Page 63 of A Bride for the Heartless Duke
The tenderness left from the previous night made the first stretch ache. She paused, breathing through the resistance, and felt his fingers sink into the yielding flesh of her hips. Yet he didnot thrust. He held himself motionless until she had taken him completely.
The cost of that restraint was etched into every taut line of his face.
Then, the discomfort ebbed, and pleasure burst through her like tiny fireworks.
Nicholas slipped his hand between them. His thumb found the sensitive crest above their joining, circling it as she began to move. The twin sensations—his fullness inside her, his measured caress without—overwhelmed her rhythm.
He smiled despite the strain and guided the rise and fall of her hips.
“That’s right…” he moaned gutturally. “That’sperfect. Just the way you are. Just like that.”
The praise entered her like honey poured right into her blood. His other hand encompassed her breast, his fingers teasing the nipple into a sweet, exquisite sting.
She felt as though she was winding tighter and tighter, an inevitability, a certainty that this time, when she fell, she would be taking him with her. They would be turning each other inside out; this was the sort of vulnerability that marked a person forever.
She would never forget or outgrow this or him. He would be in her heart forever, and so would this moment. For the first time, she felt as though there was nothing between them. No lies or secrets. Justthem.
She rocked faster on him, urging both to that luminous precipice. And when his eyes locked on hers, a naked desperation within them, and his fingers gripped her still more tightly, and he whispered, “What do you want, Dora?” sheknewthey would both fall together.
She did not relent until they both came apart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nicholas stepped into Oliver Chant’s hallway, a very proper butler leading the way. He had sent his card in advance, and thus, when Oliver himself looked up from his desk, it was without surprise. Instead, a brief expression of trepidation crossed his face.
He swiped down his hands on his breeches and rose. “Your Grace.”
Nicholas tossed his gloves on the table and seated himself in the armchair before the escritoire. “You may as well abandon any pretence at formality. I rather think we’ve passed that point, have we not?”
Oliver sank back behind his desk, grinning. “Do you preferWill?”
The audacity of the man brought a smile to Nicholas’s mouth, but he abandoned it just as quickly. “I’d prefer you giving me a reason to keep your head on your shoulders.”
“Why the false name?” he asked.
“Why do you think?” Nicholas spread his hands. “I hardly wanted the world to know of my…hobby.”
“Not a soul will hear it from me, old man,” Oliver promised.
“I had expected as much. But I have not come here to beg for your secrecy. When I was Will, you befriended me, and I…” Nicholas hesitated. “I would be loath to lose that entirely, even if I largely intend to leaveWillin my past from today forth.”
“Ah, an offer of friendship.” Oliver’s eyes lit up briefly, but he paused. “Then I suppose you don’t know of my aspirations toward your sister’s hand.”
“On the contrary. Marie herself told me of your connection and begged me to call on you so I might get to know you better. Little did she know, we have shared several drinks before.”
Oliver watched him warily, as a man might watch a crouching tiger. “And you have no objection?”
“I have made some small investigations into your situation, and you are certainly of an age and situation to provide for a wife. Marie is no easy lady to take care of; if you think yourself up tothe task, and you promise to treat her with respect and affection, I hardly see why I should stand in your way.”
A genuine smile split his face. “Thank you, sir.”
“Call me Nicholas,” Nicholas said impatiently. “Or if you must be more formal, Winchester will do perfectly well.”
“Then thank you, Winchester. I confess, I had been dreading this meeting before I saw you at the fair.”
“Why? Had someone warned you that I was a tyrant?” Nicholas’s mouth twisted. “Or told you how my first wife died?”
“No.” A crease appeared between Oliver’s brows. “Though I begin to wonder whether they ought to have done. You are seldom seen in society, and I assumed a duke would demand impossibly high standards of any man wishing to marry his sister.”
