The Seduction n-1

by Nicole Jordan

  “You have always been worthy, Damien.”

  His shadowed gaze was skeptical. “No. The things I’ve done, the empty life I’ve led… I’m determined to change all that.”

  “But why, Damien?” she whispered.

  “Because I love you.”

  When she stood transfixed, Damien took a step closer, gazing down at her. Vanessa didn’t pull away.

  With a jagged breath, he drew her into his embrace. He winced at the strain on his healing wound, but ignored the pain and her resultant murmur of dismay and wrapped his arms about her. He wanted to hold her, simply hold her, until the emptiness waned.

  He felt the faint tremors of her body as she pressed against him. “Do you know that I dream of you at night?”

  “That doesn’t mean,” her reply came muffled against his good shoulder, “that you love me. How can you be certain it is truly love?”

  “I feel joy just being with you. I feel pleasure at the sound of your voice. Even the smallest moments have meaning when you’re there to share them with me. Is that not love?” When she remained silent, he went on in a hushed voice. “I never knew joy until you, Vanessa. I never knew what true pleasure was.” He could feel the trembling doubt and hope pulse through her body. “I do love you… so much I hurt.”

  Vanessa stood mutely in his embrace. She wanted to believe him so badly that the depth of her longing terrified her. She heard Damien’s voice against her ear, low and pleading.

  “I spent far too long trying to escape the truth. I tried desperately to deny what I felt for you. You frightened me. I feared I would lose my soul to an obsession. I did lose it, but I found something far more precious…”

  He drew back, tilting her face up to his. She was crying, he realized. His heart wrenching, he reached up to rest his hand against her tearstained cheek, gazing into her eyes, her beautiful, soft, doe eyes.

  “I do love you,” Damien whispered. “You are everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman.”

  She caught her breath, pinned by the raw emotion in his eyes. Her heart aching, she touched her fingertips to his lips. “Damien, you don’t have to offer marriage. I will continue to be your mistress if you wish.”

  “No, sweeting, that wouldn’t be enough. If you come to me, it will be as my wife. I want to marry you, Vanessa. I want to spend the rest of my life proving my love for you. Will you give me that chance?”

  She searched the lean, high-cheekboned beauty of his features. The naked vulnerability she saw there struck her like a physical blow. “Damien…”

  When she hesitated, wanting to ease his hurt, he shut his eyes in desperation. “Vanessa, don’t torment me. If you don’t want me… if you can’t bring yourself to love me, then tell me so.”

  “I do want you,” she whispered. “I love you, Damien. I love the man you are. I always will.”

  Focusing on her, he stared into her eyes as if in a mirror, seeing reflected there all his own turbulent emotions… wonder, fear, love. His heart seemed to stop beating.

  “Then… if I renewed my declarations, could I dare hope for a different answer?”

  She smiled at him, her eyes misty. “Yes.”

  That lovely smile trapped his breath in his chest. Hope flaring inside him, Damien swallowed thickly. “I discovered a proposal in a volume of Olivia’s poetry, which I memorized in the event I ever had the incredible fortune to ask you again.” He kept his gaze riveted on her face, his voice low. “Will you have me, though I come to you corrupt? My armor tarnished with sin and decadence?”

  Vanessa couldn’t contain another trembling smile. She had no choice but to have Damien. He owned her heart.

  She was his, body and soul.

  “Yes, I will have you,” she said softly. “Gladly.”

  He framed her face with infinite gentleness, dazed with love and desire. “And you will marry me and be my love?”

  “Yes.”

  “Vanessa…” He said the word as a husky breath as he bent down to her.

  His mouth claiming hers, he kissed her with all the new, brilliant tenderness in his soul. His hands moved blindly in her hair as desire spilled through him.

  He didn’t deserve her, a woman so rare as this. She had become his heartbeat, his breath.

  And he would spend the rest of his life proving it to her.

  Epilogue

  Rosewood, November 1810

  Damien paused at the door to his bedchamber and gazed down at his bride of eleven hours.

  “At last,” he murmured huskily, raising her hand and pressing his lips into her palm. “I thought we would never be alone.”

  Vanessa gave him a dreamy smile. “You were the one who insisted on a large wedding.”

  “I wanted the world to know of my good fortune.”

  He had procured a special license to marry without the banns so they could hold a double wedding with his sister and her brother. The church was filled to overflowing, since half the peerage of England had turned out to watch the notorious Lord Sin meet his fate.

  After a sumptuous feast at Rosewood, Olivia and Aubrey had departed for Kent, along with Vanessa’s mother and sisters. The last of the guests had finally driven away moments ago, leaving the baron and new baroness alone on their wedding night.

  “Wasn’t it wonderful that Olivia could stand upright for the ceremony?” Vanessa remarked as Damien opened the door for her. “She made a beautiful bride, don’t you think?”

  He gave her a smile so brilliant it shamed the sun. “I scarcely noticed. I had eyes only for my own bride.”

  Her heart too full of joy, Vanessa entered the bedchamber, which had been prepared for the night. Several lamps burned welcomingly, while a fire blazed in the grate to ward off the autumn chill. The huge vase of crimson roses that graced a side table scented the air, and the bedcovers on the four-poster bed were turned down invitingly.

  Vanessa shivered with anticipation of the night to come. Remarkably Damien had insisted they remain chaste until they could consummate their vows. Thus the past weeks had been fraught with sensual tension and the frustration of being able to touch but not satisfy. But he was her husband now, and the moment at last had arrived when they would solemnize the commitment of their hearts.

  When Damien closed the door gently, shutting them inside their bridal bower, Vanessa met his gaze. The heated promise she read in the silver depths of his eyes sent excitement flaring deep within her.

  As he moved around the room, extinguishing all but one of the lamps, Vanessa crossed to the window whose draperies had been left open, as the lord preferred. For a moment she stood gazing down at the moonlit gardens. She still could scarcely believe her own good fortune. Damien loved her, and each day that passed only affirmed his devotion.

  She felt his warmth at her back as his arms wrapped around her.

  “Happy?”

  “Deliriously. I never imagined it was possible to be so happy.”

  His whisper brushed close against her ear. “You’re certain you won’t regret having to live in London a good part of the year? I could give up my new post at the Treasury.”

  “Quite certain. I could be content to live anywhere as long as I have you.”

  “You will have me, sweeting, for a long, long while. Will forever do?”

  Vanessa smiled, dazzled by the warmth in his voice. Damien was determined to prove the adage that reformed rakes made the best husbands, and thus far he was succeeding admirably. “Forever will do nicely, I think.”

  His lips grazed her temple as his hand slid lower to caress her abdomen. “We should find something to keep you from being lonely while I’m occupied with mundane governmental affairs.”

  “You don’t find them mundane in the least,” she replied with amusement. “I know very well that you relish your new challenge, spinning gold from dross for the good of the country.”

  “Quite so. But perhaps you need a new challenge as well, now that you’ve succeeded in taming a wicked rake. Would a child or two
fit the bill, I wonder?”

  Her heart welling at the thought, Vanessa turned to gaze up at Damien. Moonlight poured through the window, highlighting the sculpted contours of his face. “Having your child is the only thing that could make me happier than I am at this moment.”

  “Then we must give it our sincerest efforts, my angel.”

  She searched his face. “Damien, are you certain you want the encumbrance of a family?”

  “Absolutely certain. I’ve been alone and lonely far too long. It’s high time I gave up my wild ways and settled down.”

  The slow smile Vanessa gave him was provocative. “Then we needn’t use the sponges any longer?”

  His gaze burned deeply into hers as his thumb stroked her jaw. “No. No sponges.”

  He reached beyond her to draw the draperies shut, enclosing them in intimacy. Slowly he bent down to her. His mouth moving upon hers, he kissed her so softly, so deeply, that a silky fire flowed into her, smoldering and spreading. Vanessa sighed with pleasure and pressed closer, murmuring his name.

  “Patience, wife,” Damien admonished in a husky whisper. “We have forever-and I intend to enjoy every single moment.”

  They undressed each other slowly, pausing frequently to taste and explore. Vanessa’s eyes darkened when she saw the scar in Damien’s shoulder where the bullet had lodged, but he captured her mouth and drove away all her dark thoughts of the past. They had only a glorious future ahead of them, a future that began at this moment.

  Having been deprived of each other for so long, the deliberate delay was a delicious form of torture, yet they drew out the sensual mating dance to its fullest. Their lips met often as they indulged in the utterly consuming need to touch and be touched. When finally they were both nude, Vanessa marveled again at the elegant, virile grace of her husband’s body, while his eyes swept every tempting curve of hers.

  Their gazes held as he removed the pins from her hair, beginning with the exquisite diamond roses he had given her as a wedding present. With reverence he spread the shining mass around her bare shoulders. Joyously, then, Damien swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed.

  As he lowered her to the silken sheets, he kissed her again hungrily, smothering her low moan between their pleasured mouths. The rhythm of his heartbeat turbulently echoed her own as he followed Vanessa down to lie beside her.

  Desire was a desperate need inside him, yet Damien forced himself to go slowly. He wanted to savor the moment when he made her his wife.

  Shifting his weight, he raised himself on one elbow to search her beloved face. He wanted to see the desire and love in her eyes, and he found what he was seeking. Liquid radiance shone in the dark depths.

  Tenderness ran through him, still startling in its wonder. “You intoxicate me,” he murmured.

  His fingers sculpted the lovely planes of her face, treasuring the velvety texture. His caressing hand moved lower then, as he bent his head to taste her. He felt her delicate shudder as his lips found her throat.

  He tongued her sensitive flesh, pulse point by pulse point, while his hand roamed lightly over her bare skin.

  “Everything about you entices me, excites me…” he murmured, touching, fondling. “I love your breasts… The sensuous curve of your spine… The silken hollow between your thighs.”

  Heat throbbed through Vanessa, strong and insistent, reverberating with each sensual caress.

  “I love your grace and courage…”

  She moaned softly as his fingers lightly stroked the lips of her sex.

  “I love your pleasure sounds…”

  She pleaded with him. “Damien… please.”

  “There’s no hurry, love.”

  His own voice, though, was hoarse and indistinct, with an urgency that betrayed his need and longing. Even so, he fought the burning ache in his loins. Crushing the urge to ravish her, Damien settled himself gently in the cradle of her femininity.

  Vanessa gave a breathless sigh of contentment as his muscled thighs spread hers wide. A tremor quivered through her body when he thrust slowly, filling her with his magnificent hardness.

  Already intensely aroused, she wrapped her legs around him to draw him deeper, but Damien wouldn’t hasten the moment. Plunging to the hilt one tantalizing inch at a time, he penetrated her silken heat and then withdrew just as deliberately, maintaining a measured, maddeningly gentle possession, even when she was hot and feverishly restless beneath him.

  “Damien…” She pleaded with him again, but still he wouldn’t relent, wouldn’t give her ease.

  Disregarding her soft, keening moans, he tortured her with exquisitely slow thrusts, his own desperate hunger restrained as he whispered erotic love words in her ear, telling her how much he wanted her, what it was like to lose himself inside her… how much he loved her.

  Love. It was an unyielding, hungry joy that filled him to brimming. A violent flame that seared his heart. His love burgeoned inside him, diminishing his careful control.

  He drove into her more forcefully, his longing tumultuous and raw. Trembling now, Damien surrendered to the wrenching, powerful need, yet Vanessa met and matched his fierce hunger, frantically arching against him.

  They came together in an explosion of fiery need, of possession and surrender. Her whimper of pleasure became a sob of joy as shattering ecstasy rocked her body. Seized by the same stunning splendor, Damien poured himself endlessly into her in a melding of flesh and spirit.

  He gave her his soul, and she took it willingly.

  In the heated aftermath, they lay close, still shaking from the force of their mating. When the fury of heartbeats settled into a less violent rhythm, they remained entwined, their skin damp.

  Weakly, Damien nuzzled his face in Vanessa’s hair. The bliss that had convulsed his senses was as powerful as anything he’d ever felt, but the fierce emotion that flowed through him was stronger still.

  It was an act of love, done in love. He had never experienced it before.

  Love. How had managed to live without it? Without her? Vanessa was his life now. He hadn’t known how empty he was until she had filled his heart. Hadn’t known what rapture was until he became a part of her.

  With her, he felt complete, whole, fulfilled in a way he never imagined possible. She had brought laughter and warmth into his home, joy to his life, a life that had been so cold and barren. He had tutored her in the arts of love-making, but she had taught him to love. And now, with their joining in marriage, the fervent passion that had always marked their lovemaking was only intensified.

  Yet, with all his expertise at lovers’ games, with all his sophisticated, practiced charm, Damien still found it hard to express how deeply he felt.

  “I never realized,” he murmured, drawing back on the pillow so that he could see her face, “how much greater the pleasure could be when a man makes love to the woman he loves.”

  Her half-lidded eyes opened dreamily. “Nor did I. Is it possible to die of pleasure?”

  “I profoundly hope not.” His mouth twisted with amusement, but then his expression sobered. “Do you have any notion how much I love you?” For all the softness in his tone, he was fiercely intent.

  “I’m beginning to fathom it.”

  Damien placed her palm on his chest so she could feel the powerful beat of his heart. “This belongs to you, Vanessa. For always.”

  Her gaze soft with love, she reached up to brush his lips with her fingers. “As mine belongs to you.”

  “Say it,” he demanded quietly, never tiring of the words.

  “I love you, Damien.”

  His eyes took on a smoky tenderness that made her heart melt. “I’ll make you happy, I swear it.”

  She smiled and moved her mouth closer to his. “You already have.”

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