Regency Rogues Omnibus (52 page)

That he brought her to the seemingly seductive chamber was not for intimacy at all, but for privacy. Certainly he could not want to make public the embarrassing fact that he knew her at all, much less their sordid past.

Oh, she should not have come,
Nia thought, turning her back to Radford as she stood uneasy in the center of the chamber, fingering the whispering silk of her gown in anxiousness. She could not turn back now. She needed to do this, then leave quickly. She only wished that Radford’s mere presence in the room did not strike the sexual cravings inside her so strongly. It was as though heady vapors were swirling in the air, and it flushed her skin and made her heartbeat flutter. “Oh blimey, just blurt it out,” she muttered under her breath.

Radford chuckled behind her and she abruptly realized that he’d caught her words in the silence, when she’d not intended him to. Further and for heightened reasons that were unfathomable to her, his chuckle infuriated her. How dare he chuckle at her distress? She turned instantly with a tart retort on the edge of her tongue. “How-!”

Luckily and by all the bonny saints, she caught her wayward tongue. But when she gobbled back any further words, she imagined that she must look rather like a fish gulping out of water.
This was going awfully,
she thought, trying to halt her mouth from looking like a guppy as she peered at Radford, noticing immediately that he had removed his mask. My lord, he was smiling! Nia’s bottom lip finally clamped shut against her top lip, and her chin dented with a stubborn tilt. It appeared to her that Radford’s one strikingly blue eye held . . . held . . . held.
Affection?
Then. Tenderness? Then. Amusement? Then.
Ohmylord.
Sizzling, blue heated desire.

Nia stepped backward against the conflicting emotions tearing through her. Radford’s hand lifted, as though he beckoned her, yet he did not move. “Your fear frightens me, love,” he said. Nia blinked watching the cool firm sculpture of Radford’s mouth. “Never be afraid of me, Nia. Never,” he sighed with his hand lowering. “Seeing the emotions on your beautiful face, cherie, is more precious to me than I could have imagined.”

Nia nearly stepped toward him. The lure was there as if a silk rope was attached to her tugging her toward Radford.
Precious?
She licked her lips slowly, and his breath caught. Her gaze lifted and she realized that he watched her every feature closely. As closely as she watched his. This was new that they could both really see each other. Everything was so ajar from what she thought it would be. Her confusion felt nearly dizzy. She could remember only one thing clearly, as her gaze lingered hungrily on Radford’s every feature. “I...” Time seemed to turn so slowly as though they revolved in a cocoon together. “I did not take the money,” she whispered. Her gaze finally settled on his with entreaty. “I-I could not.”

“I know,” he murmured.

Her chin came upward, startled. “H-How . . . c-could you.” It was not possible that Radford could know.

“I know you.” He said it so simply, with such unerring and quiet conviction.

“You don’t know me!” she exclaimed, with her body trembling. It was anguish. And it hurt. “I am a...You know I am a...”

“The woman that I love.”

Nia cried out with her legs buckling, as she moaned.

“
Nia.
” Radford was there kneeling beside her with his hands clasping her hands, pulling her upward toward him.

“No.” It was a whimper in her throat. “Please. You make me believe. You make me think that-,”

“Christ.” Radford stilled his motion of pulling her to him, and then he settled back on his heels. His hands were so warm over hers. “You are so beautiful, you break my heart.”

Nia bowed her head. “I am a whore,” she whispered.

“Never,” he said lowly. “You are an exciting woman of sexual wonder that fills my heart. Nia, I am completely enthralled and counting myself the luckiest of men to have found you.”

“Oh.” She shook her head, denying it. It could not be true. He was a Duke. He was beyond her.

“Yes.” Radford’s voice was firm with conviction. “Nia, why did you come here to me now? Tell me. You did not have to.”

She lifted her gaze beseechingly. “To tell you. To say that.”

“Yes,” he encouraged her.

“Oh, Radford, it was not all a lie!” she exclaimed. “Never from the very first moment that you touched me.”

“There is something here between us, Nia, that we cannot deny. We never could deny it, not from that very first moment.”

“But you are a duke,” she gasped helplessly.

“Which means that I can have anything I want.” Radford’s lips turned upward with purely seductive arrogance. “And you, Lady Fire, are exactly what I intend to have.”

“I won’t...” Nia shook her head desperately. “I cannot be your whor-”

“Wife,” Radford interjected forcefully.

“Do not say that!” she cried, tugging her hands from his. “I will go back to Dublin. I will never be that again. Brynmore will help us, and-and-,”

“Us, being your five brothers and sisters?” Radford said quietly.

Nia gasped. How could he know? Her stricken gaze lingered on his face.

“I am a former spy, Nia.” Radford said it so easily, so matter of fact. “Once, I realized that you used your mother’s name and not your father’s,” he paused, as though all his masculine countenance were honed in on her. “I indulged. Forgive me, but I had to know everything about you.”

What Radford was saying barely made sense to Nia’s overheated and emotional thoughts. He knew everything about her? It was unusual for a person to know that. “S-Should you tell me that you are a spy?” she asked, in a whisper.

“No.” He leaned closer. “I am a former spy, and now that you know, I will have to keep you forever. It is a rule.”

She nearly laughed. Her lips twitched. It was ludicrous. She was too upset to laugh. Events were too dramatic and heartbreaking. What was he saying to her? “I-I never meant you any harm,” she tried.

“I know, cherie.”

“I thought it would be a lark. Fun. I never would have done it, if I thought...”

“We would fall hopelessly in love?”

“Oh,” she moaned with an abrupt reaction and tears springing to her eyes. “I never expected that.” She bowed her head again, with her lips trembling. Did he really love her? Her body was shaking.

“It is sudden, Nia, but undeniable, my love.” Then, Radford’s arms were around her as he pulled her up into his embrace.

“This cannot be happening!” she sobbed once, then she clung tightly to him.

Chapter Nineteen

Radford knew how to cast aside Nia’s heart-felt hesitations. It was time. Now that he knew that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, and that her only reservations were the questions she had in her mind about her character. Questions about him wanting someone as lovely, vivacious, and sexual as she was, because that is how he saw her, and all that mattered to him. He did understand that today’s society was not forward thinking at all. They could and would question a woman’s character, slaying them with ridicule if they found it not within their staid morals. Morals that simply cloaked their own sordid lives. For a woman it could be doubly harrowing. Although, he realized that Nia did not think of herself, but of him.

Yet, he was certain that she could not fathom the power a man of his title held. He rarely used it, however that did not mean that he would not use it. He would use it gladly, without a second thought. Nonetheless those concerns were for another time. Now, he intended to make it impossible for Nia to say no to him, or ever think of leaving him again. Some people might consider it a bit underhanded to use sex, however that had been, and was, the beginning foundation to their relationship. And he thanked God that it was, because it was exactly the thing that he had been looking for his entire life. A brilliant plan . . . seducing one’s future wife. And, he must admit that his smile was deliciously wicked. His Lady Fire had, had the upper hand in all of their encounters so far, but now he intended to be the master.

He started slowly, so as not to alarm Nia, but still to seduce her without her completely realizing. He knew, oh so well, that her hot-blooded and sexual nature would succumb before she could think to raise any objections. Her response to him was one of his joys, and his response to her had become his deepest desire.

She smelled of cinnamon, vanilla, and warm flesh. So unique and completely alluring. The gown that she wore was so sheer it hid nothing of her supple curves. Just from their embrace alone, he could feel her nipples puckered tightly into his bare chest. He smiled at the response that she could not hide, although he understood that she was unconscious of it at the moment. His fingers stroked the luxurious weight of her slightly wavy long red hair. She was tall, yet delicate of frame, with the soft ivory skin of a true redhead. Her eyes were light green with sparkling gold flecks, her nose a cupid button with her lips full-bodied and sensual. He wondered that the prize of her had never been captured before, never been captured into marriage. The nobles in Dublin were fools, he thought, yet he was overwhelmingly grateful.

His fingers stroked Nia’s nape gently and her body moved unconsciously against him. The flowing and slight undulations only the feminine form can make. The softness of her body enticing and purring against the unbending sinew of his body. Light and airy, softly oscillating movements that denoted the closeness in which they held each other. Yet more closely the movements followed the stroking of her nape. That tenderly aroused place that beckoned the male in him and heated the female in her.

They were both kneeling and he wanted her mindless before he took her to the pillows. He had all night. A lifetime of nights and for once in her company he had the control and he intended to keep it. It would be a valiant effort, he was certain, because just holding her the way he was and lightly stroking her was of heated interest to his cock. However, he willed it not to harden just yet, pressed as it was to Nia’s lower belly. He needed more time and she would become completely aware then, if she felt it.

It was a delicate balance that he wove and he needed to keep Nia talking for just a bit longer. “I thought that you might be a spy, Nia, come to waylay me, or entice secrets from me,” he murmured.

Nia instantly tilted her face upward to him. Radford smiled inwardly. It was the perfect position and his other hand took advantage as he cupped her cheek. One of his fingers tracing her jaw and the other following the petite curve of her ear, while his hand at her nape stroked deeply. She tilted into his hands caresses with pure feminine instinct.

“No, Radford, I was never a spy.” Her pearly white teeth caught her bottom lip, then released it, as her gaze, which was half troubled and half subtly aroused, looked up at him. “I could see, knowing who you are now, a former spy, how you might. It is incredible,” she breathed.

“For me to be a spy?” he asked leaning closer, bringing his mouth nearer to her lips.

“Yes,” she whispered. “A spy and a duke.”

When Nia said the word “duke,” Radford saw awareness dawn in her eyes. She had been languid and unassuming for a few moments, however that word began to stir her back to her intentions. He was out of time. His lips agreed as he opened them over the fullness of her lips and he lifted with his hand on her cheek to bring her mouth up to his.

“Mm...”

Radford noted immediately that Nia was not completely compliant and she was beginning to think about pressuring him away. “I need you,” he said deeply against her mouth. “Need me, Nia, please God, need me.”

Nia’s return moan was a leap of passion, and without allowing her to vocally answer, Radford swept his tongue into her mouth. His other hand dropped to her buttocks, cupping both by the width of his hand as he lifted her body tightly up against his body. He smiled a moment later, when Nia’s arms wound around his neck and her mouth began suckling his tongue.

He let his cock go then. He fooled himself that he could have held back the throbbing rise to thickness. It ached deep along the shaft as the head swelled and flushed outward. He had aligned their bodies with an intention in mind. It was a perfect place for his cock to grow stiff in length, and while it was engorging, it furrowed into the tender lips of Nia’s pussy, which were only barely covered by a wisp of silk. He knew that the material of his pants over his expanded erection would make more rubbing friction into the delicate cove of Nia’s heated cunt. He then added a rocking motion, lifting and lowering her body gently by his hand cupping and kneading the ripe globes of her ass.

Judas.
His body shuddered as Nia wound her body against his passionately. It would take all of his control to seduce her as thoroughly as he intended and not become swept away in their normal urgency. However, this was just too important and he was going to have to force himself into more control around her. He nearly laughed and groaned at the same time at the need to have to do that. He was a lucky, lucky man.

Nia’s tongue was torrid and fiery in his mouth as he moved his body to stand, carrying her with him. He literally carried her clamped to the length of his body with her feet off the floor. Then he carried them three steps and he was at the pillows. He continued to slant his lips deeply over Nia’s mouth and she flowed into him with honeyed whimpers of longing and surrender. The sound of it stirring his blood hotly as he continued to hungrily plunder and pluck her mouth.