Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(82)

“It’s dangerous,” she muttered, meaning it all ways.

“If you conceive a child, we marry.”

“Are you hoping it will happen that way?” Diana asked.

“No,” he said. “But I would like one last memory. Unless you disagree?”

Diana shook her head. “I too would like that,” she whispered.

He undressed her as tenderly as any devoted lady’s maid and laid her on the bed. Being completely naked when a man in formal attire stood by was shiveringly erotic.

“Diana.” North’s voice made her toes curl. It was deep and dark and full of promises.

“Yes?” Diana rolled onto her stomach and dropped her head over the side of the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Pulling the pins from my hair,” she answered. “If I shake my head like this, I can get rid of most of the powder.”

She wriggled a few more times, making sure to tilt her arse into the air. Then she edged fully back onto the bed, rolled over, and raised her hands to give her hair a final shake. A bosom as generous as hers was at its best when her arms were over her head.

“Bloody hell,” North grated, staring down at her. “Every time I have the upper hand, you find a way to counter me, don’t you?”

She smiled and drew her fingers through her hair again, letting it fall around her on the pillow.

“You are a little devil,” North said hoarsely, coming down on one knee. “I need to tame you.”

Diana laughed aloud at that one.

Then he explained how sweet and cold the pudding was, and how it reminded him of her breasts, and she fell silent, caught in an erotic haze. She enjoyed every moment as North painted her breasts with delicious blancmange and then licked it off, pretending to ignore her gasps and wriggles.

“Oh, look at these nipples,” he crooned. “So red, so abused. We’d better cool them down again.” So he did. Diana could scarcely remember her own name by then. She kept trying to pull him down to the bed, but he evaded her.

She pleaded and begged, but he merely held up the bowl and looked her over. “I wonder where else you might enjoy a cooling sensation?”

Diana promptly allowed her legs to fall apart.

“Are you asking for something, Miss Belgrave?”

“Hell’s bells, North,” she cried, losing all control, “give me that bowl, won’t you?”

“All you had to do was ask.”

She kept her eyes on his face, slid her finger through the pudding, and applied it to the hottest part of her body. It felt so good that she let out an involuntary moan.

North responded with a good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon oath. He put a knee on the bed, but she held up her hand.

“Remove your clothing, if you please.”

She swirled her finger while she watched the most beautiful man at the ball disrobe. She pressed down as his breeches flew to the ground. A thin line of hair bisected his muscled stomach, leading to his tool.

Cock, he called it.

He pulled her legs apart, and replaced her finger with his tongue.

And later, his tongue with something else.

“I love pudding,” she murmured in the middle of the night, when the castle had quieted and the musicians were gone.

“I love you,” he said, so softly she almost didn’t hear the words.





Chapter Twenty-one




North woke the next morning curled around a sleeping Diana. He got out of bed, taking care not to wake her, and hauled on his breeches, thinking about all the vows he’d made to himself that he had broken. Making love again hadn’t changed anything as far as those vows were concerned.

Diana hadn’t enjoyed herself during the ball, for all she danced with every man available. Even from afar, he could tell. Lady Gray wouldn’t pay for her niece to have her own establishment; why would she?

But he would. In fact, it was the only thing he would accept. Diana needed a house of her own. He could send that young footman, Peter, along with her, because he trusted Peter and she would need help. Perhaps Frederick too. Not Mabel.

Maybe—

No.

He would give her a house and an annual allowance, and then he would leave for Rome, and not visit her until he was married. Perhaps after he had children.

Diana’s eyes opened then and she smiled at him. He couldn’t bring himself to smile in reply because, damn it, there were limits to a man’s endurance. A rumpled Diana, with swollen lips, skin reddened by his stubble, and sleepy pleasure in her eyes?

“We must discuss your future,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

She blinked, and pulled herself upright, tugging at the sheet to cover herself with. It didn’t quite reach her breasts, so he pulled it free.

“I don’t believe you’ll enjoy living with Lady Gray,” he said, pushing away the idea that he might have seen her breasts for the last time.

“Artie will be awake, if she isn’t already,” Diana said, avoiding the topic. “She sometimes wakes at dawn.”

“She is no longer your responsibility,” North stated. “Your reputation is restored, and ergo, so is mine. Being seen caring for Artie, when there are so many guests in the castle, would be to undo those repairs.”

Diana nodded.