The pleasure was almost too much to stand. Her body ached and tightened as his fingers worked magically inside her, heightening the effect of his mouth, of the rush of his breath and the cool, wet
tickle of his rain-spiked hair. The muscles of his shoulders bunched beneath her hands. His breathing hitched and rasped. He seemed to want this climax as much as she.
"Wait," she said, the longing too huge to keep inside, "let me taste you, too."
He stopped. A shudder swept through him, betraying how much he wanted to comply.
"Turn," she insisted, urging with her hands. "I want us to share this."
He turned until she had him in her reach. With a moan of welcome, she pulled him into her mouth: his heat, his fullness, his musky, throbbing silk. This was what she needed. This was what she'd dreamed
of in the night.
They strained together, the position awkward but exciting, a challenge to concentration and control.
Sweat rolled down their bodies, and fingers gripped harder than they should. Even that small pinch
of pain was arousing. They couldn't control themselves, not completely.
Still fighting the lure of full abandon, Nic gasped out instructions. "Not so far. You'll... oh, God. Don't make me come, love. Easy now. Slow."
She barely registered what he said. His groans were music, his involuntary twitches of response as stimulating as anything he did to her. She kneaded the muscles of his bottom, then pressed the puckered entry that hid within. He stiffened, violently, inside her mouth and out.
"Merry," he said, a hiss of smoldering sound, "you don't have to—"
But she knew what he wanted. She remembered what he'd done to her in Venice. She pushed, gaining a small but obviously pleasurable insertion. His warning changed to a groan. His spine rolled as if her touch had turned it liquid. She wriggled her finger and he thrust as if he could not restrain his reaction, filling
her mouth, filling her being with nothing but the knowledge of his body's joy.
Even with that, with his erection stretched to bursting and his back bowed with desire, he still sent her over the edge before she could drag him with her.
She cried out. The climax was too sharply sweet to hold it in. Nic swore like a sailor, then pulled from
her mouth and turned around. The bed creaked at the suddenness of his movement. She heard him
curse again with impatience, felt him yank her thighs apart and fumble for his home. As soon as he
found it, he thrust, one long, smooth stroke, before her quivers had a chance to fade.
He grunted, feeling her clench, and thrust again even harder.
He was bare inside her, his flesh to hers.
"Feel that?" he said, his nostrils flaring as his hips worked tighter still. "That's you and me, Merry. Nothing but you and me."
But even this failed to satisfy his need. He pushed his torso upward, his arms roped with muscle as he rose. His knees dug into the mattress. His thighs were so hard they might have been made of stone. He was big, his blood drumming against the stretch of her tender sheath. His crown seemed ready to breach her womb.
The sensation was utterly, meltingly delicious, as if his very life were held within her sex. Purring with pleasure, she dragged her palms down his back to press the sweaty dip at the base of his spine. He groaned as if she'd hurt him. She didn't know how to help except to let her legs relax even further to the side.
"Oh, Lord," he said as he slipped a fraction deeper. "That feels so good. I think I'll never move again."
He appeared to mean it. Still dazed from her orgasm, but coiling tighter by the second, she slid her hands around and up his ribs. His heart was thundering, the points of his nipples like little stones beneath her touch. She circled them, then pulled them gently by the tips. He inhaled sharply and breathed her name.
Lit by more than love or lust, his eyes burned in the dimness. She knew what he felt because she felt it, too. His need was raw, deeper than his body, deeper even than his heart, a desperation no one but she could fill. And she would fill it. She'd give him back the trust he was giving her.
"Nic," she said, her voice like brandy in her throat, "everything I am I share with you."
His face twisted with emotion. He didn't even try to hide the glitter of his tears. Her sex tightened in a spasm of pre-orgasmic bliss. He grit his teeth and swelled inside her. His shiver was a thrill that skittered sumptuously down her spine. Slowly, as if they both would shatter at a breath, he drew back through her body's hold.
"You," he said hoarsely, "make me whole."
He slammed into her then with wonderfully brutal force, hitting her high and hard. Two drives, three, his cock a velvet hammer. She thought he'd burst but on he went, working her, working himself inside her. He was completely beyond control, no polished rake but a creature of pure instinct. The cries he uttered were rough and rhythmic. Hungry. Sweat flew between them. Her sex felt deliciously bruised by his naked, pumping shaft. Her heart simply felt beloved.
She would fly, she thought, ready to weep with exhilaration. She would soar into the sun. Helpless to stop, she gripped his arms and came at the bottom blow of a stroke. A heartbeat later he unraveled with a groan, his hips shimmying against hers in quick, deep beats that locked and held as his ecstasy met hers.
He strained there, gushing, shaking, then let his weight sink slowly down.
She scarcely had the strength to wrap him in her arms.
"Very well," she said, panting out the words, "I will marry you."
His laugh rumbled against her breast. "Convinced you, did I?" He rose on his elbow to gaze at her, his cheeks flushed, his eyes shining with love and humor. With a musing smile, he wound one golden curl around his finger.
"I want to ask you something," he said, "and you needn't tell me unless you wish. That night, after
Anna's party, that was your first time, wasn't it? You gave me your virginity."
Her fiery blush was all the answer he required.
"Lord," he said, "I'm a cur to be glad but I can't help it."
"You are a cur. Not to mention a dangerous seducer."
His dear, battered face grew serious. "From this day forward, Merry, I'm only seducing you. You gave me a gift that night, and I didn't even know."
She fought not to squirm with embarrassment and delight. "Well," she huffed, "I trust you know it now."
"Yes." He tweaked the turned-up end of her nose. "Now I'm lucky enough to know."
Twenty-two
The skirt to Merry's gown was almost too full to fit through her dressing room door. She managed it, though, squeezing into the sitting room while the mothers argued over what sort of flowers should decorate her headpiece. Like ghosts of weddings past, their voices trailed into her refuge.
"Orange blossoms," insisted Merry's mother.
"Nothing at all!" boomed the dowager marchioness. "My son isn't marrying some French tart!"
"Don't catch those pearls on the furniture," Ginny called, the only one to notice Merry's escape. The
old nurse had been called back for the wedding, though she'd refused Merry's offer of a position in her new home.
In the months since her dismissal, Ginny had enjoyed helping her sister in her
Devon
tea shop so much she'd decided she really was ready to retire.
Merry smiled at the irony. It seemed even Ginny had profited from this mess.
Careful not to snag her skirt, she lowered herself to the settee by the window. She'd never have guessed
a wedding could be this tiring—especially when everyone else was fighting to do the work. The gown itself had proved a challenge to her less-than-stellar tact. In the end, the duchess agreed to let Nic
choose the design, but only if Madame sewed it.
The result was lavish beyond her wildest dreams. The overdress was a rich summer green, and the underdress a froth of Venetian lace. The snug, sleeveless bodice was so heavily encrusted with tiny pearls, she felt as if she were wearing armor. More pearls spilled over the skirt in delicate fronds and curls. A princess could have worn this gown or, for that matter, an empress! Instead, it was gracing
plain old Merry Vance.
She felt both ridiculous and gorgeous, more of a spectacle than she'd been since posing naked as
Godiva. Interestingly enough, her mother had given her Nic's painting—after extracting a promise
they'd hang it "privately." Now, arrayed in a dress that nearly outdid that undress, she didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or burst into happy tears at the thought of dragging this beautiful
monstrosity down the aisle.
When her mother saw the final fitting, she'd nodded and tapped her chin. "I'll give Craven this,"
she said. "He knows how to make a woman look her best."
"You should call him Northwick," Merry corrected gently, "or Nic if that feels more natural."
Her mother sniffed. "I'll call him Northwick after he's kept you happy for a year. And I'll call him Nic when he hands me my next grandchild."
She seemed not to realize how surreal such comments were, as if—after all that had happened—Merry should now believe her well-being was her mother's dearest concern. She let the pretense stand for her father's sake but found herself thinking less of her mother's sense with every day.
Nic could not warm to her at all.
Oh, he was polite, even charming, and Lavinia professed to like him, but he saved his true self, his
honest self, for the people who really loved her.
To Merry's surprise, Nic proved more than just a ladies' man. After an initial bristly meeting, with
various veiled references to his healing nose, all three of her brothers had succumbed to his worldly glamor. When they discovered he was also a good sport, their last resistance gave up the ghost. The possibility of a male-only fishing tramp to Scotland had been thrown out for discussion—after the honeymoon, of course.
"Bah!" Nic's mother had exclaimed. "As if men have the patience to fish well."
Merry had been leery of the dowager marchioness until she saw how determined the woman was to like her. Rough around the edges she might be, and certainly used to running things her own way. All the same, her candor won Merry's respect, along with her still awkward love for her son.
When Merry realized how easily the marchioness would fit in among the rowdy Vances, she did feel a little sorry for her mother.
Not sorry enough, however, to get between the mothers now. That was Isabel's job. Finally forgiven by her husband, thanks to some bargain that made her giggle whenever Merry asked what it was, she was doing diplomatic duty as Merry's matron of honor.
"Wouldn't miss it," she'd declared. "This is absolutely, without question, the most romantic and gossip-worthy match anyone's seen in years. Imagine that Lothario turning out to be a marquis! Half the females in London are kicking themselves with envy."
Merry had to admit to liking that, even if a fair number of those females knew precisely what there was
to be envious of. But that was a knowledge she could adjust to. Nic's past was Nic's past. His future
was what mattered and he'd entrusted that to her.
Pressing a fist to her burgeoning laugh, Merry tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Thank God her family didn't know the truth about all their guests, Sebastian and Evangeline in particular. They thought this marriage was irregular as it was!
The sound of a hesitant knock brought her neck upright again. Cristopher hovered in the doorway, achingly adult in his formal white tie and tails.