Nicholas hated to be the cause, but he had to stand up for himself. “I can’t turn my feelings off. I will be your friend, always, but I can’t do this to myself.”
“I’m hurting you,” she said. There were tears at the edges of her words.
“It’s all right. I just can’t go through with it.”
She ducked her head, worrying the sleeves of her shirt. “Would it hurt less if you knew I loved you?”
The air grew thick around him and the room suddenly felt ten degrees warmer. “Do you?” Please let it be true. Please let it. He could live a thousand scandals, survive whatever was in front of them, if it were true.
“I need you—as much I need Julia. And in a different way. When you’re around, I feel safe. Like everything’s been made right. And when you’re gone I don’t entirely feel like myself. And I want you. Desperately. So yes. I think that’s what that means.”
“Say it.” He needed to hear it from her gorgeous, perfect mouth again.
Her lips curved up and her forehead creased. She sounded it out slowly, like a foreign language she wasn’t sure of. “I love you.”
Nicholas pulled her into his arms, sliding his hands down to the small of her back. “It hurts much less. It might not even hurt at all.”
“Say it back to me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Unless you don’t. If you don’t, you don’t have to.”
Nicholas laughed. “How can you doubt it? I’ve said it a hundred times.”
Amelia looked at him with uncertainty in her eyes. “Never to me.”
Was it true? Had he told everyone on earth except Amelia? He had so much to make up for. “I love you, Amelia Bishop. I have loved you every day since the day we met. And I will love you long after I am gone from this earth.”
She blushed under her mask and it was breathtaking. “That’s quite poetic.”
“I’ve had a great deal of time to work on it.”
“Will you kiss me now?”
He lifted her hat from her head, tossing it on the bed. When he untied the strings of her mask she tilted her face up to his. “Yes.”
“Will you do other things with me now?” Amelia’s hands slid down his chest, popping the first of his buttons free.
“That depends.” Nicholas pushed her shirt free of one shoulder. It fell to her elbow, exposing one exquisite, pale breast. “It might start to hurt again. I shall need you to keep telling me.”
“I love you,” she interrupted.
Nicholas covered her breast with his palm. Her lips parted. The peak of her nipple tightened and raised against his hand.
“I love you.”
Nick brushed his thumb across it. Amelia’s surprised inhale filled him with a deep satisfaction. He dropped his hand back down to her waist and lowered his head. He took her nipple between his teeth, teasing it with his tongue.
“I love you,” she gasped.
He pushed the other shoulder clear, baring her to the waist. Amelia moved against him. He pulled her closer, easing his thigh between her legs. He covered the newly bared breast with his palm while he continued to pay homage to its twin with his mouth.
“Nick,” she said again, a demand this time.
He smiled against her skin. “We have plenty of time, Mia.”
“But I want—”
“You’ll have it. I promise.”
She gave in, leaning back to give him unhindered access. Nicholas took full advantage. He worked them both into a fervor as he worshipped each tiny detail of her breasts. When he finally lifted his head, she pulled him back down and claimed his mouth for her own.
It was a desperate, breathless kiss. Amelia was trying to communicate a need she didn’t have a name for. There was a hollow, aching void inside her. More than tingles, more than pleasant friction. She needed Nicholas in places he couldn’t possibly be. She wanted him inside her, around her, surrounding her. All she had was their joined lips and mingled tongues. She used it, trying to fill herself with him as best she could. It wasn’t enough.
He knew. Amelia felt his muscles flex and she was being lifted. Her legs wrapped around his waist. His hands molded themselves to her backside and then the mattress was at her back. Soft, downy pillows framed her head and Nicholas rested above her. She was surrounded.
“I love you.” She said it as a demand, kissing him again.
Nicholas ground his hips against her, pressing her further into the bed.
Ecstasy.
He pushed against her, matching the rhythm of their tongues to the rhythm of his hips. Amelia buried her hands in his hair. She pulled, urging him on. Urging him closer. She bit his lip. Nicholas bit back.
“I love you,” she begged.
He sat up, pulling off her boots. Amelia tore at his shirt. He shrugged it off along with his jacket. She took a moment to admire the beauty of him. Hard planes and angles that rippled under her touch, like he was the one on the brink of coming apart instead of her. The buttons of her trousers gave way under his hands.
It was the strangest feeling as he pulled the fabric clear of her legs. She was completely naked. The feeling of being so exposed made her want to cover herself, but the expression of admiration in Nicholas’s eyes made her want to fling her limbs wide and let him look his fill. She settled for doing neither. “You still have your clothes on, and I am completely naked.”
“I like you completely naked,” Nicholas teased. “And I don’t want to frighten you.”
What a ludicrous concept. “Why would I be frightened?”
“It might be a bit surprising.”
“I should think so, but it’s still you, isn’t it?”
He grinned. “Yes, it is still me.”
“Then I couldn’t be frightened by it.” The one thing on this earth she would never be frightened of was Nicholas.
He took a deep breath. The buttons of his trousers came free one by one and he pushed the fabric past his hips.
Oh my. Amelia couldn’t stop her eyes from going wide. She’d seen sketches of Michelangelo’s David, but Nicholas’s manhood was so much more…upstanding. It was very like the men she’d seen in the ballroom. For some reason, she’d thought they might be anomalies based on the perversity of their activities.
“Are you all right?”
“I am.” Amelia sat up on her knees to get a closer look. “Are you? Does it always stick out like that?”
“Not always.”
“What makes it…” Amelia made a raising gesture with her hands.
Nicholas’s smile was lopsided. “Beautiful women. Friction. Inconvenient timing.”
It was too interesting not to investigate. Her hand hovered above it. “May I?”
He took a deep breath and nodded.
Amelia ran her fingertips across the length of him. It was fascinating, hard and soft at the same time. She closed her hand around him, squeezing as she marveled at the combination of velvety soft skin and rigid core.
Nicholas groaned. His hips flexed, pushing forward into her closed fist. The look on his face was something she’d never seen before. Amelia repeated the motion, dragging her closed fist to the head and back down to the base. He gasped out loud.
Truly fascinating. She did it again.
Nicholas’s hand flew out, grasping her shoulder. “Amelia.”
“You like that.” It wasn’t a question. She repeated the gesture.
“God, yes.” His eyes were closed and he was taking deep breaths.
“Does it make you tingle?”
He smiled, but his expression was tense, almost tortured. “And then some.”
The effect she was having on him made her bold. It was a powerful feeling. “Where?”
He took her free hand, cupping her palm gently around the soft orbs between his legs. “There.”
Amelia tested them with her hand. They were nothing like anything she’d ever felt before. There was no rigidity there, like liquid forced to choose a form. Nicholas reacted to every movement. H
is fingers tightened on her shoulder.
Testing a theory, Amelia rolled them in her palm while she stroked up and back with her hand. Nicholas groaned again and suddenly she was being pushed back into the mattress with her hands pinned above her head.
“I wasn’t done.”
His mouth interrupted her. Amelia could feel the rigid hardness of him against the inside of her thigh. She moved against it. When it slid against the moisture that had escaped her center, slipping up to rub against the knot of sensation between her legs, the pleasure intensified—coiling and magnifying at her core. She shifted, rubbing him up and back against it. Nicholas groaned against her lips, matching her movement.
Little jolts of electricity pulsed through her with each movement. She wanted more. She moved faster. The sound of their bodies slipping against each other grew louder. Amelia cried out with each completed journey. Nicholas reached between them, sliding his finger inside her. Heaven. That was what she wanted. He pushed in time with their movements, adding another, and then a third. Her body stretched to accommodate the new sensation. She felt full, so very close to what she needed, but not quite.
“Nicholas. I need—”
“I know. I need it, too.” He kissed her lips, resting his forehead against hers. Nicholas withdrew his fingers and positioned himself in their place. “I love you, Amelia.”
“I love you.” Something important was about to happen. She could feel it in the air, in the tension of his body. In the way her nerve endings and his seemed to reach out for each other, especially in the place between her legs where he was waiting.
He moved. It was different. There was a heat to him, and a perfectness of fit, that his fingers could never replace. Amelia felt him in places that had never been touched. He pushed deeper and deeper still. When he came the last of the way, fully encased by her body, he pressed against something that sent a wave of heat and pleasure through her. She cried out.
“Did I hurt you?” Nicholas tried to withdraw himself.
Amelia trapped his hips with her legs. “Again. Do it again.”
Nicholas surged forward. Amelia couldn’t help it—she moaned.
“You’ll be the death of me with those sounds, Mia.”
She didn’t care. She couldn’t have been quiet if her life depended on it.
They rocked together in a rhythm that set the headboard thudding against the wall. Little beads of sweat broke out on Nicholas’s brow. Amelia chased the feeling higher and higher. She urged him on with her body and her words. The frissons of pleasure arced through her. She lost track of time, of the room, of everything except Nicholas and the way he felt inside her.
When she crashed, it was in a crescendo of sounds. Nicholas’s arms tightened around her as he found his own release. He murmured broken curses and words of adoration as he shook against her. When he settled, he rolled to the side, bringing her with him.
He kissed the top of her head and stroked her back. With her head on his chest, Amelia could feel his heart hammering against his ribs.
“Why did we wait so long to do that?”
The chuckle rumbled against her cheek. “I don’t know.”
Amelia looked up at him. “Promise me we won’t wait so long before the next time.”
“We’re never going to leave this room.”
That suited Amelia perfectly.
Chapter Seventeen
Amelia made it home barely in time to be discovered in her bed when the family woke for breakfast. She didn’t tell Julia about the masquerade before they went down, and the suspense was clearly causing her sister a great deal of distress. Amelia couldn’t help but be glad of the reprieve. She wanted to keep what she and Nicholas had shared to herself for a little while longer.
“You’re in an exceptionally good mood this morning,” her mother commented.
Amelia choked on her juice. “Am I?”
“You’ve been smiling to yourself since you came down.”
Amelia’s father looked up. “You do seem happier. Have you and Montrose stopped fighting?”
“No, not exactly.” Amelia set her glass down. “About Montrose. I need to tell you something.”
Julia’s fork clattered to her plate. “Mia, can I speak to you a moment in the hall?”
Amelia knew what Julia was going to say, but she was tired of living the lie. She just wanted her engagement over so she could figure out the rest of her life. Nicholas loved her. She wasn’t certain how she would manage it, but she would find a way for them to be happy. “We’re in the middle of breakfast.”
Julia kicked her under the table.
“Whatever it is, it will wait until after breakfast,” Lord Bishop declared.
Lady Bishop frowned at Julia. “What were you saying about Lord Montrose, darling?”
Amelia met Julia’s stare. If she told Papa about Embry’s threats, he would be livid. He would insist on getting involved, and it would likely go wrong. She sighed. She couldn’t tell them. Even though she felt unstoppable after her night with Nicholas, she couldn’t do that to her family. “Nothing. I’ve quite forgotten it.”
Lord Bishop looked between his daughters. “I won’t pretend to know what you two are up to. Just promise me it’s harmless?”
Having spent last night making love to Nicholas at an orgy for England’s debauched nobility, Amelia wasn’t certain she could promise that. She’d never been a good liar.
Fortunately, Julia had no such limitations. “We promise.”
Lady Bishop pretended like the entire exchange hadn’t happened. “I’m sorry to hear you and Embry are still at odds. Do try to work it out when he comes to call today. It wouldn’t do to be out of sorts when you say your vows.”
“Embry is coming today?” Nicholas had convinced her he wouldn’t hear about the Sinner’s Ball, so he couldn’t be visiting for any reason Amelia was likely to enjoy. Since his accusations on the terrace, Amelia had been avoiding him, letting other appointments run long or forgetting he’d intended to call.
“Did I not tell you?” Lady Bishop’s tone was a little too innocent.
“You did not.”
“Well, if you’ve made other plans you’ll have to cancel them.”
“I’ll be here.” Today was as good a day for an Embry confrontation as any. Today she was unstoppable.
“Good.” Lady Bishop sipped her coffee in satisfaction.
“I’ll be here as well, in case anyone still cares about what I get up to,” Julia announced.
Lady Bishop frowned at her oldest daughter. “Don’t be dramatic, dear.”
“Don’t be so obvious, Mother.”
“Actually, Julia. I wanted to discuss a physician I heard about in Manchester with you.” Lord Bishop speared his eggs enthusiastically. “He has some interesting ideas.”
Julia set her fork down with a clatter. “I am not going to Manchester.”
“No, no. I’m going to go, today in fact, but I didn’t want you to be surprised if I bring him back with me.”
“Hooray!” Julia said sarcastically. “More doctors. I am the luckiest girl in all the land.”
The rest of breakfast passed quickly. After, Lord Bishop left for the train station and Lady Bishop went up to prepare for her day. Amelia and Julia stayed in the dining room, sipping chocolate and lingering over their eggs.
“I sometimes wonder, if Mother wasn’t wildly in love with Papa, if she wouldn’t rather it were her who was engaged to Embry instead of me.”
Julia didn’t laugh. “What was that nonsense earlier?”
“Hmm?”
“You were going to tell them.”
Amelia sighed. “But I didn’t.”
“But you were going to,” Julia insisted. “I’m not suffering through all this poking and prodding for you to lose your nerve.”
“I’m not. Nicholas and I…” She couldn’t say it. Not in the dining room where anyone might overhear her. “I just want to be free of this mess so we can all get on with our lives.�
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“Abandoning the plan isn’t the answer.”
“I know.”
Julia stared at her over the breakfast dishes for a moment longer, then she relaxed. “What do you think Embry wants?”
The air in the library was unduly warm. Memories of Amelia kept replaying in Nicholas’s mind. The curve of the small of her back, the tiny gasps she made, her hair trailing across his skin as she explored his body with her mouth. He was held hostage by his mind as each scene played over and over on an endless loop.
Amelia loved him. They hadn’t spoken about the future. Hadn’t spoken much at all, really, but she loved him. It was enough for now. Everything else could be worried about later.
“Lord Nicholas, a message arrived for you.” One of Philip’s footmen handed him a letter and disappeared when Nicholas indicated he needed nothing further.
It had the Lincoln’s Inn seal. He took a deep breath. If it was good news, he stood a decent chance of providing for himself if Amelia changed her mind about marrying him. If it was good news, he had three years of hard work and study ahead of him. Was he ready for that? Could he spend that much time away from Amelia?
Still, he wanted to become the sort of man she could marry, if she changed her mind. He wanted to be ready to build a future with her if she decided she wanted to. And, if he was being honest, he wanted it for himself. It was time for him to build a life of his own—with or without Amelia as his wife.
He opened the letter.
Dear Mr. Wakefield,
We are pleased to accept your application to study at Lincoln’s Inn beginning with the Trinity term. Please contact the treasurer no later than a fortnight from the first day of term to settle your tuition and arrange for your accommodations at the Inn.
Congratulations, and welcome to the fraternity of legal minds.
Sincerely,
Dean of the Chapel
W.H. Tinney
He let out an un-Wakefield-like whoop. Caroline rushed in, concerned. “Is everything all right?”
“It truly is.” Nicholas jumped up, kissing Caro on both cheeks. “Is Philip back?”
“Just now. Shall I get him?”
The Importance of Being Scandalous Page 22