If only he had something to offer her—aside from himself, in which she currently was pretending a complete disinterest—something that only he could give her, something she would certainly not be able to refuse.
As he stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching her ascend, so far out of his reach, a compelling smile came slowly and surely, with the idea forming in his head.
Nicole had only moments ago climbed into bed, scrunched down upon the pillows against the headboard, her knees lifted to hold the book she was reading when a knock sounded at the door. She called for entrance, assuming Lorelei had forgotten something.
Instead, she watched as the door opened to reveal Trevor and not her maid. She gawked in mute panic as he smoothly closed the door behind him. Nicole froze, huddled as she was within the bed, the book now forgotten.
She felt indignation rise then and sat up in the bed, dropping the book to her lap.
“What do you want?”
He seemed reluctant to speak, seemed intent only to stare at her, and she resisted the urge to bring the bed covers up and over her flimsily garbed upper body. Thankfully, her loosed and brushed out hair swept forward over her shoulders, hiding much of her thin night rail from his gaze.
“Trevor, why are you here?” Nicole persisted.
“I wanted to discuss something with you,” he answered finally.
“You want to talk? Now?”
“It seemed to me this conversation required the benefit of complete privacy.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers and met her guarded gaze evenly. “I can give you something you want.”
Nicole was quite sure her eyes must appear as huge saucers inside her face, and she hated that her voice was wobbly when she replied. “You have nothing I want, Trevor. Please leave.”
“Hear me out.” He moved around the side of the bed, startling her by sitting on its edge, very close to her that she scooted a bit away from him. Casually he lifted a hand to touch her hair, letting it glide through his fingers, seemingly unaware of her shoulders tensing. Very bluntly, he said, “I need an heir, Nicki.”
She stammered through two attempts to speak before her words were coherent. “Trevor I have told you that I would prefer to have no relationship with you—”
“But wouldn’t you rather have a baby?” He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. And then when she said nothing more, he said evenly, “There needn’t be love between a couple to create a child.”
“I know that,” she said weakly. He needn’t have reminded her that he harbored no love for her.
But finally, she had her answer—this is why he’d come now to Lesser House. It hadn’t after all, anything to do with her, really. It hadn’t been love or even hope that had driven him here. As always, all his decisions were made with the estate and the title as his first priority.
Leven. Always Leven.
Oh, but it was too much, Nicole thought. This couldn’t be happening. A baby. Her very own little person to love. Trevor’s baby.
Their baby.
She was very afraid of the temptation he’d placed before her. A baby in itself was a mighty persuasion. But at the moment, the making of the baby was what frightened her most. For so long, she’d managed to put this very yearning from her mind. But it had never left her completely, as proven by his kiss in the library. Until that moment, any memory of his kiss or his touch had served only as a sometimes antidote to her loneliness.
“What exactly are you asking?” She thought she should have everything clarified before she considered it further, before her hopes were raised, or subsequently dashed.
“I am asking for the opportunity to plant my seed inside you. To beget an heir.”
She swallowed visibly. “And if it doesn’t work?” She worried the blankets between nervous fingers, but her eyes remained fixed on him, trying to read him, ever an impossible feat.
Trevor cleared his throat. “To be frank, it normally does not happen on the first attempt. It sometimes takes several or many occasions.”
Nicole drew in a deep breath, exhaled and then bit her bottom lip in consternation. She lifted her hands, pressed her fingers into her eyebrows and forehead. She needed to think without him watching her. A baby seemed to be the main takeaway—a child she could shower with love. She lowered her hands and raised her eyes to him again. “You would live here while you made these... attempts?”
“Yes,” he said and then a boyish grin lightened his beautiful features. “It would make the coupling easier.”
“And if I...did conceive?” Now her eyes only considered her hands upon the bed linens, but her stomach churned, not altogether unpleasantly.
“Then there would be no further need for coupling.” After a small space of a second, he added in a husky voice, “Unless we both decided to continue.”
“To make another baby?”
“Or for other reasons,” he said, his hand once again near her hair, his fingers pulling gently at the locks, as if to test its softness. Nicole closed her eyes against this trauma. She decided to disregard his last remark. Other reasons might encompass many things. She was afraid to imagine what power he could hold over her. Immediately her mind shifted back to that kiss in the library. Adamantly, she struck the thought completely. She would not revisit that now. Not the way he’d made her feel.
But a baby. Her very own baby. Oh, but, “Would you take the child from me then, to raise in London?”
He was convincingly taken aback by this question. “Nicki, I would never take your child from you.”
Another minute passed, in which time he continued to twirl the long strand of her hair around his deft fingers while Nicole battled intensely within, wrestling with good ideas versus dangerous ones, and considering silly things such as angels and demons, wondering which Trevor might prove to be if she agreed to this absurdly unprecedented scheme.
But still...a baby.
She cleared her throat. “How—how would we go about this?”
“I would come to you as a husband does a wife,” he said simply.
“You would live here. But you would still keep generally to your own rooms? And you would leave still, after the Harvest Ball? Nothing would change?”
“Unless you wanted it to, Nicki,” he said, his voice, intentionally or not, seductive, caressing her. He took her chin lightly in his grasp and turned her to face him. She dared to meet his eyes, almost shaken by the smoldering desire she saw there. “Do you want to make a baby, Nicki?”
“I—I would like to have a baby,” she answered carefully, breathlessly, insinuating that the making of the baby was certainly not at the top of her wish list. “When—ahem—when would we...when would you want to start?”
Trevor leaned closer. “Now,” he said against her lips.
“Now is not very good for me,” she whimpered frantically. Oh, God! I am not strong enough for this. He has barely touched me, and I am melting. God help me.
He persisted, despite her small hands come between them to push him away. “If you are nervous now, Nicki, think of the wreck you should make of yourself after another day or so, with time to dwell upon it. Just let this happen.”
Tears glistened in the darkness of her eyes. “I am afraid.” For so many reasons.
Gently, Trevor laid her back upon the pillows, bending over her. “There is nothing to fear. The other day, in the library, I was reminded that you seem to enjoy my kissing.”
And that was exactly what she was afraid of.
“However,” he whispered as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her exposed collarbone, “just say the word, and I will stop now.”
Nicole clamped her lips together, thus preventing prudency and self-preservation to speak. His lips pressed more firmly, then breathed across her throat and neck, climbing to find her mouth.
A baby. A child of her own. Forcibly, she chanted this repeatedly in her head. That was the purpose, and the reason, and the goal. She needed to focus only on that.
; But then Trevor was stretching out alongside her, his body touching her hip and thigh and toes, and Nicole could not stop the whimper that escaped.
He returned to her lips, collecting that sound, and kissed her as he had so often in her dreams, but too rarely in her life. Tentatively, she touched a hand to his shoulder, pressing her fingers into the flexed muscles as he held himself poised over her. His tongue teased her lips, until her sigh opened them, and she joined her own with his. Trevor covered her mouth fully, slanting above her while one hand traced a tantalizing line from under her arm, down the side of her night rail and over her hip. The hand disappeared, sliding between her and the bed, cupping her bottom to bring her closer to him.
He paused the kiss, asked against her lips, “I want to glory in every inch of you, but I feel I should ask if you’d prefer the candle snuffed.”
I want to glory in every inch of you, did not seem to her to relate to their purpose here, procreating. These words sounded so much less necessary, so...amorous.
She didn’t know how to answer him, though. As she felt she was on the verge of tears—though for the life of her could not say that they would be cries of sorrow—she imagined she might like the room darkened. But as her hands skimmed over his shoulders and arms, she knew she wanted to see him, so much of him.
But for the threatening tears. “Dark, please.” Her voice sounded husky, shaky.
Trevor did not release her, nor move too far away, only extended one arm across her, his thumb and forefinger pinching out the bedside candle. When his face was close again, his lips tickled against hers. “We’ll use our hands to see.”
Nicole’s skin prickled with excitement at the very idea.
And so he did, sidling against her once more, cupping her face in his palms, pressing his lips to her tenderly, almost unmoving, inviting—daring—her to forward their union. Nicole could not resist, indeed lifted her head off the pillow and met his kiss. She wrapped her arms more tightly around him, threading her fingers into his soft and thick hair and showed him everything he had taught her about kissing. Opening her mouth, she thrust her tongue at him, heard him groan as he responded and fitted himself more intimately against her, pressing a hardness into her hip. She kissed him with a calmness that belied all the screaming inside that warned she should not, that she should instead push him away, away from her arms and her bed and her heart.
She couldn’t say exactly when the mantra inside her head, reminding her of the reasons behind her submission, shifted from a child of her own to Trevor is loving me. Truth be told, she could also claim no surprise for the change. But soon, she knew that aside from the delicious things his kiss was doing to her body, the joy that welled within was associated, right quickly, more to the latter rather than the former.
She felt her night rail being pushed away from her shoulders, felt his lips touch the skin he exposed. This gave Nicole only a moment’s pause, until the exhilarating sensation of his wet mouth on her bare flesh overtook everything else. She let her head fall back and closed her eyes once again, reveling in the feel of him, and the delightful sensations his touch evoked.
While he continued to trail kisses along her shoulder and collarbone, his hand rose up between them and cupped her breast. His hand was large and firm upon her, cupping and lifting, her breast filling it. His thumb grazed over her nipple and Nicole marveled at the wonder of this, so much uproar in those previously unused, unknown parts of her body.
She moaned in his arms, never having felt such glorious passion as this, having not suspected that it lived in her. When he lowered himself and his teeth tugged at her nipple through the fabric of her shift, Nicole died a little death. Her breathing spasmed, a sound escaped, sounding to her ears much like a purr.
“Enough of this,” he growled suddenly, his voice rough and breathless as he stood from the bed.
Nicole gasped, tortured by the removal of his warmth and heat, and his intent, until he pulled her to her feet in the darkness, and offered instant relief when it seemed his only purpose now was to remove their clothing. Neither too rushed nor with aching slowness, Trevor lifted her night rail up and over her head, tossing it away onto the unseen floor.
She stood naked then before him and was thankful now for the lack of light. The sparse moonlight, drifting lazily in from the tall windows at the other side of the room, showed only their shapes, and just a hint of silver to color to their persons. When he didn’t touch her immediately but let his gaze rake over her in such a way as to suggest his night vision might be much stronger than her own, Nicole shifted her weight from one leg to the other.
And then Trevor lifted her hand and touched it to his chest, then directed it downward, specifically putting it on to the hem of his white muslin shirt. Of her own accord, Nicole applied her other hand as well and took up the hem at the opposite side. Taking one step closer she raised the hem and the shirt up just as Trevor lifted his arms. Her fingers grazed the underside of his arms as she pushed the muslin up and away until Trevor took hold of it and discarded this in the same careless manner as he had her nightgown. He faced her, and because she really could not see well enough, Nicole closed her eyes as she set one hand high on his chest. He stiffened beneath her, his pectoral muscles shifting with a tantalizing motion. He was hard and smooth. A carnal curiosity bade her touch him with both hands, skimming them over his bare skin, in a harmonized motion, out and away, over his shoulders, at the same time.
“Jesus,” he breathed hoarsely and attacked her again, crushing her to him, shattering her brief composure with the feel of her naked breasts so magnificently pressed to his chest. He wrapped a hand around her neck, held her firmly, close to him while his mouth devoured her, and he ground his hips against her. Nicole gasped into his kiss, overcome and enlivened at the same time, understanding what the hardness he pushed against her represented, and aware of her tremulous response, gathering between her legs. Their passion ignited further boldness in her that her hands found the top of his breeches, held still at his hips. She had bare knowledge of men’s clothing, save for what wash day had shown her, and reached for the ties in the front, some urgent whisper inside her telling her she needed him naked now as well. She needed to feel all of him against her, stoking the fire he’d started.
Trevor gave aid to her efforts, deftly loosening the strings and removing his breeches. That pale moonlight showed only the shape and size of him, creating both reservations and questions about how, precisely, this worked. But he granted no time for either to manifest, stepping closer again as he settled his hands on her hips, kissing her again into a fine frenzy.
He did not hold her close again though, which left Nicole wondering if he thought to spare her sensibilities, with his new nakedness. And just as a certain wantonness induced her to reach for him, to discover him, he intercepted her hand, whispering, “Not yet,” against her lips. Instead, he directed her hand between her own legs, his hand fitted over the top of hers, his long fingers pushing her slender ones into the curls.
This struck Nicole as magnificently sensuous, both of them touching her. Trevor guided her fingers, showing her a back and forth motion that elicited a strangled and wondrous moan, stirring her need of him to heights she couldn’t have imagined.
“I want you wet for me,” he murmured, nipping at her mouth, pressing her fingers deeper into the folds, where she was indeed wet.
Nicole opened her mouth against him, but could make no sound, nor even return the favor of his sweet, tempting kisses.
He moved them, pushing her backward even as their lips still met and their hands still gave her such delight. The back of her legs touched the bed. Trevor sent his thigh between her legs at the same time he lowered her, his knee guiding them onto the mattress, his arm sliding around her back to catch her fall.
And now she felt him, as he came on top of her, felt his erection stroking just where their fingers had, and she heard herself moan again with need. Trevor abandoned her lips to find her breasts with his
mouth. At this unforeseen touch, Nicole sank into the mattress, trying to halt the wild and unexpected rush of excitement stirred by his mouth covering her breasts, his tongue licking at her nipples. Soon though, she was arching her back and holding his head close as he brought each nipple to perfect arousal. He showed her the connection between different parts of her, how the attention given to her breasts created a swirling, wanton heat between her legs. Nicole began to rub against him, opened her legs so that he touched her more intimately, so that this building thing inside her grew stronger and stronger.
The head of his cock met with the very center of her and Nicole somehow knew this would complete her and deliver her what her untutored body craved right now. She moved her hips to draw him inside her, heard him growl, suggesting he liked this, and she shifted again. Trevor stilled, his lips returning to hers as he flexed his hips and answered her want of more, entering her slowly. With his elbows and forearms on either side of her head, pressing into the mattress and pillow, he watched her as he pushed further inside her. Nicole stared back, her fingers digging into his sides with this new sensation and wished now for so much more light to see him, to see if he felt what she did, how beautiful and perfect and right this was. She saw only that his eyes were shiny in the darkness and that he breathed through his mouth as he watched her.
Nicole did the same, her lips forming a little o to force even breaths, even as hips continued to move against him. He surged forward then, stopping at the resistance within.
Trevor dropped his forehead to hers. “The very last thing I want to do is hurt you again, sweet. But I—it needs to be done.”
Nicole had some vague notion of what he spoke, having been informed during a very awkward and awful discussion with her governess years before. She nodded, hearing his words again. The very last thing I want to do is hurt you again, uttered with a tortured and sorrowful tone. Trevor rose, planting his palms on the bed, being high above her and pulled himself out almost all the way before pushing back in to the point he’d reached before. He did this several times while Nicole acquainted herself with his chest, running her hands over the solid muscles, liking the way they bulged and shifted as he rocked in and out of her. He surged forward with a great thrust, filling her completely, bringing forth a startled cry. Tears pooled for the surprising extent of the pain and Trevor stopped moving altogether, poised above her, waiting.
When She Loved Me (Regency Rogues: Redemption Book 1) Page 19
