Authors: Tiffany Clare
“Life generally isn't. Though that's not something I should need to remind you.”
He left her standing in the middle of her private room. Eyes were focused on their glass enclosure, and while patrons likely hadn't heard their exchange, they would be well aware that there was a new rift between them. Something for the gossip columns.
Nick stopped at the front counter. “In which direction did the woman wearing the blush-pink dress head?”
“Through the shop, sir.”
He headed into the department store, not sure where Amelia would have gone. If she was merely browsing the counters, he'd find her eventually. Surely she wouldn't leave without him. Ladies' Wear was on the third floor, so he'd check there last, as men weren't supposed to be up there. The first floor was antiquities, porcelain, and silver. The second floor was jewelry. He found her walking between two rows of glass cases, with a salesman two steps behind, should she need assistance.
All Nick knew was that he was happy to have found her. Victoria didn't know the danger Amelia was in, so he couldn't blame her completely for the episode that drove Amelia away. But he was happy to see her safe.
Nick nodded the salesman over. He came quickly, Amelia was not even aware she'd been followed around. “I'll signal to you if the lady wants anything.”
The man was younger than he originally thought, maybe eighteen. His face still had spots. “Yes, sir,” he said enthusiastically.
Nick walked between the rows of glass cases and made his way to Amelia's side. She paused over a series of locketsâgold, silver, a plethora at her fingertips.
“Do you see something you like?”
She jumped, her shoulders hitting his chest as she let out a small squeal of surprise. She pressed her hand to her chest and inhaled deeply. “Nick. You scared the devil out of me.”
He caged his arms around her and leaned close enough that he could talk quietly in her ear. Their conversation was for them alone. People could assume what they wanted with his blatant fawning; he didn't care. There was one thing of which Nick was sure: Amelia was his. And everyone in this shop would see and know that. And anything that was his was not to be trifled with.
“Not my intention to scare you.”
“What are you doing up here?”
“Apologizing.” Nick ran his fingers over the glass display case mere inches from her hand. He wanted to take it up and press a kiss to the inside of her wrist, but the shop was too busy for such an open display of intimacy. “Perhaps a gift is in order.”
Amelia ducked her head, shaking it. “No,” she said, so quietly he almost didn't catch it.
“Why not?”
“I was only reminiscing.” She pointed to a rather plain silver locket in the case with minimal detail stamped in the face. “This one reminded me of one I once had.”
“Ah. Did you have something you wanted to put in the locket? I'm happy to make the purchase.”
Her white-gloved fingers trailed a seductive path along the edge of the case. “The day we met, mine was stolen, along with my money. I never cared about the money; it wasn't rightfully mine, but the locket was a gift from my parents. I wasn't wearing it because the chain was broken.”
“Then let me buy you another. It's the least I can do after Victoria's abhorrent behavior.”
She turned her cheek enough to show him her faint smile of appreciation. “It's not the locket that held value but what lay inside. And your friend Victoria is a topic for another time . . . when there are fewer ears present, I think.”
“I can agree to that for now.” Nick motioned to the room around them. Jewels, hairpieces, even diadems filled every case. “I want you to pick something else. Anything.”
“That's kind of you, but no thank you. I was passing the time in here, waiting for your meeting with Victoria to end. I don't need anything.”
“Humor me.”
She blushed a pretty shade of pink. “It's too much, Nick. Buying me a present now will prove your friend right.”
“I don't care what Victoria thinks.”
She pinched her mouth on a smile. “Please, let's go if you're finished.”
“I'll cede this once, but only because
I'm
embarrassed by the way Victoria treated you.”
A
melia would be lying if she said she wasn't feeling a little defeated by the events of the afternoon. The only thing that made her feel better was that Nick had followed her shortly after she'd departed the teahouse. It might be petty, but it proved that Nick cared more about her than Victoria in that particular instance.
Then there was the guilt she felt. She'd been the cause of their rift. She'd been the one to let Victoria pick a fight with her when Amelia had ample time to fix the direction of their conversation.
Nick had dropped her off at the house and come in long enough to give her a kiss good-bye and apologize once again for his friend's cruel treatment. The second Huxley had arrived, Nick had left for what remained of the afternoon. Amelia wasn't sure where he'd gone, as he had only one appointment in his book, at four, but that was neither here nor there; she had a lot of paperwork she needed to sort through and that would be difficult with Nick hovering over her shoulder.
He came home just as she was closing the study door. Huxley was talking to him, so she remained straight-faced and aloof, as though she hadn't been waiting to see Nick all evening.
They both looked up when the door clicked shut behind her. “Would you like me to open up the study again?” she asked. “I just turned down all the lighting for the night.”
“I have some letters to send out before I retire,” Nick said.
She ducked her head for the benefit of Huxley, who was still standing there, and backed into the study to turn on the lamps and light the candles.
“It's nearly ten,” Nick said as he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. “I thought you would be in bed by the time I was home.”
“I wanted to wait for your return. I had to tell you that I was partially to blame for the disastrous tea with Miss Newgate this afternoon.” When he opened his mouth to dispute that, she put up her hand. “Let me finish before you tell me I had nothing to do with it. I did. The reason I agreed to go with you today was because I hate that you're friends with her, Nick. It eats me up inside, knowing that she had you first, she knew you first. And I was afraid she'd try to tempt you back into her bed.”
The last bit she sort of mumbled through because it was difficult to admit that out loudâno matter how many times she'd gone over this speech in her head. “That woman being a part of your life is the only thing that has ever struck a jealous chord in me, Nick. I could have been the better person today and turned the conversation around, but I chose to pick at her comments.
I
was part of the problem and cause in escalating the sour note you came in on. That's not to say I leave her blameless; she has plenty to be blamed for.”
Nick cupped her cheek and gave her one of his rare smiles. “I don't expect you to get along with her, Amelia. But Victoria and I go back too far for me to cut her completely out of my life. The one thing that I can promise you, however, is that I'll never find my way back to her bed, nor she mine.”
Hearing him say that eased a lot of her troubles.
“And I don't know how we'll work it out going forward, but eventually, I promise to try. Everything is too new between us for you to ask that of me right now. So please give me time to adjust to her. And here . . . ” Amelia held out a linen envelope. “It arrived a few hours ago.”
As tempting as it was to burn whatever contents were inside, she knew it was Victoria apologizing for her own bad behavior this afternoon.
He took it and set it on his desk. A small part of her wondered if he wanted to hide whatever contents were contained within the pages of that letter. But the much bigger part of her was saying that he put it down because right now was about them.
“Am I forgiven?” she asked, turning her cheek into his palm and stepping close enough that their bodies brushed ever so lightly from breast and chest and stomach to hip.
Nick's hand wrapped around her waist, and he maneuvered them toward his desk. “I don't know. What do you think would make a good peace offering for all the trouble you've caused today?”
There was a teasing quality to his voice that had her smiling, though she tried to keep her expression serious and play along.
“You didn't lock the door,” she pointed out.
“I'm aware. How about we live dangerously tonight?”
She raised one eyebrow at that. “I see. And how does living dangerously look?”
He hitched her up on the edge of his desk and hiked her skirts out of the way so her stockings were visible all the way up to the garter. He bent over her, saying, “Something like this.”
Opening the slit in her drawers, his hands slid under her buttocks to tilt her pelvis up so he could lick the seam of her sex. After a swipe that had her cream flowing liberally, he blew a stream of air over her. Amelia fell back on her elbows, spreading her legs wider, wanting to pull his head closer.
Books, paper, and pencils jabbed into her buttocks, as did the bustle fastened around her waist, but she didn't have the wherewithal to concentrate on anything aside from Nick's tongue lashing out and tasting between the folds of her labia, over and over again.
He sucked at her clitoris, flicking his tongue around the swollen nub and making her cry out. Her hands tangled in his hair and pulled him in tight to her body, where he continued the onslaught of pleasure with his tongue. When she started to thrash, her body desperate to be closer to him, to feel him harder against her, he came over her, shoving his trousers down his hips.
His cock sprang out and rubbed along the wet folds of her sex. He rubbed the head of it around her clitoris. “Do you like that?”
She bit her lip to keep her noises to a minimum but nodded heartily. “Kiss me,” she cried out. She needed his mouth on her, to smother the sounds she couldn't keep from making when he tortured her with pleasure.
He pushed the head of his rod inside her and nothing more. He wanted her to beg, and she wasn't above doing just that.
“Please,” she cried, louder this time, a breathless noise building in her chest as she tilted her hips, trying to lodge him in deeper. “I need you to kiss me.”
One of his elbows came down beside her shoulder, his weight finally crushing her just right. “How about here?” he asked, biting her chin and licking a seductive line across her jaw.
She shook her head and placed the arches of her feet on the edge of the desk, forcing him deeper still. The sounds that passed her lips grew in volume. Lost in them, she was less worried about being heard. “Kiss my mouth. Let me taste myself on your tongue.”
He gave her exactly that. His tongue was like a weapon all its own as he lashed it against hers, giving her that musky taste. When she sucked on his tongue, he gave her the rest of himself, battering into her sheath with a need so great that the huge mahogany desk groaned beneath them.
His thrusts were shallow, and his hips gyrated and twisted until the folds of her sex were opened up like a flower, the bud abraded by the coarseness of the hair at the base of his manhood.
They kissed so deeply that their teeth hit, and his beard scraped against her face, burning her skin as it rubbed harder and harder over her, his tongue mimicking the motions of his cock.
Impatiently, he ripped at the buttons on her bodice, trying to open the front to get to her breasts. But their bodies moved too frantically together for him to concentrate on doing more than pop a few of them off, making them clink against the floor as they rolled away.
The corner of a book jabbed her in the head, and Amelia pushed it out of the way, making it fall to the floor with a loud thud. Her legs were wrapped around his hips, holding him as close as she could in their clothed state.
Threading her hands through his hair, she held his head, kneading her fingers into his scalp with every sweep of his tongue against hers. She would never get enough of this man. Every forbidden taste didn't sate the craving she had for him; every touch made her burn for more.
That tingling awareness in her nether region started with a pulse in her clitoris and moved through her veins like water through roots, building and building until her whole body let go. When her orgasm hit, a rush of wetness came out of her, soaking them both and making slick, wet noises as Nick tore his mouth from hers and fucked her so hard and furiously that he shouted when he came a moment after her.
His seed added to the slickness between her thighs, making her feel as though she'd . . . urinated on herself. On him. Oh, good Lord. What had she just done?
She tried to push him away, ashamed and mortified. His lazy, sated gaze was focused on her face; the grin he wore was half cocky, half victorious.
“Nick, please, get off.” Her face was flaming and her ears were hot.
“I know you especially enjoyed that, so why are you shy all of a sudden.”
“The door is unlocked.” It was the only excuse she could come up with fast.
“That didn't bother you a minute ago.”
He flexed his hips forward, lodging his penis deeper inside her, despite his hardness having diminished slightly.
She cringed to hear the squish of wetness between them. “We have to clean up.”
Nick wrapped his hand around her throat, rubbing his thumb along one side. “You have no reason to be embarrassed, Amelia.”
“I . . . something . . . ” Something had come out of her that shouldn't have. And she couldn't say it, put words to it. It was that devastatingly humiliating. “Fine, I'm embarrassed. Now, will you get off me so that I might clean up?”
He pressed a rather chaste kiss against her mouth and got off her. The grin on his face was starting to irritate her. And it didn't leave his face once as he righted his clothing, though they were rumpled, and it would be obvious they'd been up to something.