She moaned and he caught her against him and the bookshelf, anchoring her so she remained upright. All the while, he continued to worship her perfect breast.
Their chests heaved, with their raspy breaths coming in time. Nick ran a hand caressingly from her breast down to her belly and then he found the soft downy thatch that shielded her womanhood. Touching her as he’d ached to since their earliest meetings.
“Nick,” she pleaded, splaying her legs in an invitation that dragged him close to the edge of madness.
A primal growl rumbled in his chest. In one fluid movement, he swept Justina into his arms and carried her to the nearby leather button sofa.
Justina was afire. Her body thrummed and ached and thrilled with Nick’s every touch. His every stroke.
As he settled her on the sofa, she shoved up onto her elbows and watched through heavy lashes as he shed his jacket, tossing it aside so it sailed to the floor in a soft heap. Next, he tugged free his waistcoat. His shirt followed onto that growing pile of garments on the floor.
Justina’s mouth went dry. His chiseled form was the kind of beauty those great sculptors could never properly do justice. The light whorls of golden hair on his chest, the tautness of his belly, was male perfection, personified.
Not removing his gaze from hers, Nick yanked off his boots and set them aside. When he placed his hands at the waist of his black breeches, her heart tripled its beat. She’d seen sketches of the ancient Greek gods in paintings housed in museums her sister had dragged her to. Nothing, however, could have prepared her for the moment Nick pushed his breeches down and kicked them aside.
Justina’s breath caught as he stood before her in all his naked splendor. He was a beauty to rival that first great male masterpiece shaped in Eden. She dipped her eyes lower and then swiftly yanked her gaze up. “You…I…” Her words trailed off as he came down slowly over her.
“Were made to join together,” he finished for her in a husky whisper. Then his lips found hers again, melting her reservations, erasing her fears, as she turned herself over to the bliss of simply feeling. He worked a hand between them once more and caressed between her thighs, sliding one finger inside her molten heat. A shuddery hiss burst from her lips as Nick toyed with her nub.
“I have never felt pleasure like this,” she whispered. Justina bit her lip hard and undulated into his expert stroking.
“Ah,” he enticed, touching his lips against her temple and then trailing a path lower, over her cheek and neck. “‘Pleasure is spread through the earth, in stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find’,” he reminded, calling forth those great words penned by Wordsworth. “Let us find it together,” he urged and thrust another finger inside her wet channel. Her head fell back and a scream tore from her throat.
“Nick,” she begged, lost in a sea of feeling.
He drew his hand back and she cried out at the loss of him, but he laid himself between her splayed thighs and settled his shaft at her center. “I do not want to hurt you,” he said hoarsely, lowering his brow to hers. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead.
Justina stroked her fingers down his back. The muscles rippled under her caress. “You could never hurt me,” she breathed and leaned up, claiming his mouth.
His male groan of approval blended with her breathless pants as he plunged deep. Her body bucked at the stiff intrusion.
She cried out, but he swallowed it with his kiss. Clenching her eyes, Justina went still and held herself motionless. His length stretched her tight walls.
“Justina,” he rasped, his breath came hard and fast as he touched his lips to her temple. “I am so sorry.”
She forced her eyes open. The angular planes of his face, ravaged, sent love spiraling in her heart. “Shh,” she whispered. “I am all right,” she promised.
His irises darkened with passion, turning his eyes nearly black. “I have never known a woman like you,” he said in gravelly tones. Then he began to move. Slowly. She stiffened. And then the slow drag of him inside her and the pressure eased, leaving in its place a wondrous throbbing.
Her breath hitched and she lifted her hips, meeting his thrusts until all memory of pain receded, leaving nothing in its place but the blissful pleasure of him rocking inside her. And out. Over and over. Justina clung to him, holding tight, as their pace quickened.
She panted as he brought her up to that glorious height again. Their movements took on a frantic, desperate rhythm and she gave herself fully to his mastery. Then he reached between them and found her with his fingers, just as he thrust home once more.
Justina screamed softly as she exploded in a sea of sensations; flecks danced behind her vision. Nick hurtled over that same precipice of wonder on a low, ragged groan that went on forever. He spilled himself inside her, in deep, rippling waves that pulsated through her core.
And then he stilled, collapsing onto his elbows to catch his weight. His breath came in quick, loud exhalations against her temple. A sated smile danced on her lips.
“If I had Shelley or Wordsworth’s words, I might be able to capture the wonder of such a moment,” she said in sleepy tones.
He quickly shifted them, arranging her atop his chest. She lay there with her ear pressed to the place where his heart loudly pounded. Her hair hung loose and flowing about them. Nick stroked his hand in a slow circle over the small of her back; that gentle caress brought her heavy lids closed. “How could any poet manage to convey in words what we just shared? It is because that moment belonged to only us,” he said quietly as his passion-sated baritone washed over her. At the beautiful poignancy of his words, she looked at him. Their gazes collided. “And you are correct. You are not Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley or any other poet.”
His words slammed into her with all the same hurt she’d known at her father’s derision and the world’s opinion of her.
Nick ceased his gentle stroking and moved his hand up to her face. He palmed her cheeks. “You are Justina Tallings. Write your own work.”
She drew back and searched his face for any hint that he made light of her. For the whole of her life, her father had spoken of her in disparaging words, as one who saw little use of her or for her. She knew not what to make of a man who spoke about the possibility of her writing anything of import.
“Write your own story, Justina,” Nick repeated. “Those passages you began and abandoned. Byron, Shelley, the lecturer at The Circulating Library, none of those men know any more than you…and they certainly do not know how you are feeling,” he added.
Her throat worked spasmodically and she swallowed several times, struggling to speak. “I have only ever been an object to my father. A chess piece. He saw me as a means to strengthen his wealth and power. But he never saw me. My sister and Andrew and Mother, they love me. They, too, are content to see the same thing Society sees in me.” Justina leaned up and captured his face between her palms. “You see me. In ways that I never fully saw myself—until now.” And for that, he would own the whole of her heart, forevermore.
Passion clouded Nick’s gaze as he claimed her lips in another powerful meeting. She found how wrong she’d been in her love of poetry and gothic novels.
Nothing in those pages could ever compare to the feeling of being in her husband’s arms.
Chapter 16
Justina snored.
It was an endearing discovery Nick made when he awakened the following morning with his wife’s naked form curled against his side. Her satiny soft hair cascaded about them and he gently brushed the strands from her face, tucking them behind her ears. Another soft, noisy exhalation spilled past her faintly-parted, bow-shaped lips. It was just one more discovery about the woman he’d intended to trap and ruin, and who, in the end, he’d ultimately wed with noble intentions.
Can there really be noble intentions when I intend to ruin her family, still?
Guilt needled away at his conscience and cut across the peacefulness he’d woken to with her in his arms. There would come time
enough for reality later. For now, there was this peace between them; so much so, in fact, that it was so very easy to believe they were any other blissfully wedded couple and not two people brought together by the sins of another man’s past.
Nick stroked his hand in a smoothing circle over her generous hip. In her sleep, she nestled against him. How trusting she was…in sleep and waking. The innocence he’d once been in possession of had been so very long ago that he’d believed himself incapable of recognizing it. But Justina’s innocence had proven a balm to his wounded soul—healing and, more, a tangible reminder of how it had once been.
And how it could still be, if he abandoned his scheming.
His body stiffened involuntarily against the unwanted weakening and he dragged a hand over his eyes. What was happening to him? Rutland had promised his father two years and ultimately had come in the dark of night and cut those years into a fortnight. For that, Nick should be able to send a bloody note that would beggar the Barrett family.
Needing distance between his wife and his riotous thoughts, he slowly edged away from Justina. Another loud snore escaped her. As she was rolling onto her back, she flung her arms out, baring her naked breasts to his gaze.
Nick swallowed a groan. He wanted her, again. Having known her three times throughout the night, she would be tender this morning. Though he’d proven himself a bastard in many ways, he wasn’t a brute who’d slake his lust.
Reluctantly, he pulled the coverlet over his wife’s frame, concealing her splendorous nudity, and then swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Quickly retrieving his garments, he dressed and then made for the door separating their chambers. He paused, passing one, lingering, regretful look at his wife. Then left. His valet, Russell, looked over as he entered the room, giving no outward reaction to Nick’s sudden presence.
Quietly closing the door behind him, Nick stalked across the room, while Russell hurried to the wardrobe and proceeded to draw out garments for his employer, and help Nick through his ablutions.
Nick’s gaze continued to stray to the door separating him from Justina. He caught sight of his grinning visage in the bevel mirror. What hold did the lady have that she should occupy his every thought and deter him in the goal that had sustained him for thirteen years?
Russell came forward with a white cravat. Accepting it in his fingers, Nick waved the servant off and proceeded to arrange the fabric. The young man rushed off to gather a sapphire jacket and as he returned, the garment outstretched, Nick shrugged into it.
A soft rapping at the front door brought his attention swinging forward. “Enter,” he called out.
His butler appeared at the entrance. “You’ve a visitor, Your Grace.
He shot a perplexed look to the ormolu clock atop his mantel. Seven o’clock in the morning. No guest would come to call at such an unfashionable hour. “Who—?”
Thoms cleared his throat. “It is your sister, the Countess of Dunkirk. She demanded to see you. I took the liberty of showing her to your office.”
Bloody hell. Of course, Cecily would be livid. “I’ll be with her shortly,” he said curtly. His loyal butler nodded and hurried from the room, closing the door behind him.
With a curse, Nick finished buttoning his jacket and then started for his office. He’d little doubt what brought her ’round this morning. In his haste to secure a special license from the archbishop and marry Justina before her father or Tennyson could act, he’d not given thought to a proper wedding. Rather, he’d convinced himself that the offer he’d made Justina, and her acceptance of it, had been nothing more than a matter of convenience to aid the lady. He reached his office and stopped.
Brandishing a paper in her hands, his sister stood beside the marble chess table. Fury radiated from her slender frame. Not wasting time with Social niceties or familial greetings, she leveled a glare on him. “I’ve come to speak to you.”
“I see that,” he drawled. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind them.
By the narrowing of her eyes, his attempt at dry humor was the wrong one. “Well?” she demanded, stalking forward. She stopped several feet away. “What is this?” She hurled a copy of The Times at him. It bounced off him and landed in a fluttery heap at his feet. He stared down at the gossip column, his name marked clearly alongside Justina’s.
He sighed. “I can explain.” Poorly.
“Explain why you were married and I, as your sister, find out in a bloody gossip column.” With each word, she took a step closer until her skirts brushed the front of his desk. “And to the Marquess of Rutland’s sister-in-law,” she hissed. She glanced about. Did she search for the very person in question? “What have you done?”
Of course, she would assume his actions had only to do with Justina’s relationship to the man whose happiness he wished to destroy. “It is not as it seems,” he said gruffly. Not entirely, anyway. He scrubbed his hands over his face.
“And how does it seem?” she shot back. He let his arms fall to his side. “As though you married the sister-in-law of the man you vowed to destroy.”
“Quiet,” he bit out, glancing quickly at the door. Soon, she’ll know. She’ll learn my connection to Rutland and my vow to destroy her wastrel father and brother. Guilt settled deep in his belly.
Cecily crossed her arms at her chest. “Very well, then, tell me how it is.” His sister had long taken her responsibilities as elder sister as seriously as if she’d been eighteen years older and not just one.
With her standing before him, a furious glint in her eyes, such a truth was never truer. Nick stooped and picked up the scandal sheet. “The lady was…compromised.”
The ever-narrowing of her eyes hinted at her fury. “By you.”
He shook his head once. “By the Marquess of Tennyson.”
His sister cocked her head. “But…”
Restless, he stalked over to the chessboard and picked up the marble pawn. How many times had he found purpose and strength on these boards? Plotting. Planning. Scheming. Nick closed his palm briefly around it and proceeded to explain the whole of the evening at Chilton’s ball. He took care to leave out the incriminating truths of the original intention for that grand event which had, in fact, included him trapping Justina. Before some inexplicable force had changed his mind.
When he’d finished, Cecily eyed him with a wary skepticism; a cynical jadedness that had not existed before her marriage to the ancient Earl of Dunkirk. “Why did you do it?”
Her question took him aback. “Why did I—?”
“Marry her,” she clarified. “Why should you have cared who the lady found herself married to?”
Because it would have destroyed the part of his soul that still lived to know a woman such as Justina was forever bound to the Marquess of Tennyson. That the idea of her in the man’s bed, bearing him children, and suffering through his perversions would have haunted him the same way his father’s suicide lingered, all these years later. When his sister gave him a probing stare, he cleared his throat. “I could not have seen her marry one such as him.” He’d sinned enough by allowing Cecily to marry one of those reprobates.
His sister touched a hand to her chest. “It was because of me,” she said quietly, making the same partially accurate supposition Justina had.
“It was because of her…and because I failed you,” he conceded.
“And what of her brother-in-law? What are your intentions toward that gentleman, now?”
Her words threw a thick blanket of tense silence upon the room. What were his intentions? Still, to ruin him. Only, the major piece of his scheme had hinged on hurting that man through the people who mattered to the marquess. Forcing Rutland to watch his wife suffer as her beloved sister was married to a man on a matter of revenge and beggaring them.
His gut clenched. “What would you have me do?” he asked tiredly.
The fight went out of Cecily as she moved before him. “It is not too late to change, Dominick. You are still the person you once were.”
His throat moved. “You’re wrong.” His voice came as though he’d been dragged down a graveled road. “I’ve consumed myself in hate and ugliness. It’s destroyed all remnants of the brother you remember.”
“If that was true, you wouldn’t have given a jot if Rutland’s sister-in-law married a man like Tennyson,” she accurately pointed out. “It is time to let go of your hatred and start again.” His sister placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
How could she forgive? How, when she lived with a daily reminder of her hell? The question hung on his lips, unasked, as he stared at the pain in her eyes. She needed no reminder from him of the misery that was her marriage.
He slammed the pawn back into its proper place; the table shook under the force of that movement. “I must do this for our family,” he explained, frustration ripping those words from him. Did he will her to understand? Or attempt to convince himself to do this thing?
“No, Dominick,” she countered. “You are doing this for you.” Her thinly veiled condemnation rang like a shot in the night. “This is not for Papa. Or Mama. Or me and my miserable marriage. Or Felicity. But you. Your hatred will destroy you.” She paused and held his gaze squarely. “And if you go forward with this, Justina will be destroyed, as well.”
When she’d arisen, Justina had rushed through her morning ablutions. She planned on visiting Gipsy Hill for the lecture at The Circulating Library. It was what she would have done on any other day, during any other week.
Reticule dangling from her fingers, she wound her way through her new home. Except…
Then, this is not just any other day. I am now a married woman.
Married, she mouthed the word. She’d spent her life both fearing she’d make a miserable match like her mother and dreaming that she’d find that ideal of love, with a respectable, honorable gentleman. And in the end, she’d found her respectable, honorable gentleman. Or rather, they’d found each other in one chance meeting in the streets of Gipsy Hill.
To Enchant a Wicked Duke Page 21