Chapter Twenty-Seven
The moment Father stepped down from the carriage, every nerve in Bea’s body coiled tight.Mama followed, murmuring something about the lateness of the hour, but Bea barely heard her.All she knew, all shefelt, was Nicholas at her side.
“We’ll just let you two say goodnight,” her father said blandly, already crossing the walk.It was shocking, really.An impropriety.It just proved how much her father trusted Nicholas to allow them a moment alone together.
But the instant the duke and duchess disappeared up the steps, the night took on a different weight.Quiet.Breathless.Charged.
Nicholas quickly pulled the door closed and turned to Bea.
She opened her mouth—she thought to thank him, or perhaps to apologize, or to demand why he had to look at her like that at the dinner table—but Nicholas moved closer.
And the world tilted.
He kissed her first.
Not politely.Not cautiously.Not like a man feeling out the edges of propriety.
He kissed her like a man who’d been holding himself back all night and had finally decided he’d had quite enough of it.
Heat flashed through her so fast her breath tangled in her throat.His hands framed her face, and her fingers clutched his lapels on instinct, pulling him closer, anchoring herself to the only steady thing in a world that suddenly felt as though it were pitching beneath her.
A sound escaped her, helpless, hungry, horribly honest.
And God help her, she kissed him back with everything she had been trying not to feel.
The taste of him—warm, intoxicating—hit her harder than the wine she’d drunk at dinner.Her pulse stuttered wildly, her balance wavering despite the seat beneath her, as though will alone kept her composed.Nicholas made a low, rough sound in response, a vibration she felt everywhere, and his hands slid from her cheeks down to her waist, pulling her sharp against him with a decisiveness that unraveled her.
She leaned into him without thinking, pressing so close she could feel the rise and fall of his chest, the heat of him searing through every fine layer of her gown.His scent—clean soap, warm skin, the faintest trace of brandy—wrapped around her like a spell.
He angled the kiss deeper, and her world tilted further.
Her hands went from his lapels to his shoulders, then higher, threading into the hair at his nape, knocking off his hat, fingertips sinking into soft, dark waves.He shuddered at her touch.Actually shuddered.The realization sent a bolt of power through her she hadn’t been prepared for.
“Bea,” he whispered against her mouth, half groan, half prayer.
Her name had never sounded like that before.
She felt the seat beneath her a second before she realized he’d pushed her backward, guiding her until she was pressed against the squabs and he was pressing her gently—but unmistakably—into the cushions.
Heat roared through her.Her body arched into his without deliberate will.The kiss deepened again, dizzying, desperate.
When she gasped for breath, he pulled back slightly, his forehead brushing hers, his lips grazing her cheek, her jaw, the vulnerable space beneath her ear.Her eyes fluttered shut, knees weakening.His mouth found a spot on her neck that made her clutch at him, a soft gasp tearing free before she could swallow it down.
“This is your fault,” she whispered, breathless, mortified by how undone she felt and how badly she wanted more.“You were absolutely irresistible tonight.”
He laughed, voice shaking.“I accept full responsibility.”
She tugged him back to her mouth with entirely too much confidence for someone trembling as violently as she was.
The kiss turned fervent again.Hotter.Hungrier.His hands splayed across her hips and guided her closer, so close she could feel the unmistakable evidence of how deeply this affected him.
A shock ran through her, lightning-quick and devastating.Her breath shuddered out of her.Her fingers tightened in his hair.Everything inside her spiraled.
And then—then—he shifted, pulling her up in one fluid movement until she found herself, skirts pushed up above her knees, straddling his waist.
The carriage swayed.
So did she.
