He drew back, frowning. “It needn’t be.”
She looked up into his eyes, so close to her own. His irises were an extraordinary shade, the color of winter frost, the faintest hints of green stippled through bands of silver. His lashes were long, ink-black, curled as extravagantly as a girl’s. The bump in his noise looked larger from this proximity.
She watched herself reach up to touch it. Why not? He was touching all of her. “You broke it?” she said unsteadily, a little drunk on her temerity. Touching a man; lying naked beneath him.
But he didn’t seem to mind it. “More than once,” he said, and kissed her neck.
She was not certain what to do. But there had been nothing malicious or unkind in his expression, and his lips were soft. Besides, the consummation had to occur. So she closed her eyes and held still, permitting him to do what he must.
His soft breath warmed her mouth as he raised his head. “By God. Your skin tastes like . . . magic.”
She didn’t need to be humored. “Soap, you mean.” But her voice wrapped very raggedly around the words.
His mouth quirked, an amused little smile. Then he leaned in and kissed her lips. It was very . . . pleasant. His tongue touched the seam of her mouth—rubbing, coaxing. He seemed to . . . want inside of it. Why?
She had envisioned a cold, perfunctory bedding. But with each unexpected touch, each startling moment of pleasure, he was stoking her curiosity, unseating her vow to remain aloof, even here. “Is this necessary?” she whispered.
“A man can’t perform on command, Kitty.”
Kitty? She scowled. “I do not appreciate vulgar nick—”
He grinned, flashing white teeth, and licked into her mouth.
Her strangled yelp came out like a snort. This indignity kept her occupied for a moment too long—a moment in which his mouth did something wicked to hers, so their tongues tangled. As simply as that, she at last understood the way of kissing. She understood why people favored it.
It was not an assault, after all. Not gross or indelicate, as she had feared. His lips felt . . . incantatory. Patient, persuasive, creating a drugging laxity in her body. Tentatively, she kissed him back. He made an encouraging noise, low and somehow dirty, which made her flush. His chest pressed flat against hers, but he held the majority of his weight on his elbows, keeping their lower halves apart.
That small consideration seemed to be a message: she could kiss him for however long she liked. What lay below—that part of him currently canted off to the side, out of contact—would pose the real problem, but in the meantime . . . she needn’t worry.
Not to worry. What a rare and extraordinary indulgence. Eyes closed, she lost herself in this wondrous kiss, which was teaching her so much. No wonder the maids proved so wayward with the footmen. No wonder the hostesses consorted with the clients . . .
His hand closed on her breast. She gasped. “Shh,” he said into her mouth, and then, with his thumb, he began to rub her nipple, chafing and then pinching lightly.
Nerves fluttered. But he was allowed to do this, she reminded herself. Just this once, it was not wrong of her to permit it.
With that thought, the tethers of tiresome necessity—rejection; resistance; the need to remain cold and aloof, lest gentlemen misunderstand—fell away. What remained was sensation: the gentle abrasion of his rough skin; the damp heat of his mouth on her neck. This odd, tightening demand inside her. An ache in her breasts and between her legs.
Not weakening, no. Desire felt like a new kind of ambition, a rising awareness of some ineffable goal that demanded her effort. She needed to touch him.
Wondering at herself, she threaded her hands through his thick hair. So soft! The curve of his skull evoked a weird surprise; he, this great strapping man, was just as human as she, made of flesh and sinew and bone, just as mortal. She slid her palms down his broad back, the smooth hot muscled thickness of his upper arms. Had he been made of marble, and two thousand years old, she would have touched him so, feeling for flaws—so she would say—but secretly marveling at the genius of what she felt.
Nature was an artist, too. The sharpness of his elbows, chiseled into such fine points; the prominent veins of his forearms, irony embodied, a delicate tracery that proved his strength . . . What a piece of beauty a man could be!
His mouth tracked down her collarbone, scattering her thoughts. As his hand remained busy at her breast, teasing and pulling, his mouth found her other nipple. He flicked it with his tongue.
She gasped, for it felt divine. Her body wanted to splay open, to yield to him.
Yield.
Her eyes opened. She was staring at a white ceiling trimmed in handsome gilt molding. Gilt. Who picked out their molding in gilt? Tacky, a gambling den, God above, he was nudging her thighs apart, he had read her mind. At last, finally, she felt clearheaded—appalled—this stranger, this criminal, was colluding with her body against her, dividing her will from her desire—
She forced her thighs closed. “This isn’t necessary!”
He released her nipple with a wet pop as he looked up. “Maybe not for you,” he murmured. “But if you need me to perform . . .”
She felt herself turn as red as a flag. “Surely you’re ready by now.” She darted a look down his body, but he adjusted his hips to conceal the proof.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’ll let you know when I’m warmed up.” With a half smile, he took her nipple into his mouth again—holding her eyes as he sucked her.
The sight undid something in her. Once, while cataloging the library of a country estate, she had flipped through a pornographic book, very quickly, horrified by her own curiosity, and by the feelings the filthy pictures had stirred in her.
But this was even filthier. Yet she could not look away. His long, muscular body stretched over hers, his black hair ruffled, his golden flanks sprawled with unselfconscious disregard, his entire focus now on the breast to which he ministered. He looked content to stay atop her forever, tasting and sucking and teasing her, as with one hand he smoothed over the pale slope of her belly, venturing lower and lower toward the curls between her legs . . .
His fingers slid through her curls, delving through folds that she had barely dared touch herself. And she had no choice but to let him. No choice, God be praised! No choice but to accept his touch, to gasp and arch upward voluptuously as he ravished her with small, precise, delicious touches, expertise and skill, the devil’s own instinct for how to make her whimper. He touched a spot that seemed to hold all the most sensitive connections of her nerves and sinews, and her entire body tensed like a bow drawn tight. So delicately he touched her, again and again and again, rubbing and stroking and murmuring in a low, hot voice as she gasped, this quaking, unbearable pleasure winding her tighter and tighter, so soon enough, she would snap . . .
“Wet as a river,” she heard him say hoarsely, and then his body came fully atop her, and she felt the blunt nudge of his manhood against her sex. Anxiety fractured her daze and made her stiffen.
He kissed her mouth again. “Not like that,” he whispered into her ear. “Here, feel me.” His hand reached between them, covering her sex completely, his clever finger finding that spot, again. “Feel this.”
She bit back a groan. “Just do it.”
His tongue curled around her earlobe, making her shiver. “Don’t be bossing me in bed,” he said, very low. And then he pushed.
A burning sensation. Discomfort, yes, but also so much more . . . Here was what she’d wanted, this animal fullness, this profound possession. But he did not complete his penetration. Half buried inside her, he looked down at her, as little ribbons of sensation radiated out, spilling down the backs of her straining thighs, her shaking knees. “Hurry,” she managed.
“Cry out for me,” he said, “and I’ll finish it.”
She bit her lip hard. She would not cry out. She had more dignity than that. “This is—stupid.”
“Be that as it may.” His voice sounded strained
now. “You’ll cry out, or I’ll go no further.”
“Fine. Ha!”
For a moment, he went still and silent. And then he ripped himself off her so suddenly that she did cry out, in surprise and confusion.
But he was grinning at her. “All right,” he said. “You asked for it.” And he dived down, seizing her thighs and opening them wide.
“What are you—ah!” His mouth—he had placed his mouth on her, there, that very spot that his finger had found before. “Stop, stop—” It was too much; every muscle in her body was tightening without her direction; she was nothing but need, her bodily awareness focused entirely on his tongue licking and laving her with fierce, single-minded intent—
The tension snapped. Her hips jerked, pleasure crashing through her. Distantly she heard her own sob. Her hands scrabbled over his back, dragging him against her; she opened her mouth on his shoulder, tasting him, biting him as she shuddered beneath him. He tasted like nothing in this world, salt and flesh and wickedness and . . .
“Now there’s a proper cry,” he said raggedly, and fitted himself to her again, only now, when he pushed, it seemed that his appendage had been fashioned for her, the resistance gone. He seated himself to the hilt, deep inside her body, and began to move.
She wrapped her arms around him and cleaved to him as he thrust. Yes. The soles of her feet found the backs of his calves, and she felt them flex; she turned her face into his thick black hair and smelled the essence of him, musky and masculine and beyond anything.
Take me. She could think it; just once, only once. His strong hands gripped her face; he opened her mouth to his tongue, and she accepted it, welcomed it, drinking him in. Here, this natural wonder, this unimagined glorious act—for a few blissful moments, it was all that there was; her mind was quiet, she was only body, nothing else.
At last, he groaned and thrust off her, rolling away to spill his seed safely. It gave her a shock; she realized she had forgotten her plan to speak to him about that again, before unwrapping the sheet. She felt a measure of belated panic at her own carelessness, and deep gratitude for his consideration.
His naked back was pale gold in color, blemishless and broad. When he rolled over, she stared at his body, absorbing his beauty from this novel angle. A long scar slashed over his ribs. His thighs made a sleek and graceful line . . . Panic flickered through her as he reached for the abandoned sheet. No doubt he meant to be courteous as he handed it to her. She covered herself with it, but made no offer to let him share, for there was still so much more of him to see. And she had only this once to look.
But it is already over.
A weird panic swam through her. Never again? After what she had just experienced?
Alarm made her avert her eyes. What ailed her? Eve with the apple. Of course. Forbidden knowledge was always sweet—and poisonous. She steeled herself on a long breath.
She felt his gentle touch as he smoothed a lock of hair from her shoulder. “You gave yourself away too cheaply, Kitty.” His voice was hoarse. “You should have asked for the moon.”
The nickname triggered a different kind of unease. Nobody but her father had ever called her by a diminutive. “I asked for the only thing I want,” she said stiffly.
The only thing I knew to want.
No. She rejected that thought. Of course bed sport could be pleasant. Otherwise, there would be no slatterns in the world. That did not mean that this experience would haunt her. She would not permit it.
But she foresaw, even in this raw moment, that it would take effort not to think of what he had done to her.
That was not the worst part, though. The worst part was that when his hand lingered on her shoulder, massaging lightly, she wanted to lean closer, in case he wished to kiss her again.
She inched away. This was no ordinary marriage. She was no ordinary woman. It was not in her to make a proper wife to any man. She depended on her own self-discipline, and she could not allow him to weaken it, for there was no future between them.
She stood, gathering the sheet around her. She sensed him gazing at her, the silence weighted by a sense of expectancy that she could not stand. This was done. It must be done.
But a niggling sense of injustice lingered with her as she walked to the mirror to smooth her hair. She was a fair woman, was she not? Committed to honest and transparent dealings.
She made herself turn to look at him. “You are flawless, too.”
His swift, flashing smile seemed to snag a hook into her chest. Again, she felt she could not breathe, that this panic would crush her.
She turned back to scowl at her reflection. The Ice Queen. That was who she must be. And even if she had been a more feminine woman . . . he was a ruffian. Their worlds could never be bridged.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nick was comfortable with silence. As a boy at the docks, he’d found out how much there was to learn by keeping one’s mouth shut and letting others talk themselves into carelessness. The misplaced brag or the accidental mention of expected good fortune had led him many times to a windfall that others had lined up for themselves.
As a man, he’d discovered that silence made a weapon, too. Keep quiet long enough, and brave men lost their courage. Wise men lost their discretion. Tongues started to flap, defenses to crumble.
But God save him if the silence in the coach wasn’t awkward. Enduring it wore on his last nerve. Didn’t help that his new wife sat across from him, swaddled to the throat in a cloak as dark as night, her face emerging like a pearl from velvet, shining in the swinging light of the side lamp.
It aggravated him that she looked untouched, for he himself felt . . . rubbed up against, disordered, all messed and tousled inside. What had happened in that bed today? He was Irish enough to think of witchcraft, and modern enough to dismiss it instantly. But the conviction lingered, unsettling and unwelcome, that something had happened that changed him, knocked him off-kilter the slightest degree, so her face now seemed like the only thing worth looking at.
He couldn’t afford that kind of distraction.
Five years till he’d have it again. That term in the contract was looking different, suddenly. No longer just a point of amusement, proof that toffs would legislate anything, right down to the breath drawn by a body. Now it looked like a clever piece of torture. He was ordered, by a point of law, to resist the temptation that had risen right after he’d found his release, when he’d wanted to start touching her all over again.
Ice Queen, they called her. Let them keep on thinking so. He’d made his fortune through opportunities that fools and laggards had missed. He’d spotted her, hadn’t he, when his niece had gone to work at Everleigh’s? Watching her, he’d come to understand how a good woman might be likened to a rare jewel. With such a lady on his arm, a man would need no flash to show the world that he mattered.
But the world wouldn’t be seeing him with Catherine. It would never guess that he’d cracked her wide open, proved the Ice Queen was made of blood and flesh, soft and pale, flawlessly smooth. If he touched that soft skin, now—if he stroked that stray lock of hair from her cheek, and put his lips at that sweet, shadowed crook where her neck met her shoulder—she’d threaten to summon a solicitor.
She couldn’t annul the marriage, though. Didn’t sit right, how smug he felt about that—or how irritated, at the prospect of five years’ wait till he could have her again. He felt rattled by it, in fact, and was glad when the coach slowed and she told him they had arrived.
“You will let me handle this,” she said as he opened the door and helped her down.
“Sure.” He let go of her as quickly as possible. Cloak or no, he knew that curve of her waist now, and the shape of it made his palms burn. Or maybe what smarted was his pride, for how indifferent she sounded to his touch. He’d made her cry out, all right. But her composure suggested she’d already forgotten it.
He wasn’t a man accustomed to being forgotten, though he knew better than to expect anything else from her
. Swells, fancy folk, had a talent for dismissing his kind. It hadn’t ever bothered him before. He’d taken advantage of their snobbery, or laughed them off as shallow fools.
But she wasn’t a fool, this woman he’d married. And he wasn’t sure, suddenly, that he could bear her sneers so lightly.
* * *
As Catherine walked toward the drawing room, she tried to school herself for the confrontation to come. She should be relishing the moment, savoring the taste of long-awaited victory. Instead, all she could think about was the man beside her.
Was he reliving what they had done in that bed? She felt raw, unsteady on her feet, as acutely, tremulously alive to his presence as a fox to a nearby hound. One accidental touch from him, and she would be undone.
No. She would not let herself dwell on it. She would make herself numb to him.
She shoved open the door with too much force. Peter looked up from his newspaper, his glance flickering to O’Shea behind her.
“What is this?” he asked, frowning as he laid down the newspaper.
“Business,” she said crisply.
“You know I receive no tradesmen in the evening—”
“This is no tradesman,” Catherine said. “Indeed, I had thought a man like you, who follows the news so closely, would recognize Mr. O’Shea.”
Peter rose. “I don’t . . .”
“Nicholas O’Shea,” said her new husband mildly as he joined her side. The displaced air carried the scent of his skin. She had tasted that skin. She had bitten him.
Flushing, she focused on Peter. The first traces of his comprehension registered in the slackness of his expression, his jaw sagging a fraction. “Nicholas . . .” He shot Catherine an astonished look. “What in the devil do you mean, to bring such a man—”
“We come to have your congratulations.” How sour she sounded. How like a spinster. But she wasn’t any longer. “We are married.”
Peter reached for the back of his chair. Taking a white-knuckled grip on it, he uttered a short bark, balanced somewhere between laughter and choking. “You what?”
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