by Lynne Barron
He shrugged out of his dressing gown and crawled onto the bed behind her, pushing the mound of blankets to the foot of the bed with his feet.
“Mmm,” Emily murmured softly, shifting and rolling onto her stomach, flinging her hand back and smacking his thigh. “What?” she murmured as her eyes blinked open.
“Shh,” Nick crooned, settling next to her and draping one arm across her back.
“What are you doing?” she asked sleepily.
“I just want to hold you,” he whispered, knowing he lied. Already his cock was hard, pulsing with the need to be inside her.
“We shouldn’t,” she cautioned before gasping as he dragged his hand down her back and over her bottom.
“We should,” he breathed against her shoulder.
He bunched her night gown in his hand, dragging it up to the small of her back, exposing her luscious bottom to his gaze. Her skin was soft and warm beneath the palm he spread over one firm globe. He gently squeezed her flesh before skimming his hand up to the small of her back. Softly he dragged his fingers over the dip in her spine and down into the shadowy crease beyond.
“Nick,” she murmured in denial. But her back arched and her hips rose off the bed, bringing his questing fingers closer to his goal.
“Let me love you,” he whispered as he rose up to lean over her and press his lips to her back. “I’ll make it good for you. No pain, only pleasure.”
Before she could offer any further words of denial he dragged his fingers down the seam of her bottom and was rewarded with a soft hum of pleasure that vibrated against his lips on her back. She shifted and spread her legs slightly, opening herself to him.
He continued the downward descent of his hand, dragging the tips of two fingers between her lush cheeks until he reached her center. He paused with his fingers hovering over the entrance to her body.
Again she arched her back, raising her bottom in the air, pushing against his fingers.
“Christ, Em,” he growled. She was wet, wonderfully wet and hot.
He dipped one long finger into that wet heat, withdrew it and slowly pushed back in.
“Wicked man,” she whispered, turning her face into the pillow while her hips rose and fell.
Nick moved between her legs, pushing them wide with his knees until she was spread out before him.
“Nick?” She lifted her head to look back at him over her shoulder.
“Shhh,” he murmured before leaning down to trail a line of kisses down her spine. He started at her neck, his mouth open and hot, his tongue dancing over her flesh, his teeth nipping. She shivered then groaned low in her throat when he reached her tailbone. He paused there, his hands firm on her bottom, his lips dipping into the shadowy crevice.
She moaned softly, clenching her thighs around his before pushing back against him. With his thumbs pressed between her quivering cheeks he squeezed her bottom, dragged his hands down until he once more felt the heat of her.
He pushed one thick finger into her body, her flesh clenching around him. His blood pounded in his head, his cock strained toward the pleasure to be found in her tight cunny. Withdrawing his finger, smiling at her moan of complaint, he replaced the appendage with the head of his cock, loomed over her with his arms on either side of her shoulders and prodded the opening to her body.
“Oh,” she exclaimed as he felt her shiver at the invasion. “We can’t, not like this.”
“We can,” he replied, his voice low and raspy. He nudged his hips forward, slowly pushing the broad tip of his shaft into her sweet quim.
“Ahhh, Nick,” she moaned as he stretched her.
“Can you take me, Em?” he whispered with his lips pressed to the nape of her neck.
“Yes, oh yes.” She lifted her bottom, undulated her hips and writhed beneath him in an attempt to take him deeper into her body. “Please.”
“Emily,” he growled as the last shreds of his self-control evaporated. He withdrew and jackknifed back onto his knees, grasped her hips with shaking hands and pulled her bottom up off the bed. Emily rolled back onto her knees and placed her hands on the bed.
“Like this?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.
Nick sucked in a great gulp of air at the provocative pose, at the hunger in her green eyes and the honey rasp of her voice. Emily on her hands and knees before him, her legs spread and her perfect arse in the air, was the most erotic sight he’d ever seen. Her hair was a fiery tangle down her back and over her arms. She was willing and waiting, as eager as he to join her body with his.
“Just like that, love,” he growled before positioning himself between her thighs and bringing the engorged head of his cock to her center once more.
He pushed forward, rocked back and pushed forward again, easing his straining flesh into her welcoming warmth. He dragged one hand from her hip and across her belly into the crisp curls between her legs. He found her clit and pressed two fingers over the tight little bud, circling with the pressure he knew she craved.
She moaned, dropping her head forward and drawing a shuddering breath.
He began to move, slowly, steadily thrusting into her, giving her more of his hard shaft with each pass, careful to restrain his lust as he stretched and filled her.
Emily made it damn difficult with her panting moans and undulating hips. She was wild beneath him, wilder than he’d ever seen her. She met each of his thrusts with a backward push of her hips, each of his retreats with a forward lunge against his fingers between her legs.
“Oh, God… Oh, Nicholas… Please…please…” she cried and he knew she was close, so close to release. With one hard thrust he buried his cock in her wet channel and leaned over her until his open mouth found the tendon at the juncture of her shoulder and neck. He latched on, his lips and tongue and teeth pulling, sucking her flesh into his mouth. He pressed his fingers hard upon her swollen bud and thrust into her, hard and deep, his cock pulsing with the need to spend.
Emily let loose a long splintered moan as she climaxed around him, her inner muscles clenching, clutching him from base to tip.
“Oh Nick… Oh Nick… Oh Nick…” she chanted as she bucked beneath him.
He savored her orgasm, allowed it to heighten his pleasure, until with a low groan he released her flesh from his mouth, gripped her hips in his hands, lunged back and thrust in to her still quivering flesh, again and again, each thrust harder, deeper, faster than the one before until he was completely out of control, lost in the wonder to be had in her tight cunny.
“Jesus, Em!” he groaned as his orgasm rushed over him with the force of windstorm, tightening his balls, shivering over his skin, sinking into his bones. The pleasure was so sweet, so pure, it bordered on pain.
He fell forward, his cheek landing on her back, his chest heaving as he struggled to drag air into his starving lungs.
Emily fell onto the mattress, her face buried in the pillow, her back heaving.
Nick dropped down beside her and threw one leg over her thighs and tossed one arm across her back. She was shaking, making the oddest little hiccupping noises.
“Emily, are you all right?” he asked in alarm.
Her head bobbed up and down but she did not raise her face from the pillow.
“Em?”
“It’s just…just like…” She turned to look at him and Nick realized she was laughing, giggling uncontrollably.
“What?” he demanded.
“A stallion!” she cried. “You… Us… That way… You bit my neck… Just like a stallion covering a mare!”
Chapter Thirty
Emily awoke as the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon, painting her room in shades of pink and orange. She stretched luxuriously, memories of the previous night drifting around the edges of her awareness.
Her foot bumped against something hard and warm. An incoherent rumble rose from the bed beside her at precisely the moment she heard the soft click of the doorknob turning.
Please let it be Tilly, she
prayed.
She watched in suspended fascination and horror as her bedroom door swung open and her father’s cheerful, ruddy face appeared around the dark wood.
For one fleeting moment their eyes locked, his filled with fond greeting, hers surely filled with shock. She saw the exact moment he noticed the sleeping man beside her, watched as all of the color drained from his face and his mouth fell open. He blinked, his fluttering lashes the only movement in the silent room.
Pain shot through Emily as she recognized his expression, placed it in her mind, absorbed it in her heart. Confusion, swiftly followed by denial and finally horrified acceptance. It was the same expression she’d seen upon his face when she’d awoken that summer morning to find him sitting beside her bed and she’d been forced to admit that she’d fallen into a little blue bottle, that she’d drowned her sorrow and fear in the laudanum that filled it.
Emily sat up, dragging the rumpled coverlet up to cover her nakedness, her mouth open but no sound emerging.
They stared at one another for what seemed an eternity, but could have been no more than three or four seconds. Then Charles Calvert disappeared as suddenly and silently as he had appeared, the door closing with the same soft click.
Emily sat frozen in her bed, numb with shame.
“Love?” Nicholas murmured beside her, his hand coming to rest low on her bare back.
“My father.” She might have spoken the words, or perhaps she only thought them. They roared in her head.
“Hmm?” The bed dipped as the man beside her rolled to his side, his muscular arms wrapping around her, his warm lips coming to rest against her hip.
“My father!” Emily pried his arms from around her waist, tossed the blanket aside and scrambled off the bed. She hit the floor hard, nearly fell to her knees, her legs as wobbly as jelly. Stumbling across the room, arms flailing about in a desperate bid to regain her balance, she careened into the vanity table, her hip connecting with a sharp thud. Bottles, brushes, combs and powder went hurtling to the floor. The stopper of her perfume bottle rolled in one direction while the bottle rolled the other and a cloud of powder wafted around her. The scents of lemon, lilac and talc filled the air.
She spun back around to find Nicholas sitting up amid the tangled covers staring at her as if she’d sprouted an extra head on her shoulders.
“My father!”
“Emily?” he asked, his drowsy voice raspy.
“My father!” She tried to rein in her whirling thoughts, tried to make sense of the last thirty seconds, but her sluggish mind would not cooperate.
“Your father?” Nick asked carefully, as if the wrong word might send her shrieking naked from the room.
“Da saw you in my bed,” she ground out between clenched teeth, stalking toward the bed with her hands clenched into tight fists, her entire body thrumming with rage and humiliation, all of it aimed squarely at the man who sat naked with only a sheet covering his hips.
“What?” he asked stupidly, his eyes blinking.
“What are you doing here?” she wailed. “Why didn’t you return to your bed?”
“Emily.” He raised his hands as if she might launch herself at him and pummel him.
“I told you not to come to my room last night!”
“Emily,” he tried again.
“But you had to have your way!”
“I don’t remember you complaining.”
“How could you?” she screamed.
He dropped his hands, tilted his head and gifted her with the mischievous little boy smile she loved so well.
Emily saw red. She literally saw red spots jump before her eyes so great was her anger.
“Get out,” she roared, one trembling arm rising to point to the door. “Get out of my bed chamber, Nicholas Avery!”
“Calm down,” he said and even through her anger she could see his own temper rising. It was there in the lowering of his brow, in the loss of his smile, in the way he squinted his eyes at her, in the muscle that ticked along his jaw.
“Do not tell me to calm down you idiot, you gargantuan imbecile, you ridiculous brute,” she shouted.
Emily looked away from him, saw his robe on the floor and marched over to pick it up. She threw it toward him then stomped her foot in frustration when it fluttered uselessly to the ground some two feet from the bed.
Nicholas barked out a rusty laugh as Emily bent to retrieve it. She strode around the bed and shoved the silk garment at him, holding it out to him with shaking hands.
Nicholas ignored the offering, raked his eyes over her naked form, and Emily could have sworn he hesitated on the hideous scar between her heaving breasts.
“What a pretty picture,” he murmured.
Emily sucked in an astonished breath, heat rushing over her. Mortified, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her, she took one unsteady step back, her nerveless fingers releasing his robe. She brought her trembling hands up to cover the jagged little circle.
Nicholas’s gaze shot to her face.
They stared at one another in silence across the wrinkled and mussed bedcovers.
Emily felt as if her heart had been torn from her breast, as if his big hands had reached right through the ragged circle and ripped it out.
What a pretty picture. What a pretty picture.
Like an echo, Nicholas’s words repeated over and over in her head, in her heart.
He kicked his legs free of the covers and the sudden motion jolted Emily from the eerie stillness that had settled over her. Blinded by tears, she turned and ran across her chamber and into the bathing room, slamming the door behind her, fumbling with the key until she managed to turn it in the lock.
In the silence of the cold marble bathing room, she lowered herself to sit on the rim of the tub, her head falling forward into her hands. She thought she might cry, wished she would. But her eyes were dry, painfully so. Dragging a stuttering breath into her chest, she released it on a low moan.
A sharp rapping on the door startled her and she looked up, suddenly unsure whether she’d locked the door. The knob rattled but the door remained closed.
“Emily, open the door,” Nicholas called from the other side.
She shook her head wildly, never mind that he could not see the movement.
“Come on, love,” he persisted. “I know you’re upset that your father saw us, but we’re going to be married. I’ll explain it to him. It’s not the end of the world, Em.”
He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. How could she possibly explain to him the look she’d seen on her father’s face?
“Oh, Da,” Emily murmured.
Nicholas stared at the closed door in confusion. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? He’d awoken not five minutes ago lying beside Emily after a night of unbelievable passion. His first thought had been that this was precisely how he would awaken every morning for the rest of his life.
Then she was shrieking at him, screaming and raging that her father had come into the room and spied him in her bed. Charles Calvert would surely be angry, justifiably so. But he knew Nick intended to marry his daughter. Hell, there wasn’t a person at this damn house party who did not know he intended to marry the stubborn lady.
Good Lord, what a temper she had. He’d seen hints of it to be sure, but Emily in a full fledge temper tantrum was a sight to behold. A pretty picture, indeed. As she’d stalked around the room bare-assed, her luscious breasts heaving, her skin flushed and her hair whipping about her in an unruly red cloud, he’d wanted nothing more than to wrestle her back into the bed and revel in all that passion.
But somehow he’d got it all wrong. In his mind he saw again the moment she’d dropped his robe and pressed her hand over that damn scar, the scar she still wouldn’t tell him about, no matter the intimacies they’d shared.
Ah, hell. When had he ever understood the woman? She’d been leading him on a merry chase since the first moment he saw her dozing through the first act of King Lear.
; “There’s not a chance in hell your father only named you willful seventeen times!” he shouted at the closed door. He waited for a response, shook his head in bemused frustration before shrugging into his robe and opening the door to peer out into the deserted hallway.
He opened the door to his room and strode in, barely refraining from slamming the door behind him.
“Stubborn woman,” he mumbled as he dropped his robe to the floor. “Seventeen willfuls, my ass.”
Two hours later Nick found Charles Calvert galloping across brown and gold fields miles from Lady Margaret’s stately home. Hearing his approach, Emily’s father looked back over his shoulder and slowed his mount to allow the younger man to catch up with him.
“I have my eye on a pretty little cottage just over that rise.” Charles pointed to a gentle knoll that rose to the north of the narrow road bordering his sister’s property.
“You’re thinking to relocate?” Nick asked in surprise.
“Never,” Charles answered promptly. “I wouldn’t think of leaving Emerald Isle. No, I’ll die on my own land and they’ll bury me in the family cemetery between my fragile Anne and my cheerful Martha.”
“Then why purchase a home in England?” Nick asked as they started down into the valley that lay before the rise Charles had indicated.
“For Em, of course.”
“Sir, I have two properties left to me by my mother,” Nick reminded the man. They’d discussed his prospects the day before when he’d asked for Emily’s hand in marriage.
“Ah, yes, your wonderfully large lands to the North.”
Nick felt heat sweep up his neck and reached up to tug at his cravat.
“Those properties are all well and good but when I come to London, as I will in the future, I’d rather not spend my time traveling all over creation to see my daughter. You didn’t think to live in Town did you?”
“Of course not,” Nick assured him. “I know Emily is a country girl at heart.”
“At least you got that part right. So I’ll purchase the cottage as a wedding gift.”