Page 469 of Wicked Highland Heroes

This assignation wasn’t like the one with Beaumond. There was no one to flaunt her indiscretions to here as there had been yesterday afternoon. There was only one reason she would meet a man in secret: she loved him. Nicholas had racked his brain in an effort to guess the identity of her lover. No one at the party made any sense. Then he’d realized the man didn’t have to be a guest. It would be a simple thing for a man to meet her on the grounds.

Was another man the reason she was trying to get out of the marriage? Could there someone else? Every fiber of his being screamed no! He remembered the hunger in her eyes when he first returned...the hunger in her touch only yesterday. No woman could respond to a man that way and want another man—not her...not with him. Yet, she’d said a woman’s kiss could lie.

She didn’t move and he almost thought she had fallen asleep standing. Nick wanted to jump to his feet and shake from her the name of the man who made love to her tonight. But he forced himself to sit like a statue. He wanted the man’s name—and he would have it—but he also wanted to see the surprise and fear in her eyes when she saw him. He wanted to read the truth in her expression. Then he would kill the man.

Another moment passed, then Nicholas heard a small sound from her. At first he thought she’d seen him, then realized her eyes were still closed. How long was she going to stand there? Was he mistaken? Had she seen him? Was this her childish way of trying to avoid him? His heart hardened. He wouldn’t be swayed by childish ploys—and he wouldn’t give her up. He had burned for her this last month...these last six years. Now he would make her burn for him.

Josephine abruptly pushed away from the door. She took two steps, then their eyes met. She stopped so abruptly her cloak swished around her ankles. Nicholas saw the glisten of tears in her eyes. His heart hardened harder. He would not be moved by tears any more than he would childish tantrums. Aguish flooded her gaze, then she threw her face into her hands and gave a sob that wrenched his gut and shattered the ice around his heart in one ear-splitting blow.

In an instant, he was on his feet and at her side. “Love, ‘tis all right.” He grasped her shoulders. She stiffened, but he drew her gently to him and wrapped his arms around her. “Shhh,” he soothed. “Never mind. I care nothing for where you have been tonight. You’re here, safe with me now.”

Another wretched sob from her twisted him soul-deep. He closed his eyes and held her close. He couldn’t let her go, no matter what she’d done. Never.

Nicholas felt the tug on his shirt and realized she had fisted the fabric. Her tears weren’t abating and he feared she would work herself into a serious state of nerves

“I promise, love, whatever it is—” whoever it is “—I forgive you.”

She began to shake her head. Nicholas grasped her face between her palms and forced her to look up at him. She tried to turn away, but he held her firm. “Look at me.”She shook her head. “Josephine.”

Her eyes lifted to his face.

“I will not let you go. I do not care—” the words lodged in his throat, but he forced them out “—I don’t care who he is. I can make you forget him.”

Her dark eyes widened, and Nick found himself lowering his mouth onto hers. Her mouth parted in surprise as his lips touched hers and desire exploded in him. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth, kissed her deep. God, he wanted to toss her onto the bed and drive into her to prove once and for all that she belonged to him. But a quick rutting between her legs was probably all her lover had risked. Nicholas intended to give her more, so much more. He swept her mouth with his tongue, teasing, thrusting gently to show her what he intended to do to her with his body. She drew a sharp breath, sucking him deeper. Blood roared in his head.

Nicholas yanked the tie on her cloak and pushed it from her shoulders. She went up on tiptoes and slid her arms around his back. He crushed her so close it seemed their two hearts beat as one. A soft mewl from her sent his head spinning. With a growl, Nicholas slid his mouth along her cheek then down her throat. Her throat shifted beneath his lips when she swallowed and he flicked his tongue against the rise of her smooth flesh. He felt her shiver, and cursed. He needed her skin to be against his. Nick drew her backward until they tumbled onto the mattress, her on top of him. When her feather-light body crashed down on his erection in exquisite discomfort, pleasure ripped through him.

Insane. She was going to drive him insane with need.

He slid his hands down her back and over the curve of her buttocks. She jerked in obvious surprise causing pleasure and pain to collide in his cock. Her hair tumbled across his jaw. The firm flesh of her buttocks molded to his hands perfectly and he undulated her mound against his rigid length. She drew a sharp breath and Nicholas knew he couldn’t turn back.

Palms flat on her back, he slid his hands back up her waist to her shoulders—bare shoulders, he realized, and she wore no corset.

Easier for a dalliance, a voice whispered.

Could he slide inside her knowing another man had already filled her with his seed? More important, could he walk away?

No.

Nicholas rolled over, pinning her beneath him on the mattress. Carefully, ruthlessly, he shoved aside the whispers inside his head and tugged the tiny sleeves down her arms until her breasts were bared to him. The pink tips puckered under his scrutiny.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

He bent and closed his mouth over one perfect bud. She cried out and her grip on his shoulders turned fierce when he sucked the hard tip into his mouth. The feel of the marbled nipple against his tongue was an aphrodisiac unlike any he’d experienced with another woman. He flicked the tip with his tongue. She drew in a sharp breath. He broke away and slid his mouth along her velvet smooth skin down the curve of the breast to the valley and up the side of the other breast until he found the nipple. She exhaled on a shaky breath and Nicholas was in heaven.

He clamped his teeth around the tip, laving and sucking until she whimpered. Slowly, he flattened a palm on her belly and tugged her dress up to her waist, then inched his hand downward along her flesh to the moist heat between her legs. When his finger dipped into her curls, the room darkened around him and need pressed hard against his very soul. Whatever it took, whatever the price, he would make her his, now and forever.

As he stoked her, Nick showered wet kisses along her skin up to her mouth again. Jo opened for him and greedily sucked his tongue into her mouth. Nick thought he would go out of his mind with need. But he wanted to go slowly, show her she wasn’t a woman to be taken in the woods then sent on her way through the cold night to sleep alone in her bed. She was to be cherished, worshipped...protected.

Nick stroked with his finger, while thrusting his tongue into her mouth, until Josephine gripped his arms in a fierce hold and clamped her legs around his hand in a spasm of pleasure. He swallowed her cry as she shivered. His heart thundered, body tense with a need beyond even that he had expected. Still, he gently petted and soothed, adding kisses, and whispered that she was beautiful. When her breathing at last slowed, he pulled back. She gave a cry of protest.

“Easy, love.”

He rose to his knees and stared down at her. Desire glazed her eyes and a sheen of sweat glistened on her skin. She was beautiful.

“Nick,” she murmured.

“Aye, love. I know.”