had the effect of a whiplash, physically hurting her. “Is that what you think? I thought…I had hoped…” She trailed off, realizing, in a way, that he was right.
He paced away from her. She watched him. He paced restlessly in a tight circle, back and forth, back and forth. Certain he would not agree to what she was suggesting, Nicole said tentatively, “I can return to Dragmore, and we can never lay eyes upon each other again. That is one solution.”
He turned toward her. “That is the ideal solution!”
Nicole gasped.
“I had thought, too, that was what you were planning to do, the last time we spoke.”
He wanted her to leave. He wanted her to leave London so he could not see her. It couldn’t be possible, not after the intimacy they had just shared. Surely she was misunderstanding his meaning.
“Why didn’t you leave?” he demanded.
Nicole’s wits were scrambled, and he had to repeat the question. “I…I was going to. My parents asked me to stay.” Horrified, she felt the heat of tears rising in her eyes. “They hope I will re-enter society and be a big success.”
His square jaw tightened. “And is that what you wish? Do you now seek a husband?”
She looked at him, a golden god except that he was flesh and blood and mortal. She had wanted to marry him the moment she had first laid eyes upon him. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Then I wish you all the luck.”
He was not going to propose to her. He wished her luck in finding a husband—someone other than himself. Nicole reeled as if struck. The Duke moved to catch her, but she shrugged him off and hurriedly turned away so he would not see how devastated she was. How could he care so little, when it had seemed that he cared so much? Did she mean so little to him after all?
“I am nothing to you, no more than a passing amusement.”
“I made it clear from the first that you could not have any expectations from me.”
Nicole whirled. “Bastard!” she spat. It was the first time she had ever used such a dirty word, and she was glad to see that she had briefly shocked him. “Is that why you came looking for me today—to lift my skirts in the woods?”
“You know that is not true.”
“Do I?” Her voice rose, she knew she sounded hysterical. She was hysterical. “I know only what has happened here today! You tell me I should expect nothing from you—yet you behave in a manner that leads me to expect everything!”
“I consider myself a beast.” He did not take his eyes from her. “I am, after all, my father’s son.”
Nicole turned away, shaking in hurt and rage. “God, I hate you!”
“Then that makes two of us,” he said, so softly that she was sure she had not heard him correctly.
“I am getting out of here,” Nicole said, striding toward her mount.
His hand whipped out and he caught her arm. Angrily Nicole pulled herself free of him, daring him with her furious regard to ever touch her again.
“You can not return to the house like that,” he said. “You look as if you have been tumbled in the dirt.”
“But I was, wasn’t I?” she said mockingly.
“Not quite,” he gritted.
“Oh yes, however could I forget your nobility!” She started to mount, too angry and upset to think about her hunter’s sore foot. The Duke caught her again and this time dragged her away from the horse.
“What are you doing
?” she screamed, all of her emotions exploding.
He lifted her in his arms. “Not what you are thinking,” he said coolly.
With a savage cry, Nicole writhed and tried to slam her fists into his face. He ducked, but he needed both hands to carry her so he could not defend himself, and one blow glanced off of his chin, “That is the third time you have struck my face,” he said darkly.
“But not the last,” Nicole replied furiously.
But just before her nails could rake his skin, he released her, and she plummeted into the icy water of the stream. She gasped, sinking like lead below the surface, managing to close her mouth before she swallowed too much water. Before she could react, she felt him hauling her up above the surface by her collar. She gasped air, air, sputtering, while he dragged her to the bank. She sank to her knees, and he began pounding hard on her back. She spat up the water she had swallowed.
She turned her gaze upon him. It was murderous. “Now I will kill you.”
His arms were crossed and he regarded her with no emotion at all. “You fell back from the group and decided to water your horse. I came looking for you. Your mount shied, you fell in. I came in after you.”
Her only answer was an inarticulate sound of impotent rage.
On their way back they were met on the trail by two grooms who had been sent to look for them. The Duke promptly told them what had happened, or rather, the story he had concocted. Since he and Nicole were wet, they took the boys’ fresh mounts and left one of the grooms behind to walk back Nicole’s injured hunter.
When they arrived at the house, several guests were still in the courtyard, discussing the morning’s adventures. They were greeted with relief and concern. Again the Duke related the story he had invented and no one doubted a word of it. Not, of course, until they entered the house.
Isobel was hovering anxiously in the parlor that adjoined the foyer, and the moment the Duke and Nicole entered she hurried to them. Her glance went from Nicole to her son. “What happened?”
“Nicole’s mount shied and she fell into a stream. I had gone back looking for her, and I went in after her,” the Duke said matter-of-factly.