Nicole Jordan

by Wicked Fantasy

  She was laughing herself when they finally collapsed onto the wet sand, sprawling together with Deverill partially on top.

  Wrapping her arms about his neck, Antonia gazed up at him with a smug smile, evidently satisfied with his response. “I hoped you would be pleased, but I wasn’t certain.”

  “It is merely unexpected, that’s all.”

  “Well, we did stop using the sponges, you know.”

  “So we did.”

  Antonia’s gaze softened. “Caro told me that the new child growing inside her was conceived after the battle of Waterloo. She said it had been a celebration of life for them, in the face of such terrible devastation. I think our child must be a celebration of sorts. We’re embarking on a new adventure together.”

  “Children are certainly an adventure,” Deverill said with conviction. “But you’ve always been an adventuress at heart, my love.”

  “True . . . although it took you to free me. I haven’t thanked you for that recently, have I?”

  When she raised her mouth to his, Deverill returned her kiss fiercely, until they were both breathless and aroused.

  Antonia, however, was the first to break off as she pushed at his shoulders. “I have one stipulation, Deverill. You will not become an overbearing dictator, as Caro says Max has become.”

  He grinned down at her. “We shall see.”

  She playfully punched his shoulder, which made Deverill yelp and grab her hands to hold them over her head. This was the spirited, fighting Antonia he treasured so dearly. They would doubtless battle over her health and welfare, among many other things during the course of their lives together, just as they would always make love with a primal blaze of passion.

  The fire between them would never burn tamely, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  No sooner did Deverill have that thought than Antonia pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips and pinning his arms above his head.

  With a provocative smile then, she released him and slowly tugged down her bodice so that her breasts spilled free in the moonlight.

  She was utterly wild and glorious, Deverill thought, feeling dazed by her beauty.

  The next moment she bent and pressed her lips against his bare chest, nipping at his flesh while her fingers unerringly found the front buttons of his breeches.

  “Insatiable wench,” he muttered as she freed his swollen member and curled her fingers greedily around the thick length.

  “Queen,” she responded firmly. “I am your queen, remember, husband?”

  “Very well, my queen. Feel free to have your wicked way with me.”

  His own grin was so wicked, his eyes so alight with laughter, that Antonia felt her breath falter. Deverill was the bold adventurer whose smile could govern the rhythm of her heart. She gazed back at him, suddenly wrenched with an exquisite longing.

  No longer playful, she reached down and curled her fingers in his thick, sun-streaked, satiny hair.

  “I love you, Deverill,” she whispered, her voice low and husky as her caresses moved lower.

  Her hands slid against the smooth skin of his neck, along the quivering, powerful muscles of his shoulders. He was incredibly beautiful. She loved his strong, bronzed, hard-muscled shoulders. She loved his broad chest, scars and all. She loved everything about him. She loved touching him and kissing him and arousing him. . . .

  She bent down to him again, her mouth once more finding his chest. “I love you everywhere,” she murmured against his hot skin.

  He breathed in sharply when her tongue touched a savage scar, tenderly bathing it.

  “Oh, God, siren,” he rasped, his deep, rich voice vibrating through her.

  Dragging her body up to him, he devoured her mouth again, his kiss wild and deep. In only moments she was moaning. She was hot and feverish, and only he could satisfy the burning need inside her.

  Yet Deverill clearly understood her need. Easing her off him, he shifted Antonia onto her back and raised her muslin skirts before moving over her and settling his hard weight into the cradle of her thighs.

  Taking full control of their lovemaking, he worshipped her slowly with his hands and mouth. Antonia felt the raw hunger in his touch, the depths of his naked desire, even before he finally he entered her, filling her completely with his fierce, strong tenderness.

  “I love you, Antonia.” His voice was a harsh whisper. “I’ll never have enough of you. Never.”

  The merging of their bodies was a mating of hearts, fusing them together as moonlight poured over them, bringing them infinitely close as a brilliant firestorm shuddered through them with spasms of bright, hot rapture.

  They held each other in the afterglow, experiencing a blissful sense of entwinement, hearts joined, his heart in hers, her touch completing him.

  Boneless and sated, Antonia lay beneath Deverill, her ragged breaths stirring wisps of his hair. No matter how many times they made love, each time for

  her was new and exciting and wonderful. He was her bold pirate. The wicked adventurer who had won

  her love. Her heart’s fantasy.

  Antonia gave a feeble laugh as her fingers lazily skimmed his bare back. “You never knew it, Deverill, but you were my fantasy from the first moment we met. Afterward, I would dream about this . . . about you making passionate love to me.”

  Still sheathed inside her, Deverill lifted his head so he could see her. “You were only sixteen when we first met,” he observed, arching an amused eyebrow. “And a virgin at that. What did you know about passion?”

  Antonia smiled ruefully. “True, I had no idea what real passion was. I only knew what I felt for you . . . a craving deep inside me, not only in my body but in my mind and my heart. And now that I have you, I realize that reality is so very much better than fantasy.”

  Deverill returned her smile with entrancing warmth as he caught her wrist and placed their clasped hands over her stomach, over the new life growing inside her. “I couldn’t agree more, love.”

  Her heart aching with love and tenderness, Antonia slid her arms around Deverill’s neck and drew him down to her for yet another passionate kiss.

  By Nicole Jordan

  Paradise Series:

  MASTER OF TEMPTATION

  LORD OF SEDUCTION

  WICKED FANTASY

  Notorious Series:

  THE SEDUCTION

  THE PASSION

  DESIRE

  ECSTACY

  THE PRINCE OF PLEASURE

  Other Novels:

  THE LOVER

  THE WARRIOR

  Deverill halted barely a step from her, watching her with searing eyes. Tension throbbed in the air as he asked softly, “So, you don’t think I could compare to your betrothed, hmm?”

  Perhaps she should never have made that wild claim, Antonia belatedly realized. It was no doubt unwise to challenge a man’s sexual prowess. “Well, perhaps I exaggerated a little. . . .”

  “Perhaps the problem is that you don’t know any better.” Deverill stepped even closer, until their bodies almost touched. “I very much doubt that you know what true pleasure is.”

  He slowly ran the back of his hand down her throat to the square neckline of her gown. Antonia drew a sharp breath, wondering how his barest touch could make her burn like this, want like this. When he trailed his fingers deliberately over her breast in a caress that was calculatedly erotic, her senses skittered wildly.

  Deverill smiled, satisfied.

  Read on for a sneak peek at Nicole Jordan’s most seductive novel yet . . .

  Fever Dreams

  the next volume in

  Nicole Jordan’s Paradise series

  Coming in summer 2006

  The Isle of Cyrene, March 1815

  The dream returned unexpectedly, more vivid than ever. Golden sunlight poured over the meadow where he lay. Lady Eve was in his arms, enveloping him with her warmth and scent and softness.

  The waiting was over. She was his bride at
last.

  She belonged to him.

  Cradling her possessively, Ryder shifted onto his back and pulled her body flush against him; all his muscles clenched in anticipation of their joining. Her naked skin burned his, while her hair spilled down in a gold curtain around them.

  As they locked gazes, the very air shimmered with raw passion. When she bent to press an ardent kiss on his bare chest, Ryder gave a harsh, shuddering groan. In response, Eve smiled her soft, beguiling smile.

  Bending again, she kissed the line of his jaw, the vulnerable hollow of his throat, his breastbone, searing the flesh that concealed his hammering heart.

  “At last I am yours,” she whispered. The husky, honeyed warmth of her voice stroked him as tenderly as her lips did, caressing him, setting him aflame.

  Needing to satisfy his fierce hunger, he lifted her and slowly guided her down until he was buried deep inside her. His blood pulsed feverishly as Eve sheathed him in wet, silken heat.

  She was bound to him now in the most primal way possible.

  His back arching, Ryder began to move. The sweet surge of her hips matched the thundering of his blood as he drove himself inside her, hard and deep, branding her, claiming her, marking her his, until the whole world dissolved into hot, pulsing brightness. . . .

  Alex Ryder woke hard and throbbing, his heart’s rhythm slowing as he recognized the familiar surroundings. He lay alone in his bed, bathed in a pool of sunshine. Morning sunlight streamed through the tall French windows of his bedchamber, flooding him with golden warmth. Yet the heat suffusing his body had far more to do with his erotic, futile dream of Eve. One he should have conquered long ago.

  With a quiet curse, he kicked off the tangled sheets—a testimony to his restless fantasies during the night—but he continued to lie there, letting the hot sunlight play over his skin while memories burned in his mind.

  His remembrance of Eve was so intense, he could still feel her body’s shape in his arms. He could picture her without closing his eyes, could recall every

  vibrant detail of her.

  Lady Eve Montlow . . . now Eve Seymour, Countess of Hayden.

  Once upon a time she had been the golden girl of his dreams, living, breathing sunshine. Admittedly, his life had changed because of her.

  His fascination had begun the moment they’d met, when he was sixteen and she was barely eleven. He’d thought her a princess in some imagined fairy tale, with her honey-gold hair and rose-red lips. And then she had smiled at him. He’d felt as if someone had slammed a fist into his gut. She had an enchanting smile, so warm it had the power to take his breath away. One smile and he was lost.

  For all the good it did him.

  As the daughter of an earl, Lady Eve was forbidden to him. He’d been a wild, rebellious youth then and, worse, a poor commoner; his late father, a mere soldier. Despite his mother being a gentlewoman, Eve’s patrician family had considered Ryder both dangerous and entirely beneath notice. Indeed, at that first encounter, her noble father had threatened to thrash him for simply daring to help the young lady down from her mount.

  Two days later, Ryder remembered, Eve had boldly escaped her groom and ridden halfway across the island, expressly to seek him out.

  She’d discovered him in his favorite meadow, sprawled beside the stream where he was fishing. She rode a horse far larger and more spirited than was wise for a girl her age, but she easily controlled the prancing bay as she drew rein.

  “Oh, good, I found you. I had almost despaired and thought I would have to return tomorrow—and I knew my groom would never willingly let me out of his sight after the trick I played him today.”

  Still smarting from his humiliation at her father’s hands, Ryder practically snarled at her. “What the devil are you doing here, my lady? Come to gloat?”

  “Certainly not! I wished to apologize for my father’s unforgivable rudeness to you. Papa has been a bear of late, ever since we were compelled to move here from London to escape his creditors. He still clings to the notion that we are socially superior to everyone here on Cyrene, and he won’t countenance anything that threatens his consequence.”

  Ryder stared at her, surprise and wariness warring with the dozen questions in his mind. But all he could think to say was, “How did you know where to look for me?”

  Young Eve flashed her beguiling, impish smile. “That was easy—I merely listened to gossip and asked questions of the servants. You are the wild boy everyone has warned me about.” Her smile took the sting from her words, Ryder’s first indication that she was as charming and kind as she was beautiful.

  From that moment on, he had set his sights on winning Lady Eve for his own.

  He refused to accept that he couldn’t aspire to her hand because of his station. He knew, however, he would have to change his wild, hell-born ways. And, of course, he would first have to wait for Eve to grow up. Meanwhile, he would go off to seek his fortune. . . .

  Wincing at the memory, Ryder rolled over to bury his head in the pillows. He had indeed made his fortune, but from her family’s perspective, his means of earning it was yet another damming strike against him. And his newly won riches had made no difference to his suit. By the time he returned to Cyrene, Eve was lost to him. She was being sold in marriage to a wealthy nobleman in order to save her family from penury.

  That summer, when she was eighteen, he had forcibly taken one savage, unforgettable kiss from her, and that was all he would ever have. As the wife of the illustrious Earl of Hayden, she was morally beyond his reach. She’d spent the past six years in England, and in all that time, Ryder had studiously avoided her.

  He’d forcibly put Eve out of his mind. She was merely a youthful obsession, a boyish infatuation that he’d thankfully outgrown.

  Yet in the dark hours of morning, he still sometimes found his dreams filled with fantasies of Eve becoming his bride. And, unconsciously, he continued to hold her up as his ideal.

  It was amusing, really. He was thirty years old now and rich enough to buy almost any bride of his choosing. But he’d never found any other woman he wanted to marry. He had no permanent mistress, either. Oh, he took his pleasure with various ladies of the evening, but he’d never desired one enough to give her a long-term place in his bed or his life.

  Flinging aside the pillow, Ryder ran a hand roughly down his black-stubbled jaw. He would do better to find a willing siren to regularly slake his passion. Perhaps then he could finally banish his feverish, unwanted dreams of Eve—

  Just then a tentative rap on the door interrupted his dark reverie. When Ryder impatiently bid entrance, the door was opened gingerly by his manservant, Greeves.

  “Begging pardon for disturbing you, sir,” Greeves said, “but you have visitors below.”

  “At this hour?” Ryder asked. It was barely seven, and any of his fellow Guardians would have come straight to his bedchamber to rouse him if the problem was serious enough to warrant calling so early in the day.

  “Yes, sir. It is Mr. Cecil Montlow and Lady Claire. They say they have urgent news of their sister.”

  Ryder’s heart gave a reflexive jolt. “What has happened?”

  “They did not say, sir. Shall I tell them you are at home?”

  “Yes. I’ll be down directly.”

  Trying to stifle his apprehension, Ryder rose from the bed and threw on a dressing gown over his nude body. Not bothering with trousers or even slippers, he drew the sash tight around his waist as he left his bedchamber and swiftly descended the stairs. But he slowed his pace before entering his drawing room, not wanting to alarm his unexpected guests.

  Eve’s younger siblings, Cecil and Claire, were twins and shared physical characteristics—both were tall and fair-haired with elegant, high-boned aristocratic features. But in personality, they could hardly have been more different. The Honorable Cecil Montlow was outgoing and lively to the point of brashness, while Lady Claire was gentle and sweetly shy and, at eighteen, a pale imitation of her older sister, Ev
e.

  Cecil was currently pacing the carpet, while Lady Claire sat primly on the settee, her gloved hands folded in her lap. When Ryder entered the room, she rose, and her brother halted in his tracks.

  “What has happened?” Ryder asked, managing a measured tone. “I understand you have news of Eve?”

  “You won’t believe it,” Cecil burst out. “Hayden has kicked the bucket.”

  “Cecil,” Lady Claire chided softly, “you know you shouldn’t use such vulgar cant.”

  “Well, it’s true,” her brother insisted. “And Mr. Ryder understands cant perfectly well.”

  Perhaps he did understand cant, Ryder thought, but his whirling mind couldn’t quite grasp those particular words. He would swear Cecil had said the Earl of Hayden had died.

  Claire, searching his face, evidently comprehended his silence, for she expounded in a quiet voice. “We had a letter from Eve last evening—it came on the packet. His lordship was tragically killed last month in a riding accident.”

  “What she means is,” Cecil added with a touch more remorse than previously, “Lord Hayden crammed his horse at a stone wall during a hunt and broke his neck.”

  Which meant . . . Ryder felt his heart stop, then slowly begin to thud again. Eve was a widow now.

  He should not be glad to hear of another man’s death—and, in truth, he wasn’t. Yet an aching sensation gripped his chest, a strange, quiet burgeoning of emotion that he couldn’t quell.

  Vaguely, Ryder realized the twins were still speaking, although he heard only one word in three. Cecil, apparently, was lamenting their unexpected turn of fate.

  “It isn’t fair that we must suffer simply because Hayden croaked. But now London is out of the question for either of us.”

  “Eve will be in mourning for a full year,” Claire explained, “so my come out will have to be postponed until next spring.”

  “But I was to spend this Season in London with my sisters,” Cecil griped, “and gain some Town bronze before I head off to university. Now there is no chance. I am to go straight to Oxford this fall. Claire is to remain here on Cyrene until next February, when she will join Eve in order to prepare her debut wardrobe.”