Page 53 of A Bride for the Heartless Duke
Whatever else lay hidden in Nicholas’s heart, hedesiredher.
For now, perhaps that could be enough. Isadora could accept the strange little life he fashioned for them, provided he remained within it—provided he remained with her.
His hand rose to her breast and closed around its fullness. Her breath caught sharply. She shifted against him, suddenly conscious of the aching emptiness deep inside her. Need swelled through her body, fierce and almost unbearable, and she pressed closer.
This time, she would have everything. He would not awaken her so wholly only to withdraw again.
“I want you to undress me,” she gasped.
He tore his mouth from hers only long enough to look down at her. For the first time ever, his eyes were dark rather than that familiar frost blue, his expression stripped of everything but hunger. Then his hands found the hooks at the back of her gown.
With a heave, he wrenched the bodice apart.
Isadora gasped as the fabric gave with a sharp rip. He dragged the gown from her shoulders, baring the pristine white of her chemise and stays. His gaze settled upon the swell of her breasts above them, and his throat moved convulsively.
“You have no idea just how long—” He hissed a long breath and sank his teeth into her earlobe. Pain flashed, small and exquisite. Isadora moaned as it struck through the heat coiling in her belly. She was empty. Aching. Past all willingness to wait.
At once, her fumbling fingers flew to his waistcoat buttons. Nicholas made no effort to stop her. He shifted back instead, raising his arms while she stripped the garment over his head.
Candleflame was woefully inadequate, she realized as she took him in.
It slipped over the brutal breadth of his shoulders, the slabs of muscle across his chest, the hard furrows of his abdomen. Strength had been carved into every line of him. Yet when she pressed her palm to his sternum, skirting the purple bruise there, she found his skin soft and jumpy beneath her touch.
Hardness and heat. Violence and vulnerability. She had the strangest urge to sink her teeth into him, to mark that godly body and taste the salt of his skin.
His breath shuddered free, and she realized her hand hovered only inches above a bulge in his breeches. The same she had felt when she’d sat astride on his lap, rubbing herself shamelessly upon him.
“Isadora,” he said through gritted teeth.
“…May I touch you?”
In answer, he took her wrist and brought it to the bulge. She wrapped her fingers around its length and girth.
“Has anyone told you what happens between a man and a woman when they lie together?” he asked, his voice tight as her fingers explored. Up and down, squeezing slightly to feel how turgid it was.
“I…” She shook her head, slightly ashamed of her ignorance. If she’d had more married friends, or if her mother had still beenalive, she might have been privy to this information, but no one had thought to tell her—not even on the eve of her wedding.
“My…” His words appeared to fail him for a moment. “This will go inside you.”
Her eyes widened a touch. “Where?”
“There is a place. It may be uncomfortable at first, but I promise I’ll prepare you.” His hands returned to her breasts, finding the taut peaks beneath his fingertips. He circled them slowly, coaxing sensation through her until the tenderness became a sweet, throbbing ache. “That part,” he murmured roughly, “I hope you will enjoy.”
“I want you to do it.”
A curse escaped him.
In the next instant, her world tilted, and she was upon the bed, as Nicholas stood over her, his body eclipsing the candlelight. He seized the torn edges of her gown and rent them farther apart. Her chemise followed. Isadora nearly protested on principle—but shewantedthis as fiercely as he did, and ruined linen could be replaced.
His callused hands swept over her newly bared skin. He bent his head and drew her nipple into his mouth, his searing tongue lapping pleasure through her. Her spine arched in ecstasy.
It was richer than imagination.
More wondrous than any dream.
“Nicholas,” she breathed shakily.
He pinned her down to the bed, all muscle and heavy steel, covering her body with his own, his thighs pushing her legs apart. He almost gave her that precious friction right where she needed it most—but not quite…So close, so close, so close. She whimpered, and a rare smile crossed his face.
