by Stacy Reid
“If they prick us, do we not bleed? If they wrong us, do we not revenge?”
“So, it is a revenge plot then,” she said lightly, painfully aware of the furious pounding of her heart. She walked over to him, lifted her hand, and cupped his jaw. He took a deep, shuddering breath, leaning slightly into her touch. “I understand the need to right the wrong done to you or someone you love. Will you tell me about it?”
His eyes lowered and he stilled. When he lifted his gaze to her, she flinched and stepped back. The eyes staring at her were indifferent, his lips almost cruel in their dispassionate curve. Nicolas’s entire posture radiated coiled menace. A murderous coldness settled on his face.
“Who dared to hurt you?” he asked softly.
…
Maryann’s unbound hair rippled in wondrous waves down her back and over the front of her nightgown. Several tendrils curled along the slope of her cheeks in a rather becoming way. She was lovely…and his heart stumbled in his chest. Her eyes were widened as if he had frightened her with his harsh whisper. An elusive sensation whispered through him, but it vanished before it shaped into a sense of tangibility.
“You silly man, I am not afraid of you.”
Some of the tension left him, and with a start he realized he had needed to hear those words from her. He glanced at the dark, mottled bruises which encircled her arms. “These must be incredibly painful.”
She placed her hands behind her back as if hiding candy from a toddler.
He glanced at the basin. Earlier, when he’d thought to steal in through her windows, he’d seen her soak her hand in rosemary water, then gingerly rub an ointment on her skin.
Nicolas thought it a result of falling into the streets. But these bruises spoke of something darker, the shape of a hand…fingers perhaps. Someone had hurt her, quite deliberately. To have left such bruises, the person was precise in their brutal punishment. Her father? The earl did not seem the type. Or was it her brother? The black Dahlia?
He took her hand between his. The tip of her finger was not soft and feminine, her nails were cropped short and the pad of her finger rough…and prickly. “What was the cause of this?”
An almost embarrassed smile touched her mouth. “Needlepoint. It is one of my favorite pastimes, especially when I am agitated. It soothes me.”
He used the tip of his finger and gently touched one of the marks above her wrists. “And who did this?”
She tried to tug her hand away, but he held onto her wrist gently.
“I thought we were friends.”
She sent a mirthful look from beneath her lashes. “Friends? I imagined nothing of the sort.”
His Maryann tried to sound snappish, but her voice trembled.
“Then what are we?”
Her face flushed a delicate, rosy hue. “I…I do not know, but I sense friendship does not define it.”
His resistance to her allure was very fragile, and way down inside, in a secret place he himself did not know, he felt the barrier he was trying to erect crack. And he understood her sentiments perfectly. He felt torn between the ache of wanting her and keeping her at a safe distance. It had already been five years since he started his path of vengeance. How long could he wait before taking something for himself?
He gritted his teeth. The matter wasn’t taking what her eyes so sweetly offered, it was what to do after.
He could not keep her or publicly woo her. Anything they did would be in secret and shadows. He’d had discreet lovers over the years who had understood they must never speak of their connection. But those women had been experienced widows or a songbird.
None had been an innocent or lady of quality with Lady Maryann’s breeding and connections.
None had peered at him in such a manner—filled with longing and tender regard.
None had touched his mouth with trembling fingers.
None had made his heart quake from a smile.
None had roused the dark protectiveness surging violently in his veins.
Nicolas rubbed a soothing thumb over her racing pulse. “Please, tell me what happened. Or if you are unable to, at least tell me you’ve informed your father and brother.”
“I…I did not.”
“Why?”
The memories flashed in her gaze, and the fear he saw had icy fingers slinking down his spine. Unexpectedly, she lowered her forehead to his shoulder. An odd tenderness uncoiled inside him. For her.
He led her over to the chair by the dying fire and when he sat, he tugged her down onto his lap in the single most tender motion he had ever made in his life.
“How scandalous,” she murmured, her eyes searching his face as she tried to decipher his intention.
He was damn glad she hadn’t jumped away from him and chased him from her room. Nicolas didn’t understand it, but he wanted…no, needed to be gentle with her. There was a vulnerability around her trembling mouth that gutted him to see. She was the most striking human being he had ever met. Fear wasn’t something she should ever feel, not while he was in her life.
But she is not in your life…only on the edges of it.
With a sense of confusion, he realized she filled spaces he had not known were empty, and she did it so effortlessly. “Tell me,” he softly coaxed.
“Why?”
“I will educate him on the error of his ways.”
Her eyes flared briefly. “I think…I think he is dangerous; he is not a man with whom one trifles.”
He suspected the identity of the bounder but wanted her trust. It mattered to him. Nicolas lifted her fingers to his mouth and nipped. She flushed, and her chest lifted on a sharp breath. “Am I only a feckless baboon in your sights?” he asked.
Tension crackled in the space between them.
Her cheeks turned a bit pink, and she looked away for a moment before answering. “I do not think you are a feckless baboon…but a great pretender. Sometimes I see the danger lurking in your gaze, but then it vanishes so quickly, I wonder if it was my overwrought imagination.”
He was not the same boy who had loved Arianna and had lingered for years in his hapless guilt. The reputation of ruthlessness he garnered had not been lightly gained but had been another calculated and very deliberate move on his part. Some of the sins laid at his feet were well-placed rumors, but some he had committed. Only those close to him might know the truth, and with a fierce jolt Nicolas recognized he had no one close to him, yet he had never thought himself lonely.
Vengeance, and guilt, and pain had been fine company indeed.
“If not a baboon, what do you see?” he asked teasingly, hoping to get her to relax. He sensed acting the demanding brute would not work with her.
“Sometimes you remind me a bit of a hawk…or an eagle. Something in your stare. Maybe you are a more dangerous predator just to my sensibilities,” she said with a teasing half smile.
He faltered into stillness. The eagle soars indifferently while the wolf betrays…
Nicolas studied her face carefully. “Do you trust me?”
“You are in my chamber, aren’t you? I have twice now been sitting on your very muscular thigh,” she said with clear disgruntlement.
He smiled. “My muscular thighs appreciate your trust. When did this happen?”
“Today,” she admitted softly.
“Why do I hear shame in your voice?”
“I was afraid.”
“A reaction that many of us feel. It warns us of the threat in the room, not that we are cowards.” He gave a sigh. “As a lad of twelve, I found myself on the iced-over lake by our country estate when I was just overcome with a feeling of dread. I froze for several minutes until I pushed myself to get off the lake. Only a few seconds later, the ice collapsed in several places. That fear…whatever induced it warned me of the danger I had not yet perceived. Fear is not an indica
tion of weakness, but that we are highly perceptive enough to sense the latent danger which surrounds us. I am certain you felt anxious before this person even acted in a vile manner.”
He tugged at one of her loose curls. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Maryann.”
A quick frown chased her face, and her eyes searched his. “It is very silly, because I am not a wilting flower, and I only had to scream, and the servants would have come running. I didn’t kick at him or even struggle. I…I just froze. And whenever I think of it, my heart races and I feel such anxiety.”
Those softly spoken words had lodged themselves deep in Nicolas’s heart and stirred something wicked and ugly inside him.
“Lord Stamford,” he said, watching every nuance of her face. “It was he.”
She nodded. “He is frightfully persistent. It is quite inconceivable. There are so many beautiful and well-connected ladies in society who would happily marry him.”
“And because you are a wallflower, you do not think the earl could want you?”
She exuded a fire and strength he had never seen in another woman; it did not seem to occur to her how a man might crave her in his life.
“The unflattering sobriquet is meant to be such an insult, a reminder to me and my friends that we are overlooked and relegated to adorn the background of ballrooms, much like the wallpaper in this room. I choose not to be embittered at their ridiculousness or accept the role. Even with that knowledge of myself, it is astonishing the earl would pursue me in such a manner. There are far more beautiful women in society, who are also intelligent, who possess large dowries, who would be thrilled with the connection.”
“It is because those other ladies are like roses…some red, yellow, white, all beautiful, but still roses.”
“Roses are very beautiful,” she murmured huskily. “Everyone loves roses. I love roses.”
He touched the corner of her mouth, where the dimple came when she smiled, with the tip of his fingers. It was gentle enough for her to doubt the existence of the caress. Yet she closed her eyes, savoring the feel of him against her skin. Or was it he who relished the delicate softness beneath the tip of his finger?
He dragged the tip of his finger down to her lips, and gently swiped it across the fullness of her mouth. Those lips parted…and he ran his finger along the open seam of her lips. There were so many things he wanted to do with her lush mouth. Kiss it thoroughly until it bruised, and flushed the brightness of red. He also wanted to fuck that pouting mouth, coax her to take his thick length, savor the feel of her mouth as she sucked him in hot, tight pulls.
The crudity of his lust shocked him and allowed him to drop his hand to her hips. He gentled his touch, as if he held something precious in his clasp, and gave her the revealing truth. “You are the night-blooming cereus that graces us only once a year, for a single night. And on the night which you opened so beautifully, he saw you…a brewing tempest formed in his gut, and he craved you, for he knew the secret behind your unique beauty.”
“And what is that?” she asked huskily, her eyes dark with indefinable emotions.
“That it wasn’t just only for one night. That blooming fire that he saw is always there, underneath the facade of indifference you show to the world, waiting for you to show it to those you deem worthy. For one brief moment he saw your wit that skewered, the poignant beauty of your smile that endlessly captivated, the sensual way you saunter, the elegance of your throat as you tilt back your head and laugh, the charming way you constantly fix your spectacles, the shrewdness and sweetness of your tongue…and he saw that the mouse wasn’t a mouse at all…but a rac—”
Her fingers, three of them, pushed against his mouth perfectly, stemming his words.
Maryann made a small, helpless sound of need. “Surely, you’ll say a lioness…or a tigress,” she whispered achingly. “Racoons are ugly.”
A familiar craving awakened inside him, and he wanted to drag her against his chest and kiss her so badly, his teeth ached. He had to resist, for one kiss with her wouldn’t be enough. He ruthlessly reminded himself, “He who conquers others is strong, but he who conquers himself is mighty.”
He could feel the wild flutter of her heartbeat underneath his fingers pressed into the curve of her throat. “Not my racoon.”
His heart slammed against his chest. So close to kissing her but so far away.
“It is you…you who saw me… Since that first night you climbed up into my room, I can forever feel your gaze upon me. You saw.”
That sumptuous mouth of hers curved with a grin that made him want to stroke his tongue at the corner of her mouth. An irrepressible dimple appeared, and he wanted to kiss it.
So he did.
Chapter Sixteen
His kiss destroyed her.
It was unexpected, it was so soft, it was unbelievably tender, and scandalously perfect, for it was just a mere meeting of their mouths, but it felt like everything. A recognition that they were more than just friends, not of ships sailing past each other in the vastness of the world.
Since the first touch of his lips to hers, neither moved. Leaning in farther, she pressed her hands to his chest, quite aware he still held a hand at her throat. Though he had not yet parted his lips, Maryann could taste him…smell him, something dark and delicious, and it stirred a violent hunger to life.
She nipped at his lower lip, and a sighing sound came from his throat. Then his lips parted, and his tongue licked along the closed seam of her mouth. With the softest of moans, she opened her mouth to him, gasping her delight when the hand gently encircling her throat, slid up and thrust into her hair, holding her firmly to him. He ravished her mouth with sensual expertise. At first with soft bites and licks, then with such demanding pressure, her lips felt bruised.
Maryann moved her mouth under his with sensual wonder, little whimpers of need puffing from her mouth to his. Their tongues met, and at first the sensations startled her, then they delighted her. With another moan she followed his lead, taking and giving in equal measure. His tongue slowly stroked hers, and she gave herself over to the heated sensations building within her.
His hands moved to grip her hips, then tightened almost painfully. As their kiss deepened and his mouth grew more demanding, moving over hers in a hot, hungry surge of possession, she trembled at the sheer pleasure he evoked.
Their mouths broke apart, and she gasped shakily.
She stared at him, her lips parted, her breath shallow. “That was my very first kiss.”
Pleasure lit in his eyes, and the unguarded tenderness in his expression sent a profound ache to her heart. She lifted trembling fingers to his mouth. Nicolas leaned in and barely brushed her mouth to his.
“Open your legs and sit on me as if mounting a horse astride,” he murmured at her lips.
She was scandalized by the carnal instructions, but her entire body seemed to pulse in response. The intense sensuality in his gaze stole her breath. The chair was without arm pads, and Maryann shifted, slipping one leg on the outside of his thigh and then repeated the motion with her other foot so that she sat astride him.
Their mouths were barely touching, and his eyes… God, they were so beautiful, she felt as if she were drowning in their depths. His hands shifted, but she did not break their stare, not even when he reached forward, grabbed her nightgown in his fists, and dragged it up almost to her waist.
Peering down, Maryann flushed. Her legs were split so wide to accommodate the width of his hips and the breadth of the chair. Then he unerringly pressed a thumb to that mark he had left high on her thigh. He pressed it, and she whimpered at the resulting ache felt deep inside her sex.
She hesitated, her rapid breathing mingling with his.
“Frightened, Maryann?”
He kissed the exposed part of her throat, then raked his teeth against her beating pulse.
“I can feel
the beat of your heart against my mouth. You are afraid.” He sounded darkly amused, rakish. “Such sweet innocence. I am going to enjoy turning you out.”
She thought it prudent to ignore what she realized was deliberate provocation. Then a sharp nip at her flesh pulled a whimper from her.
He chuckled, the hum of his pleasure lascivious. Was she meeting the full power of the libertine?
“I am most certainly not afraid,” she gasped, though she could not help the shiver at that sensual threat. Turn her out? How properly and ominously naughty.
Maryann tilted her neck more to his questing tongue.
“Look at me.” The command was low and sensually rough.
Startled, she glanced up into his fiery gaze. He gripped her hips, and tugged her almost violently to him, slamming her sex to press directly against the hardness behind his trousers. Heat blossomed in her loins as pleasure stabbed like lightning to that nub, and she gasped against his mouth and grabbed his shoulders to steady herself against the sensations.
Suddenly she wanted to be rid of all the clothes between them, to feel his entire naked body against hers, to touch that hard part of him to her aching folds. Maryann imagined this was how he would spear into her body should they ever lose themselves so, with carnal dominance. The notion was thrilling and also incredibly intimidating.
“Give me your mouth.”
She helplessly responded, easing her mouth to his in an open-mouthed kiss. Maryann wrapped her hands around his neck, as he took her lips with tender desperation. He arched her, trailing his lips down her neck, licking and kissing.
“Nicolas.” His name purred from her in a throaty moan.
She felt drunk on pleasure, vibrantly alive. His large hands slipped from her hips to cup her buttocks, and then he rocked her, sliding her aching sex over his hardness. When she cried out, his mouth swallowed it hungrily.
Shocked arousal blossomed through her and she grew mortifyingly wet, dampening the front of his trousers. Maryann could feel it, but somehow the awareness only heightened the primal need burning in her veins.
