Lady Gone Wicked (Wicked Secrets)(47)

He raised his head. “Do you have need of me still?”

“Yes, Nick.” She said his name like a sigh.

That settled it. She needed him.

Very well, then. He would give her all she needed, as he should have done from the beginning. His body, his title, his security—it was all at her command. He would take her away from her father’s house, away from anyone who dared make her feel wrong. He would make it all better. He could be the man to make her happy, if she would only let him.

He cupped a breast in each hand, scraping his thumbs across the tight points. She made a small, pleading noise that inflamed his blood. He brought her left breast to his lips and sucked hard at the plump nipple. She cried out, her back arching to thrust herself deeper into his mouth. He sucked again, then turned his attention to her other breast.

“Nick!”

He looked at her, his lips still on her breast. “Yes?”

“Don’t stop.”

He did not intend to.

She reached between them, plucking frantically at the buttons of his fall. It fell open and he burst free, hard and ready. She stroked him once, only once, before she took her hand away.

And now he would beg. “Adelaide, more, please— Wait, no—”

She had raised her shift to her waist.

“Dear God.”

She sank down, sheathing him inside her in an exquisitely thorough embrace.

“Fuck, angel.”

She rose up, pressing her knees into the seat cushions on either side of him, and sank back down again. God, that was wonderful. He bit her shoulder to silence the sound that threatened to escape him. He was horribly afraid it was a sob.

She made to rise again, but he banded his arms around her waist, holding her still. His cock pulsed angrily inside her, desperate for the movement of her hips that would bring his release. “Stop. Not yet.”

She clutched helplessly at his shoulders. “I need—I need—”

God help him, he couldn’t deny her.

He relaxed his grip and she moved on him again. He gritted his teeth. Faster and harder she went, moans ripping from her throat as she claimed her pleasure.

And, oh, he lost himself then, to the sight of her, the sound of her, the feel of her. She surrounded him, until she was as much in him as he was in her.

No, this wasn’t being lost.

This was being found.

This was salvation.

He could not leave her.

Ever.

He was suddenly consumed with the mad thought that perhaps he could truly give her all that she had lost. Only this time, there would be no questions, no doubt. He would be by her side every moment. There would be no missing letters, no heartache.

She seemed to sense he no longer had control over his own faculties. She rose up one last time, despite his reckless attempts to keep her with him. With a broken, guttural cry, he spent in the folds of her shift, shuddering heavily against her.

The carriage rocked and swayed, the wheels squeaked, and the scent of their mingling lingered in the air. He arranged her limbs into a position he hoped was more comfortable and held her firmly against him. A bit of her icing-caked hair poked him in the eye.

It was rather like heaven.





Chapter Thirty-Four


“Where are we?” Adelaide asked drowsily. The curtains of the carriage were still drawn closed, and she had lost all sense of time and place as she lay in Nick’s arms. How many minutes had passed? Or was it now hours?

Nick parted the curtains just enough to peer out. “Mayfair. We will be at your residence shortly, unless…” He hesitated. “There is always Gretna Green. We could—”

“There is no unless, Nick,” Adelaide said firmly. She sat up and began the impossible task of setting herself to rights. “I will not run away again.”

When her shift was once more properly in place—rather than circling her waist like a child’s hoop—she reached for her dress. The icing had hardened, forming a crunchy shell over the bodice. She sighed. It was completely unwearable.

“Here, take my jacket,” he offered.

She allowed him to help her into it. Thanks to their absurd difference in height, it hung to her knees. “Well, at least it covers my important bits.”

“All your bits are important.” He fastened the buttons as he spoke. “Do you remember the day I came to take you for a drive? You were barefoot. It was…distracting.”

She blinked at him. Then she looked down at her feet, encased just now in a cunning pair of blue satin slippers, ruined by cake. She could understand if he’d been enticed by her shoes, for shoes were very enticing things. But feet? What was so remarkable about feet? She looked back at him. “You are a very odd man, Nick.”

“And you were not at all aware of what you had done to me,” he continued. “It was quite cruel, really. I remember you were friendly and kind, as though I were a child or a dog. I burned for you, but you paid no notice to me as a man.”

Well, no. She had worked very hard, indeed, not to notice him as a man. Because in the rare moments she allowed herself to fully look at him or, God forbid, touch him, she always became a lustful, wicked creature. Witness her current embarrassing state of undress. All the fault of noticing him.

“Do you really think I don’t realize you are a man, Nick? I don’t suppose I just did something unspeakable to a turnip.”