Princess Charming (32 page)

Lucy stepped forward, but Nick stopped her by sweeping her into his arms and carrying her across the threshold. “I only plan to marry once, Lucy,” he murmured in her ear, and his warm breath was like the caress of a soft, moist breeze. “Let’s not eschew any of the niceties.”

Lucy’s heart almost stopped at the seductive promise of his words. He kicked the door shut behind them with his boot and crossed the room to the lumpy-looking bed. Thankfully, instead of laying her across the mattress, he released her legs and allowed her to stand upright. The room was dim, for only a small window allowed the late-morning light to invade the interior. The chamber was far from luxurious, barely comfortable in fact, but for all its inadequacies, it was exactly where Lucy Charming did—and did not—want to be.

“You should have had flowers,” Nick said and stepped toward the window. Lucy had expected him to move toward her, not away, and disappointment flitted through her.

“Nothing about our acquaintance has been anything like the usual courtship,” Lucy said with as much equanimity as she could manage. “Why should our wedding be any different?”

Nick turned back from beneath the window and smiled slightly. “I suppose this is the point at which I should do the honorable thing and allow you to refuse me a husband’s privileges.”

“Are you going to? Do the honorable thing, I mean.” Lucy found herself slightly breathless, fearing either answer and unsure which she preferred.

“I’ve not managed to do an honorable thing since I met you, princess. Why should I begin now?” Despite his words and the sensual undercurrent of them, he remained immobile by the window.

“Why, indeed,” Lucy murmured. She felt like a tightly coiled spring. Blast the man. Why didn’t he simply kiss her and let nature take its course? She was nervous enough without this need for conversation.

He straightened. “Tell me to get out, Lucy, if you’ve no desire for what lies ahead. Tell me now, and say it with conviction. With passion.” He stopped and rubbed his temple with thumb and forefinger. “No, not with passion. With indifference.” He looked up at her, his brown eyes full of something she didn’t quite dare to name. “Yes, with cool, disdainful indifference.”

“What would you have me say?” She wasn’t a tightly coiled spring after all. She was a woman standing on the edge of a precipice, and the wind was blowing against her back. She could turn away if she wanted, and, despite everything, he would let her. He was an honorable man, no matter how he thought of himself. Telling him to leave would be the wise course. The prudent course. Small wonder she couldn’t follow it, but then she never had before.

“Would you have me lie?” She forced herself to speak firmly to belie the fact that her knees threatened to knock together. “I am not indifferent, Nick. How could any woman be indifferent to you?”

Her words lit a low flame in his eyes. His hands rose, and he quickly shirked his leather vest. “Then what are you, princess, if not indifferent? Because I confess I do not know.”

What was she, indeed? A telling question, and the answer was just as revealing. She had no intent of making that particular revelation in Nick’s hearing. “Perhaps I am angry.”

Nick moved toward her, his steps muffled by the dusty carpet beneath their feet. He crooked one finger and placed it beneath her chin, and his touch singed her skin, flame against flesh. For a long moment, he examined her, turning her head one way and then another. Her knees threatened to buckle instead of knock.

“You don’t appear angry,” he said in a soft voice, and his closeness set her heart to pounding. “Your cheeks are not red. Your eyes sparkle, but not from fury. And though your breath seems to have quickened, you are not tensed to strike out at me. No, you are not angry.”

Lucy wanted him down to the darkest depths of her soul. It was a painful realization, and an even more painful admission, but it was the truth nonetheless. She had a vague idea of what occurred in the marital bed. She had an even clearer idea of the demands of her own body, and something within her longed to learn the demands of his.

“Perhaps I am repulsed,” she snapped, her frustration rising even further. “The mere idea of the marriage bed may be repugnant to me.”

He smiled then. He did it so rarely that its effect was all the more devastating. Strong, even teeth. Mobile lips. Faint lines around the corners. Repulsive was not the first word that sprang to mind.

“I’ve seen you repulsed, princess. When you find a man repellent, you swing a scythe at him. Or fling a teakettle in his midsection. But I daresay you do not stand this near to him”—he moved even closer—”and allow him to touch what he has so long dreamt of.”

She would surely melt under the warmth of his gaze. His hand grazed her shoulder and then lightly, softly, continued downward until his fingertips reached the curve of her breast. Lucy gasped and thought her heart might leap from her body. He had touched her there before, that night in the maze at Carlton House, but the gentle pressure felt as fresh and thrilling as it had the first time. Would it always be this way? With Nick, she feared so.

“No,” she admitted weakly. “I am not repulsed.”

He rewarded her by leaning forward and placing a soft kiss on her mouth. Their lips clung for a long, heart-stopping moment, the fulfillment of every girlish dream she’d ever had, and then he pulled away. “Then what are you, Lucy Charming?” he murmured, his face mere inches from hers. “For I should dearly like to know.”

She was in love, was what she was, but she would never admit it to him. He held far too much power over her as it was.

“I am a wife, as our wager dictates,” she replied as calmly and evenly as she could manage. “That is all.” Nick hesitated, his eyes searching hers, and then seemed to accept her answer.

“Then come to bed, my wife.” She expected him to grab her wrist, as he was so wont to do, or at least take her hand and lead her to the bed. Instead, he stepped to the side, tugged back the bedclothes, and gestured toward the lumpy expanse of the mattress.

Lucy swallowed hard. She would not turn craven now. “Perhaps I should undress first?”

Nick reddened, and she realized he’d forgotten that detail. A little thrill of pleasure shot through her. The debonair rogue had overlooked the obvious. Perhaps his sangfroid was not as complete as it appeared.

“An excellent idea,” he said, and his eyes traced her from lips to toes, shifting the balance of power back in his favor. “Where would you like to begin?”

“Undress for me,” he murmured against her ear, and then he moved a step away. Lucy’s throat went dry. For all that society might brand her a hoyden, undressing in front of a man in broad daylight was not a thing to be taken lightly. Even if that man was her husband.

Slowly, not meeting his eyes, Lucy reached up and unhooked the bodice of her gown. It parted, and she allowed the sleeves to slip down her arms. The corset and chemise she wore underneath retained her modesty, but the simple undergarments revealed her breasts and the curve of her hips.

With a strangled moan, Nick lifted his hands and tentatively cradled her breasts in his palms. Lucy gasped. His touch felt incredibly good, and with only the thin linen separating them, she tingled where the warmth of his skin met hers. With a mesmerizing slowness, his fingers moved, caressing first the tops of her breasts and then the sides. Lucy swayed but remained upright until his talented hands cupped her fully, and his thumbs brushed her nipples. Their response was instantaneous, and the weakness that had threatened her knees since she had first glimpsed Nick’s handsome face finally took its toll. She swayed into his touch, and Nick groaned in approval.

He caught her, steadied her, and then, seeming to think better of trying to keep them both upright, turned her until she felt the mattress against the back of her knees. She fell, and he fell with her. The length of his body on hers was more erotic than she’d imagined. If it hadn’t felt so wonderful, she would have been frightened out of her wits.

Sharing thoughts and feelings did not come easily to Lucy, but physical intimacy was apparently another matter altogether. If nothing but unhappiness could lie ahead, then she would make the most of this moment. She returned Nick’s kiss with abandon, her hands reaching up to stroke his hair. The feel of the thick curls beneath her fingers was a sensual delight. She tugged on them lightly, and he groaned again. Her fingers moved eagerly, curiously, wanting to learn the feel and texture of every inch of him.

He reared up long enough to tug his shirt over his head and cast it to the floor behind him. At Nick’s urging, she lifted her hips so that he could slide her gown past her waist and down her legs. It followed his shirt to the floor. Lucy drank in the sight of him and couldn’t decide whether she most wanted to stare at the lean, lightly furred planes of his chest or trace their contours beneath her fingers. Nick reached down and took her hand and slowly, gently, placed her fingertips on his breastbone. “Touch me, Lucy.”

She needed no further invitation. Eager to explore, she allowed her hands to roam and took pleasure in the breathless sounds her touch elicited from Nick. He half-reclined above her, braced on one elbow, which left his other hand free to caress her hip through the thin chemise. Lucy had never known such delight. No wonder men and women of all sorts, society and peasant alike, made such fools of themselves over love. If she’d had any idea of the pleasure to be had, she would have made an idiot of herself long before.

Except that before, she wouldn’t have known Nick. Before, she would never have had any desire to remove her gown in the presence of a man. And before, she would not have been married and thus felt herself free to follow a man down such a wickedly sensual path.

But there was still more pleasure to be had, as Lucy was to discover. The heat that arched between them continued to grow, and Lucy found herself divested of her corset. Nick pulled away long enough to shed his boots. His breeches quickly followed. Clad only in linen small-clothes, he pulled her to a sitting position and slipped the straps of the chemise down her bare arms. Each touch of skin, each brush of fabric burned like a flame but left no mark. The sheer lawn of the chemise fell to her waist, and Nick eyed her as if she were a banquet table set before a starving man.

Lucy knew that at least once in her life, every woman should see that flame of desire in the eyes of the man she loved. Whatever happened to her, whatever happened to Nick, no one could ever take away this moment, when her husband held her and caressed her as if she were the answer to his prayers.

He knew where to touch her with an instinct that was almost frightening. Lucy felt the longing within her build to a fever pitch. Nick stroked her stomach, her thighs, before venturing lower. She parted her legs reluctantly, afraid to continue but terrified to stop. Instinctively, she tensed against the pain. Someone had told her once there would be pain. But there was only the absolutely glorious sensation of Nick’s fingertips spreading her legs and sliding through the softest, most intimate part of her body.

It was criminal the way he fed her every need. She should stop him, reclaim her modesty, but her brain had relinquished control to her aching body. He drew wetness from her until she was thick with it. And yet for all the pleasure, there was an ache as deep and as full as it was empty. She needed him.