She turned and did the one thing he’d asked her not to do. She ran from the room—as fast and as far away from him as the house would allow.
“Fuck,” Nick mumbled as he smacked the wall with the flat of his hand, hating himself for not holding back. For taking Amelia without a care for her needs. For using her body against her.
She was right; they couldn’t carry on how they were. He was keeping his distance from her emotionally. But he wasn’t generally someone to confide in another. People either knew about his past, having been there, or they could only guess. But Amelia meant more to him than anyone he’d ever met. He wanted to make her happy. Keep her happy. And what was the harm in telling her the truth? She already knew that he’d been defiled as a youth.
He paused on that thought.
She was innocent in so many ways that it was possible she hadn’t fully understood what he’d told her about his time in school with Shauley.
If there was one thing he could give her, it was the truth. Without that, he knew he would lose her. And he couldn’t let that happen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Was it possible to feel like she’d had too much to drink merely from crying all night long? Her eyes actually hurt and felt overly tired, and her head pounded as she slowly rolled over in her bed. The sun shining through her bedroom window enhanced the pain sitting behind her eyes.
She blinked a few times, trying to clear the haze and fog from view, but that didn’t help, and she had to squint at her surroundings for some minutes.
When she could finally focus on her room, she noticed Nick sitting in the chair by her vanity. With elbows perched firmly on his knees, his head was in his hands, eyes toward the ground, so he hadn’t yet noticed that she was awake.
She made a study of his rumpled shirt and disheveled appearance, the same way she’d found him last night in the study.
“Nick?” Her voice was soft, worn from crying through the night.
His head lifted. His eyes were red-rimmed and tired as they met hers. Had he been sitting here all night while she slept?
She sat up, pulling the blankets around her in the process. The less he saw, the less vulnerable she felt.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of you leaving before I had a chance to explain myself,” he said, his voice gravelly.
She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t continue, she said, “Then you need to do just that, Nick.” She rubbed her eyes, wishing she could go back to sleep. Wishing when she woke up that she could pretend last night hadn’t happened.
“I never really explained how my mother supported Sera and me, growing up.”
This was a peace offering. She knew it without having to ask.
Nick stood and walked over to the window. He threw the curtains to the side and pressed his hands against the frame as he looked outside. His breath fogged the glass. But she waited for him to continue, knowing she couldn’t interrupt him now, or he might never open up to her.
“She was a lovely woman. An Irish immigrant. She came over during the potato famine in ’47. The eldest daughter in a family of fourteen.” He paused, letting her digest this revelation. “The youngest six didn’t survive the famine, and the conditions of those times left my grandparents in poor health, poor enough that seeking work to support their family was impossible. My mother took up that torch, thinking that when she moved to London, as so many of those she knew were doing, she’d be able to send back enough food and money to keep her family going.
“Her first year here, she met more closed doors than anything for decent work. She eventually found herself without a roof over her head as she tried to get into a respectable household. While she waited for the right opportunity to present itself . . . both her parents died. As did two more siblings. She said the rest had been displaced, and she never knew what became of them.”
Nick paused, perhaps lost in his thoughts. Or thinking of how much more to reveal.
When he did nothing but stare outside, she said, “I’m sorry, Nick. No one should be put in such a position when her intentions are noble and her heart is in the right place.”
“But it is the reality of this city or any great city. Where there is wealth to be found, there’s also poverty that outweighs it in sheer number.”
Amelia stood from the bed, holding the blankets around her as she padded over to Nick and pressed her cheek to his back. He was tense and didn’t want to be comforted, so she didn’t wrap her arms around him even though she almost felt she needed to. “Go on,” she encouraged him.
“I remember that my mother was very beautiful. I imagine over time that it grew more and more obvious as to what her options were if she wanted to stay out of the workhouses. She befriended another young woman. Both were smart, both wanted more, but they knew their options were limited. My mother would often joke that her only worth had been her chastity when she’d moved to London. Together, they worked on a plan to sell themselves to the highest bidders. It allowed them to make enough money to open their own place, where they took on patrons regularly.”
Amelia swallowed against the lump building in her throat. She could imagine how easily a woman was forced to take on that profession and had been thankful that other options had been open to her. “I’m sorry she was forced to live that kind of life.”
“It’s the life many women lived when they came over from Ireland.”
“Did you know your father?” She wasn’t sure what made her ask. Something his sister had said.
“No. I never wanted to. I still don’t want to know who he is. Though from my mother’s accounts, he wasn’t someone I would care to know. I was the product of a rape, an unwilling encounter my mother had with this particular man. Though many didn’t paint him to be evil, considering the profession she was in.”
Amelia covered her mouth, hoping she didn’t give away her shock at that admission. “And your sister?”
“We do not share a father. Sera’s father was someone my mother professed to love but who obviously did not return the sentiment, since he didn’t stick around when my mother learned she was with child for a second time.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
He turned, pulling her into his arms, resting his chin on top of her head. His arms had found their way under her blanket, and his touch was hot against her back.
“Because I can’t lose you, Amelia. When you said you would find other employment last night, something snapped inside me. Something ugly, and I felt like a beast for forcing myself on you when you were vulnerable. Perhaps I’m more like my father than I realize.”
“Don’t say that.” She leaned back to look up at him. “You didn’t force yourself. I wanted you just as desperately as you wanted me last night.”
“Needed. Not mere want, Amelia. I needed you. Because the thought of losing you . . . ”
His expression was firm and unmoving as he stared back at her. He looked tired. Worn out. She didn’t think she was the cause of that, considering he’d been up at all hours of the night this past week.
“Have you slept at all?”
He shook his head. “Not since I was in bed with you last night.”
She took his hand and led him toward the bed. Climbing onto the mattress, she carried the blankets with her. Nick paused at the threshold between taking the next step and leaving the room. She tugged him closer; it was a silent plea for him to join her. If he walked out this room right now . . . she didn’t want to contemplate what that would mean. Nick had made one small step in the right direction this morning. Would he take that back from her by closing himself off now?
“We have a few hours before we need to get up. Sleep in here for a spell. I promise not to take advantage of you,” she teased slightly. “Besides, my eyes feel like they’ve got sand in them. I could use more rest.”
Nick pulled her hand closer, forcing her to walk over to him on her knees. “Promise me you’ll stay, Amelia.”
“Only if you promise not
to shut me out.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Sometimes it seemed like he carried the weight of the world on them, and she didn’t want to be a burden. She wanted to stand next to him and take some of that mass. “If you can’t trust me, why do you want to be with me?”
“I don’t trust anyone as much as I do you. But I’ve always been a private person.”
“Well then, you’ll have to consider that I’m in your life, for better or worse, Nick. But I can only remain that way if you share yourself fully with me. A relationship has to work two ways, and holding back your true thoughts and feelings from me makes me believe we want different things and have a different idea of what is between us.”
After a light kiss on her lips that held only tenderness and no heat, he climbed onto the bed with her. She lay in the middle; Nick tucked himself tightly along the length of her body. Her head hurt a little less, knowing they had come to an agreement she could live with.
The most delicious feeling bloomed deep in Amelia’s belly. She arched her back along Nick’s body where it covered her in delightful warmth. Her buttocks tucked tight against the hardness jabbing against her backside. She stretched her arms over her head, wrapping them around his head, and pulled his lips closer to her neck. He scraped his teeth along the column of her throat, sending a shiver of need through her whole body.
“Does this mean we get to start this morning on a different note?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, still filled with tiredness but awakening to other things.
Nick’s only response was to suck the skin of her neck into his mouth, making her heart rate pick up in speed with every flick of his tongue. His hand slipped down the front of her naked body, covering her mound. She wasn’t sure when he’d taken her clothes off, but she was glad there was no barrier between them.
His fingers split the folds of her sex and slicked the rest of the way to her entrance.
“Already wet for me.” He bit at her earlobe as he rolled her onto her back. She tilted her pelvis against his hand, needing him to rub her and fill her. Needing him inside her so badly, she actually ached.
Nick released her mound to push one of her knees out, opening her entrance to him. A cool rush of air hit her slick core, only to inflame her desires further. Where shame once filled her at being exposed this way, need was all she felt.
“I need you inside me,” she said, her tone near to begging.
He gave her exactly what she asked, his manhood filling her before she could take her next breath. Her knee was hitched over his arm, her body stretched in a way she’d never been before.
His pace was unhurried, meant to titillate and tease. He was showing her he could be just as gentle as he had been rough. “Tell me you’re mine.” His demand was hoarse, with a thread of vulnerability.
There was no doubt in her mind that she belonged to this man alone.
“I’m yours, Nick. I’ll always be yours.” Amelia curled her fingers into the sheets for purchase as he fucked her harder and deeper, rubbing over a sensitive spot that had her toes curling and her hips rotating.
“I want to feel the tight clench of your cunt around my cock, milking me as your cream flows between us. I’m sorry I took that release away from you earlier.”
She knew she was on the cusp of giving him just that but couldn’t string any words together with their bodies entangled the way they were, with the dirty words he used to describe what he wanted. Even with the way he flicked his finger over her nipple, pulling it taut, and sending stabs of desire right to her womb.
All she could do was moan as their bodies came together, over and over again. His pace was no longer slow and easy. He twisted and rotated his hips and his cock with every plunge into her sheath.
She reached behind her, grabbed on to the metal rods of her headboard, and held on tight. She needed to anchor herself, to hold still for every slap of his body against hers. To keep her grounded in reality before she flew over the edge of release. She wanted this to last forever. To never end, to pretend the world didn’t exist beyond this room, this bed.
Nick lowered his hand from her breasts and expertly flicked his thumb over her swollen clitoris. He didn’t let up the sweet torture until she was writhing in his arms and desperate to find her own end.
She didn’t just reach the threshold to the finale; she smashed right through the wall, her whole body clenching and throbbing simultaneously. She didn’t just moan; she cried out so loudly she bit into Nick’s shoulder to hush the sounds coming from her.
Nick didn’t slow his pace once, and her orgasm continued until she thought she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Nick,” she said when she released him from her bite. “Nick.” Her breathing was erratic, her voice hoarse and dry. She tried to push his hand away from her mound, to ease the pressure at her overly sensitized nub, but he was unrelenting, a man determined to break down every wall keeping her sane right now. Like he could erase what had happened earlier.
She thought she’d break apart if he didn’t stop, thought she might never come down from the high of this feeling he filled her with.
Nick jerked in her one final time before stilling. It was as though they were completely in sync, pulsating and rippling together in unison. There were no thoughts, no words; their bodies told the whole story. Amelia could feel each throb of his cock as the seed pumped out of him, filling her, tingling along sensitive nerve endings inside her.
She wasn’t sure when his hand had moved from the nub between her feminine folds, but he lazily rolled her nipple between his wet fingers, and the sensations he drew from her skated a thin line between pleasure and pain. His tortuous touch never quite let her desires dissipate, only fueled the fire still burning low in her belly.
“Let’s stay in bed the rest of the day,” he said.
She wanted nothing more than to say yes. But a voice of reason kicked her thoughts of lazing about aside. “You know very well we can’t.”
What would the rest of the staff think? What must they think now? Because judging by the light filling her room, it was midday, which meant they’d already overslept.
“Yes, we can.” Nick’s hand slipped over her hip, gripping her so he could work his still-thick cock in and out of her. His hold was unrelenting, bruising, but she didn’t mind it in the least.
Not another word of protest made it past her lips as their motions went from lazy, with obvious intention, to more frantic, with need, in a heartbeat. Nick pulled out of her to reposition them, hoisting her up onto her knees so he could take her from behind.
Amelia steadied herself on her knees and pressed her shoulders to the mattress. She turned her head to the side as she focused on breathing, holding back the moans that wanted to flow freely from her throat. Her fingers curled into the counterpane. She was beginning to think this position let him hide from her.
She tried twisting in his hold, but Nick’s hands tightened around her hips, practically lifting her knees from the mattress every time he pumped into her. His pace grew wild, and his motions robbed her of the remainder of her troubles.
Nick surrounded her, and sanity fled as they edged toward a second peak together. Nick leaned over her, covering her back like an animal in rut. His hand slid around her hip and over her stomach, inching those expert fingers of his closer to the folds of her sex. When he reached the bud, he flicked one finger over the sensitive nerve endings of her clitoris. Biting the blanket, Amelia moaned around that material stuffing her mouth.
Nick scissored his fingers around her clitoris, slicking through her folds with every shove of his pelvis against her backside. With a lazy awakening, her orgasm washed through her like waves slapping against the beach, subtler this time but not less powerful. As it ebbed, Nick slammed into her one last time and held deep, rotating and grinding against her core as he came. Every pulse of his cock was swallowed up by the clench and flex of her sheath.
Replete, he slumped over her, pulling them both to their sides, his cock
slipping from her and leaving a wet trail along her thigh. His arms wrapped around her waist, one of his hands cupping her breast as he held her close to his chest.
She turned in his arms, putting one arm over his shoulder; the other she curled on the pillow and rested her head in the crook of her elbow.
“I refuse to lie in bed all day,” she said to break the silence that descended once their breathing leveled out.
Without missing a beat or giving in to her, he responded, “Then we will stay here all morning.”
She shook her head. “You know that is impossible . . . You know why we can’t.”
Mostly, she knew she’d ask him too many questions if she allowed herself to stay in his company for the day. Would he reject that curiosity, or reward it after all they’d been through in these past few days?
“Nick?”
Like a lion well fed, his eyes lazily focused on her. “Amelia.”
“I mean it.” She pushed playfully at his shoulder. “We don’t need to give the members of this household more fodder for their whisperings of what’s going on between us.”
“I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”
Amelia pushed off the bed and started pulling out fresh clothes for the day. “Well, I do.”
And Nick looked for all the world like he didn’t give a damn. He lay on her bed, hands tucked behind his head, his nudity on full display. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t tempting to climb over him and straddle his thighs for a third round.
“Come back to bed.”
“Absolutely not. They’ll think me the whore of Babylon. Oh, hell. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I’ve shamed myself.”
Nick pulled himself up and sat on the edge of her bed, watching her in his contemplative way. He caught her arm and pulled her closer when she walked by him for the tenth time, trying to tie her corset. He turned her around and tightened the strings for her.
Desire Me More Page 14
