Nicole Jordan (11 page)

She wanted him, she realized. Wanted to experience the spark and fire between a man and a woman that he had shown her once before. His tongue flicked over the rosy bud, rasping slowly, before his lips closed to suckle the swollen crest. Aurora arched against the scorching heat of his mouth, her hands blindly seeking his hair.

He wanted her also, she knew it. She could sense it even before his erect manhood stirred heavily against her soft belly.

And then his wonderful, teasing fingers slid down once more between her moist thighs.

“You’re wet for me.” His voice was husky. “Your body is flowing with honey.”

It was true. Her feminine cleft was sleek with wetness, her body aching shamelessly for him. She said his name, in a voice that sounded shaky, as he stroked the soaked bud. She should have been scandalized by his brazen passion, by her own wantonness, but all she could focus on was the magical caresses of his fingers and mouth.

She was trembling with desire by the time he left off arousing her breasts and shifted to cover her with his body. Sparing her most of his weight, he settled between her thighs and began kissing her again, holding her attention. She was hardly aware of his intentions until he began easing the velvet smooth head of his manhood inside her.

When she tensed, he kissed her more deeply, his tongue penetrating her mouth like his shaft was doing. Not allowing any resistance, his powerful thighs kept her own thighs parted as he slowly, slowly sank lower, pushing forward with inexorable pressure.

Aurora stiffened, gasping for breath. She felt sure she could never accommodate his enormous size, and yet her body was opening for him, stretching painfully, his alien hardness filling her….

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to catch her breath.

He was not moving now. “Look at me, sweet siren.” There was tenderness in his eyes as he gazed down at her.

She lay rigid, feeling excruciatingly full of him. “It…hurts.”

He kissed her temple. “Only the first time. The hurt will go away and all you will feel is pleasure.” His gaze plunged deeply into hers. “Trust me.”

Incredibly, she did trust him. He lay completely still, waiting for her to grow accustomed to his impalement and the feel of his thick member deep inside her. Eventually she felt a blurring of the edges of her pain.

He brushed back a tendril of hair from her cheek. “Better now?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t unbearable now. The burning had lessened.

After another long moment, she stirred her hips, tentative, testing. The discomfort was definitely fading.

He feathered a kiss at the corner of her mouth as he withdrew, but when he carefully slid upward once more, she felt the rise of heat in her again. He kept up the slow, deliberate rhythm, coaxing her with his hard body, until hot, urgent longing began to clamor inside her.

The hunger was as timeless as man and woman. She whimpered feverishly, her nails digging into his shoulders as she instinctively matched his rhythm. He squeezed his eyes shut like a man in pain, his breathing rough as he moved inside her, thrusting gently into her melting flesh.

When she was on the brink of climax, he reached down between their bodies to find the engorged bud of her sex. Stunned, she arched against him, straining, crying out as the shattering, burning tumult broke within her.

Nick captured her wild moans with his mouth but never stopped, using all his skill to prolong her ecstasy as wave after wave of rapture convulsed her slender body. When she bucked and writhed against him, he clenched his teeth, striving for control, trying desperately to keep his savage need in check as he lay buried deep inside her.

It was too much. A great shudder moved through his frame as Nicholas at last let himself fill her with the hot desire that he’d felt for her from almost the first time he saw her. A hoarse moan ripped from his throat as he plunged into an endless raw pleasure so intense it seared.

Finally it was over. He was shaken as he lay there in the darkness, yet eventually consciousness returned. When he felt her trembling beneath him, a fierce tenderness engulfed his heart.

Easing his weight to the side, he pulled the covers up over them and drew her into his arms. His body wrapped around her, warming her, calming her.

They lay there together, weak in the aftershocks of pleasure. After a long moment, he lifted his head.

In the firelight, she looked like a wanton angel, with her tangled cloud of hair, her pale ivory skin, her lush lips swollen and wet from his kisses.

It was amazing that she should have such an effect on him, Nicholas thought absently. She was physically inexperienced, totally virginal, and yet making love to her had created a tumult of feelings inside him that were entirely unexpected. The fierce sweetness of it had possessed him totally.

Perhaps the marriage vows they had spoken meant more than simply a cold business arrangement, bonding them together in ways he had never intended.

Wife. The word was strange, engendering even stranger feelings of longing and need. He wondered if he would leave an heir, if they had made a child. A son…or a daughter. The thought brought an odd ache to the vicinity of his heart.

As if she could sense his bewildered reflections, the woman in his arms stirred. She was watching him, Nick realized, her luminous blue eyes searching. Desire knifed through him again, sharp and insistent, but he clamped down on his lusts, reminding himself of her virginal state.

“Are you all right?” he murmured, pressing a kiss on her forehead.

“Yes.” A sigh whispered from her. “That was…wonderful.”

A smile touched his mouth as a fresh wave of tenderness flooded him. “I’m gratified you think so.”

“Was that…was I…a disappointment for you?”

He lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “Quite the contrary, siren. I’ve never experienced lovemaking quite so delectable.” At her slight frown of skepticism, he gave a soft laugh. “It’s true. Perhaps you’re too inexperienced to recognize the fierce control I had to exercise, but it was all I could do to keep from ravishing you.” He leaned forward to brush a kiss on her nose. “I could make love to you all night long…but I suppose I must show some consideration for your innocence and let you sleep.”

A look of sadness passed over her face, and she reached up to touch his mouth with her fingers. “I really don’t want to sleep. If this is my only night with you, I want it to last as long as possible.”

He gazed at her, wanting to chase away the shadows in her beautiful eyes. She was thinking of the morning to come, he knew.

Shifting his position, he eased over her.

“So do I, angel,” he whispered huskily as his mouth lowered to find hers. “So do I.”

Chapter Six

Confusion was Aurora’s first reaction as she slowly stirred awake. Her body felt unusually sensitive, her lips and breasts tender, while an unfamiliar discomfort throbbed between her thighs. Blinking at the sunlight filtering through the chinks in the shutters, she tried to place the strange, spartan bedchamber. More bewildering, she was pressed against a hard, warm, male body that was decidedly nude….

Memory came rushing back full force. Her marriage. Her husband. Nicholas Sabine.

For a moment she lay in his arms remembering, her cheek against his shoulder, their limbs entwined. For much of the night he had made love to her with exquisite tenderness and passion. What she had expected to be a brief, obligatory bedding had become a true wedding night. Nicholas had awakened her to desire, given her her first taste of ecstasy, leaving her trembling and shaken.

And she had surrendered to him completely, responding with an abandon verging on desperation. Despite their pact, the dire future he faced had added a primal urgency to their lovemaking.

Aurora bit her lower lip hard. Last night he had made her forget her sadness, but the dreaded morning had come. Today he would die.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t allow herself to care for him. He was a condemned man….

Yet it was already too late. She had begun to feel a deep affinity for her new husband, which made it all the harder to think of him dying.

The tears she’d been fighting started slipping down her cheeks and onto his bare shoulder. When she felt him stiffen, she realized he was awake.

Determinedly, she drew a shaky breath, trying to stem the flow of tears.

“I don’t want you to grieve for me, Aurora,” he said in a low voice.

“I c-can’t help it.”

“God, please don’t cry…I would rather face a brigade of charging cavalry than one weeping woman.” His hand came up to caress her cheek. “Your tears are the worst possible torture for me.”

“I…I’m sorry.”

She closed her eyes while his thumb carefully wiped the tears away. After a while she drew another shuddering breath, determined not to weep. Yet she could no longer bear to remain idle while he went to his death.

“This cannot be allowed to happen,” Aurora vowed, her own voice low and fierce. “
I
won’t allow it. I intend to visit the governor at once and compel him to stay your sentence. Sweet heaven, how could I have been so blind not to think of it before now?”

Disentangling himself from her nude form, Nick sat up, turning his back to her. “Might I remind you of your promise to help my sister?” he said quietly. “Your cousin has arranged to escort you to Montserrat today—this afternoon.”

“I can’t leave here as long as there is a chance your life could be spared.”

Nicholas raked a hand through his hair. He had feared this very response from her. She wouldn’t abandon him to his fate, not now. Not after the incredible night just past. The passion that had blazed between them had shocked them both, creating an emotional bond that would be hard to break.

With a silent oath, Nick glanced down at her to see tears glistening wetly on her lashes. It made him ache to see her crying, yet he couldn’t allow his fate to come before his sister’s. He couldn’t take the risk. Somehow he had to sever the bond between them.

She was gazing up at him, her eyes intensely blue, her hair a golden cloud, her lush lips swollen from his kisses. She was as beautiful as anything he had ever seen. And as vulnerable.

Reaching for her hand, he raised it to his lips, pressing a kiss on her knuckles. “I thank you for making my last night a pleasant diversion, sweetheart, but it is over now. Since our marriage has been consummated, there is no longer any need for a pretense of affection between us.”

When the color drained from her face, Nicholas locked his jaw. He wanted to take back the cruel words making light of the searing passion they had shared. But he couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by the hurt in her eyes.

He forced himself to hold her gaze, even when she pulled back her hand and drew the covers to her breasts in a defensive gesture.

Schooling his features to impassivity, he rose and went to the washstand to clean away the results of the night’s passion. He could feel her watching his naked back, but when he turned to dress, she averted her face.

“We had a bargain, you will remember,” Nicholas said coolly as he drew on his drawers. “Your financial independence in exchange for supporting my sister. I trust you will honor our agreement.”

Her chin came up at that, as if he had stung her pride. “Certainly I shall.”

He was glad to hear the edge of anger in her tone; that was far more bearable than tears.

He donned his breeches, then sat in one of the wing chairs before the hearth to pull on his boots. “Your cousin Percy has all the documents you will need, and my letter to Raven as well. Show it to her when you reach Montserrat, along with my ring as proof of our marriage. She will recognize the ship emblem—”

Just then a thudding noise sounded in the outer room. Nick froze, while Aurora flinched. Someone was pounding on the parlor door. The garrison soldiers, no doubt.

“Sir, we have orders to return you to your cell,” a brusque voice called out.

“One moment, if you please,” Nicholas responded. “I have yet to finish dressing.”

He drew on his second boot, then his shirt. Without haste he tied his cravat and donned his waistcoat and coat. All the while, Aurora remained silent, still stunned and hurt by his sudden coldness.

“So this is farewell,” he said when he finally turned to her.

“I suppose so,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper. She stared back at him, searching for any sign of the passionate, considerate lover she had known last night. There was none. He was a stranger again, his lean face beautiful and hard.

“I am counting on you to care for my sister,” he repeated.

“You have my word,” she forced herself to say tonelessly.

“And you will set sail for Montserrat today as you promised?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can rest in peace.”

When she put a hand over her mouth to hold back a sob, he took a step toward her, then stopped abruptly. A muscle tightened grimly in his jaw, but he remained silent.

He gave her one long last look before turning away. As she watched, Nicholas left the bedchamber without another word, shutting the door softly behind him.

Aurora stared after him numbly, wondering how he could have turned so cold after his exquisite tenderness last night. Wondering how she could bear the feelings of dread and anguish that were gnawing so relentlessly at her.

But there was still time, perhaps, to save him….

She had just thrown off the covers when a tentative rap sounded on the bedchamber door. Her heart skipped a violent beat, her first thought that Nicholas had returned. But the voice that called out softly was female and belonged to her personal maid.

“My lady, ’tis I, Nell. The gentleman…your husband…bid me see to you.”

“Come in, Nell,” Aurora said, hiding her fierce disappointment as she rose and went to the washstand.

Nell blinked to see her normally modest mistress entirely unclothed. “I…I’ve brought your traveling dress for the journey this afternoon, my lady, and ordered hot water for your bath—”