Nicholas turned then and offered her his arm, and she went willingly. Neither of them spoke as he escorted her from the house and outside to the waiting carriage.
Instead of riding, he tied his horse to the rear and joined her inside, yet Aurora scarcely noticed. As the coach drew away, she stared unseeingly out the window at the fading view of her home.
She was still trembling, but her strongest emotion was a vast feeling of release. She was free of her father, after years of living under his oppressive thumb. She had broken his hateful hold over her. She couldn't help him, she finally acknowledged. No longer was she constrained by filial duty; she needn't feel any responsibility toward him at all. With his violent repudiation of her, he had relinquished any right even to her compassion.
Surprisingly she felt no guilt, only a deep sadness that it had to end this way, with the severing of blood ties.
It was a few moments before she realized that Nicholas was watching her with a hooded gaze.
"You are well rid of him," he said finally.
"Yes." She shook her head, amazed that she had endured his tyranny for so long. "All my life he has been like a shadow hovering over me… dark and menacing. He made my life a misery… He was always so hateful, so violent."
Nicholas's dark gaze intensified, yet held a touch of wariness. "I regret you had to witness that, but sometimes a bully can be stopped only by force."
"Perhaps so." She glanced down at Nicholas's hands. He had strong, beautiful hands, capable of violence and yet… Not all men were angry and brutal as her father was.
She gave him a fragile smile. "Thank you for what you did. I might not have found the courage to break free of him if not for you."
Nicholas felt her soft smile curl inside him and wanted to shout in triumph. She had dealt with one invidious relationship in her past. Now what remained was the ghost of her former love.
At the thought, Nick set his jaw. It would be far more difficult to free Aurora from that powerful influence. But he was determined to succeed. He would make her feel the same love for him that she once had harbored for her dead love. She would be his wife in every way.
The trouble was, he had only two weeks in which to do it.
They arrived well after dark at an elegant mansion hidden in a dense beechwood forest of the Chiltern Hills. At school, Aurora had heard whispered rumors about the pleasure houses wicked noblemen kept tucked away for their sinful purposes, but she had never envisioned anything quite so decadent. The chateau of honey-colored stone more closely resembled a miniature palace than an English manor, while the richly appointed interior had a distinctly exotic cast, with its tapestries and statuary and portraits of nudes.
They were greeted by a small staff and shown to separate rooms. Aurora found herself in a scented, dimly lit chamber hung with silks and brilliant paintings.
A low, wide bed stood against one wall, scattered with tasseled cushions in the Eastern manner. Near the divan, a table was set for a late supper. Along the opposite wall, marble arches led to a walled courtyard paved with brightly colored tiles.
Lured by the quiet splash of a fountain, she went to stand beneath one of the arches, staring out at the dark night. She could almost imagine herself stepping into Desiree's journal, a prisoner in the sandalwood splendor of a palace harem.
But she was no prisoner, Aurora reminded herself. Desiree had been enslaved and carried off to a strange land as a concubine, while she was here of her own free will. And yet she feared that like Desiree, she would be vulnerable to her master's exotic temptations and sweet seduction.
She sensed Nicholas before she heard his soft footfall. Wordlessly he slipped his arms around her from behind and drew her body back against his. Aurora sighed with pleasure at his warmth, his hardness. He was already hotly aroused, and yet they had barely touched. She shivered with anticipation of the night to come.
For a moment they simply stood there together in the hushed silence. She could hear the beating of her heart, feel the strong beat of his.
"Regrets?" he murmured finally against her ear.
He was asking if she was sorry to be here with him. She wasn't. She had qualms, but no regrets. The danger was very real, Aurora knew. It would require all the willpower she possessed to shield her heart from this powerful, vital man and the emotional firestorm he kindled inside her. Yet his promise of paradise was one no flesh-and-blood woman could ever refuse.
"No, no regrets."
"Good," Nicholas said softly.
Somewhere in the darkness came the musical trill of a nightingale.
"Then I have something to ask of you, sweetheart," he added quietly. "I want to renew the pact we made on our wedding night. For these next two weeks we live only for the present. While we're here, we have no past, no future, no discord… no inhibitions. We are lovers, simply that. This will be a time of forgetting, of sharing, of exploring. We can indulge in any fantasy we wish."
Aurora shut her eyes at the vision of heaven he offered. For these next two weeks, she could abandon herself in his arms, could completely indulge her passion for Nicholas. Perhaps then she could appease the hunger that was a constant ache inside her.
And then he would leave her, and her life would finally be at peace.
"Will you do that for me?" he prompted, his lips nuzzling her ear.
"Yes." She couldn't deny him anything he asked; she couldn't deny herself. She needed his kisses, his embrace, his passion. Needed them desperately…
Murmuring his name, Aurora turned in his arms, seeking his mouth. Nicholas was wrong, though. This would not be a time of forgetting, but of remembering.
She had to store up memories of him to cherish after he was gone. Enough memories to last a lifetime.
Chapter Twenty
He led me on an odyssey, into the fiery heart of passion.
His mouth was magical, his sensual heat creating a storm of sensation within Aurora. She felt want, yearning, need all rioting through her as they undressed each other with a feverish urgency. She was on fire, she was soaring, she was falling…
No, not falling. Nicholas had swept her up in his arms, his hot mouth still drinking deeply of hers. He carried her inside to the low couch, where he followed her down amid the silk cushions. She wrapped her arms around him, hot and feverish, wanting him desperately -
She barely heard the soft, intrusive rap on the door, but Nicholas gave a sudden shudder, as if striving for control.
"Wait, angel…" He took a deep breath and tried to untangle himself from her. "That will be supper. I asked that it be served here."
Reluctantly Aurora released him, missing his warmth already. He stood up fluidly, unfolding his nude body in a movement that was purely sensual, and with a final heated glance at her, let the gauzy bed curtain fall to conceal the divan where she lay.
Aurora drew the silk sheet up to cover her nakedness and waited impatiently. She could hear Nicholas admitting the servants and ordering the trays to be set on the table. Then the door shut quietly, leaving a hushed silence. A moment later Nicholas drew the curtain aside.
Aurora could feel her heartbeat quicken as she took in the sight of his magnificent body.
"Are you hungry?" he murmured.
"No… Yes… for you," she answered almost shyly.
His dark eyes met hers, shadowed flame. "You can satisfy your appetite, love, for as long as you wish."
Surprisingly, though, Nicholas turned away and went to the low table where supper had been laid out. Aurora watched as he inspected a bottle of champagne and poured some of the fizzing spirits into a dish.
His back was to her, and she found herself admiring the powerful, sinewed lines of his nude body. He was like the sensual prince in Desiree's journal – indeed, this entire room resembled the silk and sandalwood seraglio described in the journal, Aurora thought, her glance moving around the exotic bedchamber. Especially this low divan with its luxurious cushions and filmy curtains. She could almost imagine herself
in the Frenchwoman's place, waiting for her lover. Nicholas was her magnificent master, and she his captive, meant only for his heathen pleasures.
"The decor here," Aurora remarked curiously, striving for calm, "is very much like the palace harem in the journal."
"That isn't entirely coincidence," Nicholas replied. "I asked that we be given these rooms once I learned of their Eastern motif. You seem so taken with the journal."
He returned to her then and sat beside her on the divan, presenting the dish for her inspection. It held several small sponges soaked in champagne.
"Do you remember what the journal said about preventing conception?"
"Yes." She was strangely disquieted by their purpose – preventing a man's seed from taking root – even though she couldn't possibly risk letting Nicholas get her with child.
"May I?" he asked.
"Yes."
The clamor of her heart echoed in the quiet of the room as Nicholas drew down the sheet to bare her body to his warm gaze. When he slid a wet sponge between her thighs, Aurora caught her breath at the chill sensation.
With a murmur of apology, he gently parted her legs and pressed the sponge into her pulsing cleft, then farther still, until it was sheathed deep within her body. Aurora shivered, but then his mouth followed his fingers, warming her cool flesh.
Aurora gasped at the fierce jolt of desire Nicholas created, and arched against him. It was ice and fire… But it wasn't enough.
"Nicholas," she pleaded, her urgency suddenly returning. "Come inside me." Eagerly she stretched out her arms to him in welcome, wanting him with all the willingness of her ripe woman's body. She wanted his hot skin against her, his heat, his power. She wanted him filling her.
He understood her craving, for without hesitation, he stretched out to cover her body with his. Pleasure darkened his eyes as he eased her legs open, his lean, hair-dusted thighs brushing abrasively against hers.
"Yes," he whispered hoarsely. "I want to be part of you all night, Aurora. I want to fall asleep deep inside you and wake up with the taste of you…"
He kissed her again, urgently, and entered her in one long, slow thrust. Breathless, Aurora closed her eyes as hardness and softness melded into one ravishing sensation.
Nicholas began to move then, his rhythm quickening luxuriously. His thighs pressing hers wider, he claimed her in hot, slick strokes, penetrating deeper and deeper each time.
Her senses on fire, Aurora wrapped her legs around his hips and arched up in welcome. He wasn't gentle, but she didn't want gentle. The incredible, exquisite, painful hunger was building, until her arousal was as intense as his own. They were man and woman, filled with primal need. She could not get close enough.
He plunged into her, driving her to a place of wanton delight, filled with bright, hot pleasure. She wanted to weep with the beauty of it.
Their coupling grew rough, wilder, till the fiery, clawing need became unbearable. They strained together, insatiable, in a mating of raw, animal passion. He demanded her surrender, demanded abandon, and she gave him both. She writhed beneath him. Her fingernails raked his back as he took her, her soft cries goading him to greater wildness.
Her frenzy at last ripped the last shred of restraint from Nicholas. His rasping breath choked words against her mouth as he drove into her. He shook with the pounding need to pleasure her, to possess her, to brand her with his passion…
The inferno broke over them in a tumult that made them both cry out. Aurora sobbed as her body erupted in a white-hot climax, while Nicholas groaned, a harsh, raw sound. Crushing her savagely close, he shattered in a searing explosion of emotion that had her name at the end of it.
In the heated aftermath, he collapsed against her. For a long moment, he lay there, trembling from the force of his thundering heart, the only movement his fingers clenching and unclenching in her hair.
Their bonding had been fierce and primal, like nothing he had ever felt before. He wanted to throw back his head and howl in triumph…
He had won this time. He had conquered Aurora's rigid control for the moment, making her surrender to overwhelming passion. But now came the far harder task: binding her to him in love.
And he had only two short weeks in which to succeed.
That night was the first of many such passionate moments together.
Despite her many qualms, Aurora found her time with Nicholas pure enchantment, a magical interlude in her life like nothing she had ever experienced. As he'd asked, they had no past, no future, no nationality. They were simply man and woman, lovers in a paradise of desire.
The opulent secluded mansion offered sinful enticements Aurora could never even have imagined, but it was Nicholas who made their time together pure bliss.
He showed her pleasure beyond her dreams, leading her into a realm of the flesh and of the senses. They spent long hours exploring the boundaries of erotic ecstasy. He taught her to please him and to openly express what pleased her. At his impetus, she cast away all inhibition or awkwardness, shedding the stifling codes of proper society with wild abandon, willingly surrendering to his tantalizing touch and the fire in his seductive eyes.
Nicholas made her feel utterly wanted and desired. And yet he challenged her spirit and her mind as well as her body. His intelligence and wit were a constant delight, while the rapier-sharp edge of his sensual charm made mincemeat of her usual reserve.
He made her laugh, and he made her yearn. She had never felt so cherished. She had never felt so free. Here she could be as wild and wanton as she wished.
It disturbed her, however, to discern his purpose. Nicholas was not only mirroring certain carnal elements of the journal; he was wooing her as the Turkish prince had wooed Desiree.
Aurora herself gave him an opening to discuss their courtship one afternoon when he surprised her reading the journal. Coming up behind her unaware as she sat in the garden, Nicholas bent to press a delicate kiss on her nape.
Aurora gave a start at the erotic sensation and glanced up.
"What holds you so fascinated that you didn't even notice me?"
"This."
She flushed as he took the jeweled volume from her and studied the page. "My lover and I are as one," he murmured, quoting a sensual passage. "All reserve between us, all secrets, gone." Nicholas eyed her thoughtfully. "That is precisely what I want for us, Aurora."
"My reserve is diminishing," she replied in her own defense. "You have seen to that."
"True, but you still have a long way to go." He returned the journal to her, but continued to regard her. "You are very much like Desiree was in the beginning – afraid of her own desire."
More alike than she cared to admit, Aurora thought unwillingly. Desiree had been a sheltered young innocent awakened to stunning passion by a man who became her obsession…"She had good reason to be afraid, Nicholas. As a concubine, she was completely powerless, totally at the mercy of a savage ruler."
"He proved not to be so savage. And eventually she came to wield a great deal of power over him." Moving around the bench, Nicholas sat beside her. "That's something else you have in common. You have no notion of your own power." He smiled tenderly. "I think you could rule me with very little effort."
When she made no response, Nicholas bent toward her. His mouth caught her earlobe, and she shivered again, violently.
"And another similarity," he breathed in her ear. "Desiree thought she wanted liberty, but she discovered something she valued more. Passion. She chose that over freedom."
Uneasily Aurora edged away from his tormenting attention. "You forget that her tale ended unhappily. That her passion resulted in misery."
"Our story won't end like that, Aurora." His lips found her neck again, moving softly on her skin, each caress spinning pleasure about them like some silken, invisible web. "You can have all the incredible passion Desiree found without the heartache…"
"Nicholas, please…" She shook her head. "You said we wouldn't think about our future."
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br /> "So I did." His eyelids drooped sensually as he gazed at her. "Then kiss me, sweetheart, and make me forget…"
Gratefully, Aurora moved into his arms and raised her mouth to his, giving herself over to his sensual passion.
To her relief Nicholas did not mention the journal again, allowing her to slip back into their fantasy.
They took long lingering walks together, wandering the grounds, absorbed in each other. The gardens were a delight, boasting elegant, erotic statuary and even a giant maze sculpted from topiary yews, while the surrounding woods were intriguing. The dense, green-gladed beechwood offered an enchanted world all its own, full of quiet paths and running streams with mossy banks, dappled with blinks of golden sunlight and cool shadow.
They rode as well as walked. Here in this secluded hideaway, Aurora could indulge her secret vice to her heart's content. One of her greatest pleasures was enjoying a wild gallop through a morning meadow with the wind in her face and Nicholas close on her heels.
Mostly, however, they made love. Nothing was forbidden, no place or time off limits. Nicholas was determined to shatter every last measure of her reserve. They made love in the bath, and at the supper table, and beside the reflecting pool, sheltered by the high courtyard walls. They fed each other honey-drenched sweetmeats and delicious fruits, and then drank from each other's lips. They made love on a bed of rose petals, whose fragrant perfume was almost dizzying, just as in the journal.
The journal guided Aurora in certain instruments of delight as well. Her favorite novelty was a pair of smooth silver balls, meant to be inserted deep between a woman's thighs and designed to titillate and arouse.
The first time Aurora wore them was a shock; she had never felt such awareness of her body, or of Nicholas's. The delicious sensations filled her with such excitement, she could scarcely keep her hands off him.
They explored the maze during an afternoon warm and lazy and golden with sunlight. Nicholas made the venture an exercise in eroticism, showering her with hot, slow kisses as he led her deeper into the winding labyrinth.
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