“Stop being the hero, Nate, and tell me you don’t want to kiss me again. That it was a mistake because you didn’t like it.”
A growl sounded deep in his throat. “Of course I liked it.” Then all that space between them was gone and his lips were on hers again, warm and demanding. She gasped as she yielded triumphantly to his embrace, to his lips, teeth, and tongue, to the scent of his skin that wrapped around her, even as she snaked her arms up to wrap around his neck. She pressed herself against him, wanting every inch as close as possible, wanting more, wanting—
His hands slid down her back, curved over her bottom, and she whimpered.
He lifted his lips from hers, rested his head in the crook of her neck, slid his hands back up and wrapped his arms tightly around her. His breath was ragged against her ear and she took a deep breath of her own to slow her pounding heart.
“No regrets,” she whispered.
“All I can think about is sitting you on this desk, sliding your dress up and fucking you the way I’ve wanted to fuck you since the first moment I saw you in that poor excuse for a tavern.” The word he emphasized was harsh, as if he wanted to scare her, and likely, that was his intent, but he didn’t let her go. Instead his lips feathered against the skin of her neck.
She tried to imagine him doing as he said. She was hardly ignorant of what happened between a man and a woman. And though she knew virginity was supposed to be something a man prized from a wife, it wasn’t everything. Nate had said she needed a husband and implied that he would never be hers. But he could be in a small way now; she could know what it would be like…
Before she could think more, she stepped back from him slightly and his arms fell instantly. She met the intensity of his gaze, lifted her chin slightly, and scooted her bottom onto the table. Then she slid her skirts up slowly, revealing, inch by inch, her pretty new stockings and the naked skin above, and then he was there, standing between her legs, his hands grasping that naked skin of her thighs, his eyes dark, his mouth slightly parted.
The thumb of his right hand circled against her and she sucked in a sharp breath. Then he slid his hands up even more, and she rested hers behind her on the desk to keep herself up as she savored the intimate touch, his fingers brushing over the curls at the junction of her thighs. Her eyes closed as she focused on the new sensations on the touch of his thumb at her very center, slipping over where she was slick with wanting him, making her aware of that dampness.
Then cold air before her skirts were pulled down, covering her unceremoniously. She opened her eyes and stared at him, now standing behind the safety of his high-backed chair.
“Get out of here, Lizzie.” When she didn’t move, his lips became a hard line. “Go. Now!”
The harshness of his voice, the humiliation of the rejection despite everything, propelled her off the desk and halfway across the room before she stopped and turned. She caught a glimpse of him—eyes closed and jaw tensed. Perhaps he was doing what he thought was the honorable thing. He had admitted he felt desire too. She took a deep breath, prepared herself to say something, anything, that would bridge the sudden chasm between them. Every part of her felt that if she left now, her world would be irrevocably ruined.
Then Nate’s eyes opened, hard and shuttered. Unyielding, and something shriveled inside Lizzie. Eyes stinging, she turned and fled.
• • •
Letting her go had been one of the hardest things Nate had ever done. It would have been so easy… so delicious… to take what she had offered. He wasn’t certain that he wouldn’t. Later. In a soft bed where he could give her the gentleness a woman deserved to feel the first time.
But he had done few things impulsively in his life. This was different than leaving England for New York. This could hurt her. Had she thought through her actions? Through the consequences of them choosing to act on the clear desire between them? Because he hadn’t yet, and it was obvious everything would change.
As it already had.
Dammit, in the past six weeks, his life had been overturned completely. From inheriting this duchy and all its duties, managing its land and people, securing its line, to discovering that his… secretary? Ward? Was a temptress he didn’t quite want to avoid.
Lizzie was right. His ridiculous attempt at being honorable had failed. There was no longer any reason to pretend that he didn’t want her, and knowing she wanted him as much as he wanted her changed everything.
He stalked through the house and up the stairs to the schoolroom… where nobody was. After a quarter hour, he found Miss Vere, John, and Thomas in the greenhouse.
“Do forgive me, but I need John for a few moments,” Nate said when all three curious gazes settled on him.
John looked surprised but quickly joined him. As they walked back out into the frigid day, Nate clasped his hand on the boy’s shoulder and then dropped it.
He was as nervous as the day he had gone to speak with Caro’s father. No… more so. That day he had been angry, and that anger had stemmed from a youthful pride and sense of inadequacy. Now he had the sense that all his future happiness rested on John’s reaction.
Happiness.
Lizzie made him happy.
Her bright face each morning when she slipped into the study, her quick mind when they solved problems together, the way she made certain that everything at Beckworth matched his preferences.
“I need to marry,” he said.
John nodded, looking at the ground.
Nate took a deep breath. “I was wondering,” he began, struggling to form words that made sense, “if you would mind… if perhaps I married Lizzie.”
John stopped walking, and so Nate stopped too. He met the boy’s shocked gaze.
“I thought…” John trailed off, frowning.
“I know it might seem a bit odd,” Nate said quickly, a sinking sensation in his stomach.
“Do you love her?”
The question pierced through Nate. Did he love her? It was a reasonable question from a brother. After all, John knew that Nate could easily provide for Lizzie as he had been providing for them for the past year. There was no need to ask all the usual pecuniary questions that accompanied a family interview of a prospective suitor.
“I…” He took another deep breath. “She’s my friend and my right hand and the woman I think about when I wake and when I go to sleep.” Perhaps he had gone a bit far with that last bit. John didn’t need to hear about how Nate lusted for his sister. “Yes. Yes, I do love her, and I’d do my best to make her happy.”
“So this would make us brothers,” John said slowly.
“Even if she says no, we’re family,” Nate said, pulling the boy—almost a man really—into his arms and hugging him tightly.
John’s arms went up slowly and then held him tightly. “She’ll say yes. She loves you too.”
Chapter Eight
The house was quiet when Nate quietly opened the door to his room and walked down the long hall, barefooted. Lizzie’s room was ridiculously far from his, and with a few guests still lingering, the distance made reaching her room fraught with more danger than he preferred.
Each crack of the floor pained him, but finally he made it, soundlessly sneaking into her room.
Which was surprisingly bright with the glow of a well-tended fire.
One that illuminated Lizzie, curled up in a chair with an open book on her lap.
“You might wish to close that door behind you,” she said archly, meeting his gaze, her words prompting him to action.
He stepped inside and shut the door. She tilted her head as she watched him. Of course she was wondering why he was there.
She put the book on the table and then stood up, her lovely legs revealed for a moment by the motion of her unfolding herself. Her snowy white nightgown was so thin he could see the shadowy outline of her body beneath.
Heat raced through him, gathering in his groin. He needed to touch her, to have her in his arms, to have more than just a tas
te.
“If you are wanting to know if the offer still stands, it does.”
He was hard instantly at the words, and yet he didn’t dare move. There was something he needed to say to her first.
“But,” she continued, “if you intend to run away at the end, then you’d best leave now. I don’t want to pretend anymore. We both desire each other. If we are to have an affair, let us have an affair and enjoy it. I won’t stand in the way of your duty to Beckworth. You need have no fear of that.”
“About that duty—”
“Shh,” she said, stepping toward him, pressing her body against his. His arms closed about her reflexively, and he savored the feel of her there, warm and lovely. “All I need to know is that you won’t run. Everything else can wait.”
His body agreed with her.
“Lizzie,” he whispered, a year’s worth of pent-up desire enclosed in her name, and then he lowered his lips to hers.
There was nothing tentative or hidden about this kiss. He lingered as he explored her mouth, teasing at her lips and her tongue. Her hands slid over his arms and his back, and he regretted the shirt he still wore, the layers of fabric that kept their naked bodies from pressing together.
He lifted her hips, cradling her beneath her bottom, and carried her to the bed. He laid her down and crawled up after, half covering her with his body as he renewed the kiss.
“I won’t run,” he said softly, moving his lips to the line of her jaw and then her neck as her head arched back. “And I’m sorry I ever—”
She laughed. “Nate! No apologies. Forget about that overdeveloped sense of honor you have and—what did you say before—fuck me.”
He laughed too, but the sound cut short as he stopped and looked down at her. He slid her nightdress up, and she shifted to help him lift it over her head so that she was bare before him. Firelight flickered across her body, casting her skin in a warm glow. She was a mixture of curves and strength, long and lean, rounded at the hips and her bosom… He stroked his fingers around the curve of one breast experimentally, then cupped it with his hand, his thumb sliding over her nipple. She sucked in a sharp breath.
He didn’t know if this was her first time or not but it was their first time, and that was what mattered most. He bent down and his lips followed the progress of his thumb as he took the hardened nub into his mouth.
She gasped again, and the sound delighted him as he continued to explore her body.
Then her hands were tugging at his shirt, and he moved back enough to pull it over his head and fling it onto the floor. His trousers, too, he shed and kicked off. Then, completely naked, he lay down and pulled her against him, nakedness to nakedness. Even as desire tightened inside him, a different tension eased. Here, at last, Lizzie was exactly where she belonged, in his arms, in his life. His woman.
His wife.
“I’m not doing this right,” he said, his mouth an inch from hers.
“You said you wouldn’t run.”
“I’m not. I just… Lizzie, will you marry me?”
• • •
Lizzie shifted back so she could see Nate’s entire face, try and discern the meaning behind his expression.
His ridiculous honor. She had never expected he would feel the need to tie this moment to something permanent, but she should have. “You don’t have to marry me just because…”
“I’m not.”
“I know very well you need to marry a woman who will represent the duchy and—”
“Which would be you.”
She laughed. “I can barely read, Nate. I can’t play the pianoforte or sing or any of those accomplishments expected by these ladies.”
“Barely read?” he repeated with his own disbelieving laugh. “Perhaps a year ago, you had little knowledge beyond that farm of yours, but even if that were still true, it is no impediment. You’ve attended to most of my business concerns since we’ve met.”
“I don’t think a duchess is supposed to…”
“You know what a duchess is supposed to do, Lizzie?” he interrupted. “The first and foremost responsibility? To provide an heir for the duchy.” He pulled her against him and rolled on top of her, pressing his hips down on hers. She sucked in her breath at the feel of him hard against her. His lips moved to her neck again and feathered against her as he spoke. “I have no doubt we’ll both enjoy the attempt to fulfill that duty.”
His tongue followed his words, teasing her skin. She wanted to taste him as well, and she tilted her head so that she could mimic his motions, could press her hot, open mouth against his skin, taste him and tease him with the tip of her tongue, listen to the sharp intake of his breath.
She laughed, wrapping her legs around him, urging him against her. He felt so large pressed at the center of her, and then he moved slightly, parting her. The feeling of him slickly stretching her was so delicious that she lifted her hips for more. Then he pushed forward, and the stretching continued, grew almost painfully, and she held her breath as he thrust until there was nothing between them. They were utterly entwined, closer than they had ever been before.
She took a deep breath and relaxed around him. He didn’t want her to go marry someone else. To find a position elsewhere.
He wanted her. With him. Forever.
“I’ll embarrass you,” she said, giving him one last chance before she held on to him tightly and never let go.
“You never have yet.” He pulled back and thrust again. She gasped, savoring the feel of him inside her, joined as deeply as possible. She was so full… of him, of emotion that expanded inside her chest. He kept moving, hips retreating and thrusting, and she met each motion eagerly until everything within her burst, shattering her completely.
Her cry was met with his own low one, and they lay there, entwined, shuddering against each other.
Wetness stung at her eyes, dampening her cheeks, and she blinked wildly, trying to will the silly tears away.
Despite the release that reverberated inside her trembling body, there was so much inside her that needed to be said.
“Nate… I… I love you.” He stilled in her arms, but she continued, too overcome with the emotion to even think of keeping it from him. “I’ve loved you since almost the first moment I saw you,” she confessed.
“Lizzie—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips, not wanting to hear the apologies or excuses. It was enough that she felt this way, that she could wrap both of them in the feeling, that she could lay here in his arms, their bodies utterly entwined. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to love me.”
“You don’t?” He sounded surprised, and she peeked up at him. He lifted himself onto his arms. The adjustment of his body pressed his hips more firmly down onto hers.
She bit her lip, unsure of how to say what she thought, that after he’d loved someone like Lady Whytestone…
He rolled off of her and cold air swept over her. Cold seeped inside her.
“The last time I thought I loved someone, I was seventeen, and despite being my friend, she was so far above me in wealth and position that she was unattainable.”
It was the way she had felt about Nate for the past year. That she could never dream of being able to love him openly.
“Why didn’t you fight for her in New York?” Lizzie asked. She had been curious about this ever since they had boarded the ship for England. Yes, Lady Whytestone had seemed very much in love with her new fiancé, but the lady had loved Nate at one point. Surely that love could have been rekindled.
“She would have always been unattainable,” Nate said. “I didn’t fight for her then. I was angry at her, but I was angrier at her father, at my situation, at the way my mother fretted about everything.”
“But you are wealthy now.”
He sighed. “Yes, but when you love someone, you are willing to fight for them.”
Lizzie thought of the way he had protected her from her uncle when she had only been a stranger.
“I
loved her as a brother or a friend. And as a beautiful object I could one day obtain to help prove I did belong. That I was as good as the Hawkins boys.”
“I’ve never met a man more good, more decent, more—”
“Stop, Lizzie. I’m none of that.” He laughed harshly. “Do you remember that night you offered to sleep with me if I would take you to New Orleans? I was hard thinking of it, of spreading your legs, fucking this girl who was helpless and in distress.”
She grinned, thrilled to know it hadn’t been a rejection of her but simply Nate’s sense of honor that had kept him from her. “I thought you were disgusted by me.”
He laughed again. “Lizzie, I’ve wanted you since I first saw you in that inn, your big eyes beseeching me for help.”
Warmth spread through her.
“And I’ve grown to respect you, to trust your judgment, to value your conversation and companionship. What I feel for you… until this past week, I didn’t dare even think about how I felt about you. Until that damned dress. But love? Lizzie, I don’t think that word begins to describe or capture how much I want you. How much I need you. How devastated I would have been if you’d decided to stay in New York.”
She sighed happily. “I never expected…”
He shifted closer again, his mouth hovering over hers. “I never expected to feel happiness again. But I do, Lizzie. I’ve finally found home, and it’s not New York, it’s not Beckworth. It’s you.”
• • •
Edgar Tompkins,
Richards, Thistlewaits and Tompkins Solicitors
Temple, London
My dearest Edgar,
I have arrived safely at Beckworth Park. I am happy to report that, by all accounts, the new duke has settled in remarkably well. Who would have guessed that the ungentlemanly skills he learned in New York are surprisingly useful in the business of running a large estate?
Knowing how capably you fill my shoes, my dear son, I intend to remain at Beckworth for at least another month. I am confident that you will carry out my duties admirably in my absence. There will be plenty of business for you to deal with. I hesitate to pass on information that has not been shared with the public at large, but His Grace is now betrothed to Miss Elizabeth Smith, his former secretary. The marriage settlement will be a complex matter, but we shall prevail.
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