A Kiss to Remember (25 page)

He went utterly still, not even breathing. Then he shook his head, her own helplessness reflected in his eyes. “No one has ever accused me of not giving a lady what she wanted.”

This time when his mouth came down on hers, it was with his full weight behind it. They went tumbling into the bed together, their mouths meshed into a fiery web of delight. As Sterling kicked away the quilt that separated their straining bodies, Laura clung to him, giving free rein to her own hunger. He might not be her Nicholas, but he was no stranger, either. He was her husband. And he had every right to come to her bed, just as she had every right to receive him there, even if it meant wandering in a dark and perilous wood where pleasure could be even more of a danger to her soul than pain.

Laura would have sworn she’d exhausted the last of his patience, that he owed her nothing more than a rough, hasty coupling, but not even his feverish urgency could make him careless with her. The whole time he was tugging up the hem of her nightdress, he was bathing her sensitive throat in hot, damp kisses. Before she could catch her breath, she was naked in his arms. She couldn’t say what had become of her nightdress any more than she could say what had become of his shirt. She only knew that she was finally free to press her open mouth to his chest, to run her tongue over the crisp hairs dusting those supple muscles. His golden skin tasted every bit as delectable as it looked, if not more so.

The candle sputtered, then went out, plunging them
into a cocoon of darkness where the only sensation was the rough velvet of his hands against her skin. As he seized her lips again, a wild, sweet madness compelled her to arch against him, to fill those hands with the aching fullness of her breasts.

Still pleasuring her mouth with deep, drugging kisses, he brushed his thumbs back and forth across her nipples until they began to tingle and swell. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear another second of that delicious torment, he shifted his kiss from her lips to her right breast, first caressing the rigid bud with the very tip of his tongue, then drawing it into the wet heat of his mouth and sucking hard. Laura clamped her trembling thighs together, stunned by the ripples of sensation between them. It was almost as if he were touching her there.

And then he was.

She gasped as one of his long, tapered fingers went sliding through her damp curls. It didn’t take his knee to nudge her thighs apart. All it took was a deft stroke of his fingertip against the throbbing pearl nestled in the crux of those curls. As her thighs went limp, he rolled to the side and trapped one of them beneath his own so that she couldn’t have closed herself to him even if she wanted to.

Which she most definitely did not.

He kept her leg pinned beneath his while his hand had its wicked way with her, petting and kneading and stroking until she was panting with blind need.

Sterling had spent most of his life taking pleasure, not giving it. Although he’d certainly earned his reputation as an accomplished lover, he had always measured each kiss and practiced caress against what he would
receive in return for his efforts. But with Laura, it was enough to lie beside her in the shadows and watch the flickers of rapture dance over her delicate features, to lavish the creamy skin of her breasts with kisses and absorb each of her sighs as they left her luscious lips.

“Please,” she said in a broken whisper, not even sure what she was begging him to give her. “Oh, please …”

But Sterling knew. And he was only too willing to oblige.

He reached down to free himself from the agonizing constraints of his trousers. He’d never before had cause to regret his size, but as he slipped between Laura’s slender thighs, he knew a moment of genuine trepidation.

Bracing his weight on his elbows, he cupped her face in his hands. “This is going to hurt,” he said hoarsely, “but I swear I’m not doing it to punish you. If you don’t believe that, then I’ll stop right now.”

She pondered his words for a minute. “Will it hurt you worse than it hurts me?”

Her words surprised a helpless chuckle from him. “I’m afraid not. But I promise to do whatever I can to make it better for you.”

She slowly nodded, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips.

Laura took him at his word, but it was still a shock when he began to lave himself in the copious nectar his skillful touch had coaxed from her body. He was hot and smooth and utterly unyielding, the perfect complement to her melting softness. He slid up and down between those dew-slicked petals, creating an exquisite friction that soon had her writhing and whimpering beneath him, poised on the very brink of madness.

All it took was a nudge to shove her over the edge.

She clung to him as she tumbled head over heels, borne on a quivering tide of rapture. Its waves were still cresting in her womb when he rocked his hips upward once again, this time sliding deep inside of her.

Laura dug her nails into the smooth flesh of his back, biting back a cry.

“We’re only halfway home, sweetheart. Take me,” he urged, kissing the tears from her cheek. “Take me all the way.”

Despite the pain, Laura could not resist such a tender plea. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she buried her face against his throat and arched against him. He pressed forward until every throbbing inch of him was nestled deep within her.

Sterling’s memory failed him again. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall the face of a single woman he’d ever made love to. There was only Laura—beneath him, around him, bathing him in her tender young body’s shuddering grace.

He began to slide in and out of her in slow, deep, sinuous strokes, as if he had all night to devote to that single sacred act. He took her until he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t a part of her, until uncontrollable shivers of delight wracked her inside and out, until she dug her heels into his back and moaned, “Oh, Nicky …” in his ear.

Sterling stopped in midstroke. Laura’s eyes flew open.

He gazed down at her, his powerful body trembling with the strain of being held in check. “I really wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

She glared up at him, her breath coming in disgruntled little pants. “What would you prefer I call you? Your Grace?”

For an instant, Sterling feared he might actually smile. “Under these circumstances, I believe ‘my lord’ will suffice.”

He brought his lips down hard on hers, silencing any retort she might have made. His hips resumed their motion, setting a fierce rhythm designed to make them both forget their names.

Too late, Laura realized that she had been wrong. She was going to scream after all. If Sterling hadn’t captured her cry in his mouth, it probably would have awakened everyone in the household, if not the whole parish. A guttural groan tore from his own throat as his entire body went as rigid as the part of him still buried deep inside of her.

Still trembling with convulsive aftershocks, Laura clung to him, her breath coming in broken sobs. “Oh … oh, my …” Before she could stop them, the words echoing through her heart came spilling from her lips. “I’m so very sorry! I was wrong to trick you. I should have told you the truth from the beginning. But I didn’t just want you. I loved—”

He pressed two fingers to her lips, shaking his head. “No more lies, Laura. Not here. Not tonight.”

She wanted to protest, but something in his face stopped her. Instead, she tangled her hands in his hair and urged his lips back down to hers, telling herself that there would be ample time to convince him of the truth.

A lifetime.

A sharp knock sounded on Laura’s bedchamber door the next morning, jolting her from an exhausted slumber. She poked her head out from underneath the quilt,
struggling to remember how she’d ended up with her head hanging off the foot of the bed and her feet on the pillows.

When she did, she had to bury her head back under the quilt to smother a naughty giggle. If not for the tenderness lingering between her thighs and the musky aroma clinging to the sheets, she might have thought the entire night was some wild, erotic dream spun from the overwrought imagination of a lonely rector’s daughter.

The knock came again, brisk with impatience. Laura’s heart quickened with a mixture of anticipation and shyness. It must be Sterling, returning with a tray laden with all of Cookie’s most succulent breakfast offerings. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she had deprived it of both lunch and supper the previous day.

She scrambled to the head of the bed and artfully arranged the sheet over her breasts before singing out, “Come in!”

It wasn’t Sterling who came sweeping through the door but his cousin. Lady Diana Harlow stopped at the foot of the bed and stood peering down her patrician nose at Laura as if she were a particularly nasty bedbug that required a sound squashing. “Forgive me for disturbing you, but His Grace requests your presence in the study.”

“Oh, he does, does he?” Laura replied warily, jerking the sheet up to her chin. She was only too aware of the contrast between her own dishabille and the woman’s impeccable elegance. Even Diana’s dark hair, with its tightly wound chignon and forbidding widow’s peak, looked starched.

Diana marched to the window and threw open the drapes. Sunlight came spilling into the room, forcing Laura to shield her bleary eyes with her hand. “Perhaps here in the country you’re accustomed to languishing about in bed for half the day, but in London, we prefer to—”

Diana stopped abruptly, her eyes narrowing. Laura could almost see herself through them—lips still rosy from Sterling’s kisses, disheveled hair tumbling down her bare back, a whisker burn marking the tender skin of her throat. She had no doubt that she looked exactly like what she was—a woman who had spent the night being thoroughly loved by a man who was a master at it.

Still clutching the sheet, Laura drew herself up, meeting Diana’s gaze without flinching. She had many sins to account for, but last night wasn’t one of them. “You needn’t look so scandalized, my lady. It
was
our wedding night.”

Diana’s laugh dripped frost. “I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but you’re not entitled to a wedding night. You tricked my cousin into signing the parish register under a false name. He has absolutely no obligation to you and no intention of honoring this pathetic sham of a marriage.”

“You’re lying,” Laura said, although a chill began to creep through her heart.

“Unlike you,
Miss
Fairleigh, I don’t make a habit of it. I know my cousin can be very charming and persuasive, but you have only yourself to blame if you were fool enough to let him back into your bed after …”

Before Laura could correct her unfair assumption that she and Sterling had been lovers all along, Diana
trailed off, gazing down at the bed. The quilt had slid halfway onto the floor, baring both the sheets and the rusty stains that marred them.

Diana’s disbelieving stare slowly drifted back to Laura’s face. Her icy contempt had failed to make Laura blush, but her pity brought a scalding wave of heat to Laura’s cheeks.

“God help you both,” Diana said softly, shaking her head. “I don’t know which one of you is the bigger fool.”

If she hadn’t spun on her heel and fled the room, Laura could have told her.

Laura descended the steps as if she were marching to the gallows.

She’d donned a dove gray morning dress devoid of ribbons or bows and scrubbed every last trace of Sterling’s scent from her skin. Her hair was swept up in a tidy knot that rivaled Lady Diana’s. Not a single mutinous tendril had been allowed to escape. She’d even removed the delicate garnet from her finger. No one had to know that she had slipped it onto a silver chain and tucked it deep inside her bodice.

She was surprised to find the foyer deserted. She had halfway expected that Sterling would have gathered her family to witness her disgrace. But she was fiercely thankful that he hadn’t. She didn’t want George and Lottie to realize that their beloved sister had been had.

In more ways than one.

Sterling no doubt considered it a fitting revenge. She had given him a mock wedding and he had given her a mock wedding night. Now he was free to turn her over
to the appropriate authorities, knowing full well the memory of that night would haunt her for as long as she lived. Of course, if he decided to let them hang her, that might not be very long. Her steps faltered briefly, stymied by a wave of self-loathing. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to hear her tender declaration of love.

She used her clenched fist to knock firmly on the study door.

“Come in.” Even now, when she was fully aware of the treachery it was capable of, that deep, rich voice still sent a ripple of reaction through her. It was too easy to remember the wicked words it had whispered in her ears only a few hours ago, the throaty groans, the breathless exclamations.

Steeling herself against its power, Laura pushed open the door. There wasn’t a kitten anywhere in sight, no doubt because the devil dogs were stretched out in front of the hearth, their massive heads cradled on their equally massive paws. As Laura slipped into the room, one of them lifted his head and bared his teeth at her, growling deep in his throat. He looked as if he could be easily placated if she tossed him a side of bacon. Or one of her arms.

The duke’s devoted cousin and his gentleman friend perched in a shabby pair of wing chairs in front of the window, looking no less unwelcoming than the dogs. Laura wouldn’t have been surprised had Diana bared her teeth and growled as well, but oddly enough, the woman seemed to be avoiding her eyes.

The duke of Devonbrooke himself sat behind the walnut desk, scribbling on a piece of stationery. His cousin must have brought him some of his own clothes from London for he wore a claret-colored coat cut from
the finest kerseymere. The frills of his starched white shirt emerged from the deep V of a gray satin waistcoat shot through with silver threads. On the ring finger of his right hand he wore an ostentatious signet ring studded with a blood red ruby. His golden hair, rakishly tousled as was the fashion, looked perfectly capable of absorbing all the sunlight in the room, leaving none for the rest of them. Although she wouldn’t have thought it possible, Laura’s heart sank even further. This aristocratic stranger bore no resemblance to the wild-eyed, passionate man who had come to her room and her bed last night.