“Then how did you learn of this information?” bit out the other man.
Nicholas paused here and swallowed hard. “My wife has informed me of her pastime.” Seeing the look on Turnquist’s face, he continued on. “If you feel the need to keep your editing under wraps, then you could not choose a better person to have as your partner in this regard than Margaret. She is loyal to a fault.”
Lord Turnquist said nothing for several long minutes. Finally, his face returning to a more normal tone, he looked up at Nicholas. “There are norms, Connols. It may be all right for me to edit such a paper, but to be involved with a lady who writes for it—that is another story altogether.”
At this, Nicholas rose from his place and strode purposefully behind the desk until he and the sniveling lord were at eye level with each other. What did Margaret see in this man? Nicholas wondered, but knew it was not up to him to judge. “Listen, you prig,” he said quite calmly, as if he was merely asking for the state of the weather, “You would not be involving yourself with someone who writes for the paper. I am involved with someone who writes for the paper and it does not bother me one whit how my wife chooses to express herself in her free time. In fact, I admire both her courage and her creativity, and the fact that she has chosen to make her own way in the world. I do not understand why Margaret would want a boy like you, with your backwards ideas about what lords and ladies should not do, but given the lady’s inestimable character, I would count yourself lucky that she holds you in any regard at all, let alone such a high one. Are we clear?”
And with that, Nicholas, Duke of Connols, strode out of the study of his wife’s sister’s lover.
* * *
Ania was indulging in her nightly ritual of brushing out her hair when Nicholas finally returned to her room after almost a week’s absence. Swallowing her surprise, Ania continued on with her mahogany brush as if it was perfectly normal to have your husband run out on you, say nothing, and then with equal suddenness, return to you as if nothing at all had transpired.
“Ania,” she heard behind her, her husband’s voice a deep rumble. She put down the brush.
“Yes, Your Grace?” she asked primly, well aware of how churlish she was being.
Nicholas approached her chair, and it was not long before she felt the tall column of his warm against her back and head. He lowered his hands to her shoulders and kneaded them, unkinking every tight muscle that had managed to stiffen with the weight of his silence over the past week. “Ania,” he said again, nudging her to rise from her chair.
She did, and turned, a ready remark at her lips that died as his mouth closed down on hers. There was a different feeling to this kiss, a kind of hunger that made her feel as if Nicholas wanted to climb inside of her and hide there forever. It was a fierce sort of possessiveness that quite made the blood rush completely from her head, so that when at last he released her, she stumbled and would have fallen if Nicholas had not wrapped his large hands around her waist and was holding her upright.
“Nick,” she gasped, and with some careful angling, their mouths closed again.
They scrambled at each other, releasing folds of clothes and hardly noticing as the garments began to sink to the ground around them. Nicholas was quickly divested of his shirt, allowing Ania to delight in exploring the broad expanse of his muscular chest with her hands. He caught her mouth again and again, and she wound her arms around his neck, drawing him closer and deeper, allowing her tongue to slip into his mouth. She hardly noticed as she did this, but when she did, the fissure of excitement at her own boldness expanded, and she was suddenly filled with the incredible knowledge that Nicholas enjoyed her ministrations as much as she did his. She flicked her tongue against him once, then twice, and heard his sharp intake of breath as his own tongue tangled with hers in an instinctive dance.
She was divested of her chemise soon enough, and as he gazed down at her nude body, Ania was caught somewhere between unbearable shyness and wanton desire. Under his eyes, her body felt beautiful; as he lowered a palm to stroke her from collarbone to nipple, her breasts plumped and her head fell back, exposing a white morsel of throat that Nicholas took advantage of. She gasped as his tongue parried with the tender flesh there, flicked against it, inflaming her and causing her head to positively swim. With one miniscule step, she pressed her bare chest against his and felt him fully nude against her. She could sense his excitement from the low rumble in his throat as she repeated his actions back to him, catching his earlobe in her teeth and, having cloaked her teeth with her lips, bit him gently.
Nicholas shuddered. Where had his wife learned all this? But he knew. He knew that he knew, that her explorations were sourced by naught but her own imagination, which he had come to speak to her about. But having seen her so lusciously righteous before the vanity mirror, he had been unable to help himself. Now, as she pressed her thigh against his arousal, Nicholas lost his train of thought completely yet again, and relied instead on pure instinct to guide him.
He almost bent her body in twain as he leaned in to drink the next kiss from her lips. Responding to him and the position of their hungry bodies, Ania wrapped her arms around his neck and hooked each of her legs around his hips; when he straightened, he lifted her, and she felt the softness of her sex brush against his, leaving her shivering, wanting more. He supported her lower back with his arms and carried her over to the lush bed, setting her down as carefully as a package to be opened on a holiday morning, unwrapping her hands from his neck and looking down into the wide expanse of her green eyes as one looks into the hearth of the home, understanding it is the place where one wants to be most of all.
He saw a thought pass through her mind and saw the expression in her eyes change as he bent over her body. “Nick,” she said, her voice delightfully hoarse from arousal, “Margaret came to me today.”
Nicholas stilled.
Ania lifted one hand to his face and he wanted to close his eyes against it as she stroked his cheek gently, but the nervousness he felt peeled his lids open. “She said that Turnquist proposed marriage to her last night.”
Nicholas smiled and Ania went visibly lax.
“Was it your doing?” she asked wonderingly.
Nicholas shifted so that he laid sidelong his deliciously naked wife. Running a hand down the smooth skin of her stomach, he felt something swell inside of his chest that he had never felt before. It was possibly because he had never felt quite this way about another woman. Looking at her small form and trusting eyes, a surge of protectiveness filled him, and he knew that this was a moment that could make or break the future of his relationship with his wife. His wife, who he had looked for such a long time, his wife, who had stumbled into his life by some lucky accident, becoming his family at a time when his own had managed to fall apart so spectacularly.
“Margaret being unhappy made you unhappy. Myself, I think Thunrow is a right arse, but for better or worse, he is your sister’s choice,” said Nicholas finally, fingers inching towards Ania’s hand. Intertwining his digits with hers, he lifted her hand to his lips to plant a soft kiss there, feeling her eyes follow his every motion. “So I simply explained to him that if I could be married to the Illustrated Lady herself, surely he should have no objection to being wed to her sister.”
He saw Ania’s body go rigid and realized he had forgotten the most important part. Locking his dark eyes with her green ones, he continued. “As for me, Duchess Connols, I want you to know something. I have been a right boorish pig this past week. I do not care what you do.”
A small crease of concern made its presence known on Ania’s forehead.
Nicholas shook his head. “I spoke out of turn. What I mean is, I was bowled over! The Illustrated Lady herself revealed—what a revelation! I did not know whether to laugh or weep; I had always pictured her as a slightly bored matron with quite the imagination, but here she was, accomplished and sharing my bed. Mine!” he cried, and laughed after all.
“Nick,” b
reathed Ania, and the look in her eyes melted him entirely.
He gathered her up so that her pale curves swayed attractively over the slenderness of her delicate waist. Cupping her breasts in his hands, he lifted each one to his mouth, enveloping each of the rosy nipples in his mouth and tugging gently there. As he felt Ania rake her fingers through his hair in response, the tugging grew more urgent, and he flickered his tongue against the growing thickness of the tissue that signified her arousal until the moans that were coming from her throat were consistent and unceasing.
He released her breast from his mouth with a satisfactory pop and watched it spring back, shining, wet, and significantly pinker than before. The flush that she had over her breasts spread appealingly over her neck and face, and Nicholas lowered her against the bed again. As he scattered kisses all over her stomach, his hand crept to possess her breastbone and neck, knocking the wind out of her wonderfully and anchoring her in place as his other hand fingered the curls between her legs.
“Mmm,” she said, and the little noise almost upset his self-control entirely. He found the folds of flesh between the dark, soft curls and spread her gently open, the rosebud of her most intimate flesh now accessible for viewing. He bent his head to lick her once, twice, and then felt her fingers digging into his shoulders. “Nick.”
He smiled into the valley of her sex.
Then again, more urgently still. “Nick!”
He rose up over her like the sun over the horizon. Wrapping his hand over hers and holding it over her head, Nicholas used his other hand to ease himself into her body, feeling her stretch full as he brushed against the barrier of her virginity.
“Trust me,” he said, and with one quick motion, the pain had subsided, and he moved not an inch, allowing her to become accustomed to the feel of him in her body. When she finally met his eyes, he knew that she was ready. The parry and thrust of him into her crevice was accompanied by her soft gasps as she bucked her body, trying to match his rhythm. They moved together, with a rising in tempo that made them lose all sense of the boundaries of their bodies until all there was was the crush of her breasts against his chest and the sharp whiteness of her teeth against the blush of her lips as her mouth parted to match her exertions.
Nicholas could feel himself losing control as the sensations whirled around him with increasing force. The softness of her body, the rise and fall of her hips against him, it all swirled into one great feeling until he felt surely he could take it no longer. But no, she had to be first. It was her right.
Counting backwards from twenty, his cock found the ridge inside of her above which a hot little button laid. Fifteen, he nudged against it, hearing her cry out once. Ten, he rubbed her from the inside out, watching her squeeze those incredible eyes shut as the blood roared inside of her. Five, her body began to shake against him and her legs rose up to lock behind his hips and draw him in deeper and faster. One, Ania exploded over him, calling out his name like a prayer to the deity above, over and over, senseless and lost in her own newfound pleasure.
Moments later, Nicholas joined her, allowing himself a release he had staved off for a very long time. As he shuddered into her body, she kissed him, welcoming him into every opening of her body as willingly as a blind man drinks water. Collapsing against her body, Nicholas realized that in his daze, he had still not spoken aloud the words that had plagued him since he realized their truth just about a week before. Rolling off of her, but pulling his wife close to him with his arm, he said:
“I just want you to know, Ania; I want you to know that I love your stories. They make you who you are, and I have looked too long for someone just like you to be put off by some nonsensical notion of what is right and wrong in this uptight society. Your secret will always be safe with me.”
Ania felt her eyes fill with tears. Sitting up so that she could look her husband full in the face, she said, “Oh Nicholas! What a big heart you have!”
“All the better to love you with,” replied the Duke of Connols and kissed his duchess so passionately that all rational thought fled from them both quite willingly, for the next several hours, at least.
THE END
Fated to His Kiss
“You will be my wife,” Henry said, preening away.
“I will do no such thing!” cried Anabelle, indignant. “When I am grown, I will be my own lady, own my own stables, and no husband or brother or father will tell me what I am to do with myself.”
“But Anabelle,” pleaded Henry earnestly, “that is not what wives DO.”
“But I will,” said Anabelle, tossing the ball they were throwing around deep into the lake. “I will be my own person.”
She knew that her mother would not be happy to hear her saying these things, but eight year old Anabelle Givens frankly did not give a damn, even though she knew damn was a bad word because of God. But if she could not share it with the neighbor boy, who was so close to her in age that it almost did not count, who could she share it with?
Henry Princely, aged eleven years and three months, did not know quite what to make of the fire-locked girl before him. On one hand, she had been taking over all of his toys and mastering riding lessons well before he did, and on the other, she was so darned interesting to look at. It was certain that her sister, Isadora, was much whispered over by his parents because of her lovely blond hair, but he much preferred the way Anabelle did not seem to care much at all if her own red hair was brushed or not. He had started coming over every day ever since their parents had decided that the racing track was all the rage and begun attending such events together, and it was Anabelle who always set the pace for their explorations.
The grounds of the Given family household were not extensive, but Anabelle always found the most marvelous games to play. Once, it was that they were pirates of the pond, hunting for treasure, and once, it was a giant tree with a huge knothole in hit where she showed him she hid all of the things that mattered to her. Anabelle was his friend, although he would not admit it to any of the boys he went to school with. He was almost a man now, and it would not do to be playing with a girl, except for the fact that he did not enjoy himself nearly so much playing military constantly. What else was there to do but to marry Anabelle so that he could play with her all the time and nobody else would be the wiser? Except that she was so resistant to the idea!
“You will be my wife,” Henry insisted, following his ball’s trajectory into the water. It landed with a resounding splash and bobbed up again after a minute.
“Never!” she cried, and seeing Henry’s outrage, she fled.
She ran like the wind. It was oxygen to her, the way her feet carried her further and further away. When she ran, she felt invincible. It was a shock to hear him coming up behind her, gaining on her, the heavy breath and fall of his footsteps coming ever closer. Her lungs burned with the expenditure, and she knew she could push herself no further. Ahead of her, the stable doors were opened, and although she knew there was no escape, she could see no other path for her to take.
She barreled towards the doors as if her life depended on it. She knew that gently raised young ladies did not run like this, but her father was not home and she did not care; there was nobody to watch. Besides, the tall walls of the stables offered many places to hide, as did the ladder leading up to the hayloft, located high up so that it was out of everybody’s business. She scrambled for it and climbed, feeling Henry grab at the folds of her skirt as she climbed high out of reach. Hearing him utter a curse behind her, she let loose a giddy, breathless laugh and used the last of her energy to reach the top of the ladder and collapse into a hayloft. She was taller than Henry, and prayed fervently that he would not be able to reach the ladder. The lack of air getting to her brain made her laugh slightly hysterical and uncontrollable, but she did not care. When she leaned over the edge to look below, Henry wore a slightly confused look on his face that made her laugh even harder.
“Guess you can’t reach me now, can you, Lord Prince
ly?” she taunted, her unruly red locks hanging over her face as she called out to the boy below.
“Why will you not marry me, Anabelle?” he asked, feeling more choked up than he thought was appropriate.
Anabelle considered this. “Because I do not want anybody to tell me what to do,” she finally said.
He looked up at her only once, then backed up several paces, and with a running leap, made for the ladder she had just climbed -and made it. Hanging on with a grip that must have pained him, Henry Princely climbed the ladder just as she had, and Anabelle felt her breath catch. She realized he would gain upon her soon, and all would be lost! Panicking, she looked for a way out, but as she looked out beyond the tiny perimeter of the hayloft, she knew that the only exit that was not being taken over by a determined boy was a perilous fall all the way down all the way next to Pauncy, her beloved horse. There was only one answer. Anabelle began to dig.
She made a well in the hay, a ditch, a space for her body to fit into. It did not make any sense, she knew, but it was the only thing she could think of. Besides, it added to the game and would surely through Princely off track. She buried herself inside of the pungent straw entirely, and held her breath as Henry’s face came up over the edge of the hayloft.
She could not see him, but she could hear his hesitation clearly. A bubble of laughter worked its way to Anabelle’s throat, but she willed it shut and willed her body to stop shaking from all the laughter. He began to claw through the hay, and it was not long before she felt the weight of his body on her, the strangest sensation she had encountered in her entire life. He was on top of her, pinning her down with his body, and he was heavier than she would have thought possible. Henry was in control now, and it was a thought that thrilled her for no particular reason she could possibly name at the time. Hands were raking the hay off her face, and light was dawning above Anabelle.
ROMANCE: CLEAN ROMANCE: Summer Splash! (Sweet Inspirational Contemporary Romance) (New Adult Clean Fantasy Short Stories) Page 71