He flung her flat on her back on the coarse velvet seat, nothing save the dark outline of his head visible as he took one nipple into his mouth. She let out a squeak as the wet warmth of his mouth and tongue laved her. He placed a hand at the juncture of her thighs, only the sheer fabric of her dress barring the way. His hand rubbed there, rocking in harmony with the motion of the coach.

Sighing his name, she buried her fingers in his hair and arched against him, pushing more of her breast into his mouth.

He looked up, his eyes dark burning coals. “Say you want this.” His desperate request twisted through her belly.

She ran a hand through his hair, tenderly ruffling the locks like so many windblown feathers. She definitely wanted this. Wanted him. Perhaps this had been her motive all along. The real reason she had to see him. Heaven knew her thoughts had been filled with him ever since he burst into her life, her body longing for him since his first touch that night outside the nursery.

The desperate need of his gaze shook her. She saw her own beauty reflected there. The awkward vicar’s daughter did not exist. Nor did the abandoned bride.

“I want you.” Meredith hardly recognized the throatiness of her voice, only knew she wanted him to continue touching her, continue making her feel—for perhaps the first time in her life— that she was worthy. She nodded urgently. “I want you.”

He hesitated, a dark cloud falling over the brilliance of his eyes, and she knew instantly that he was remembering who she was and that she had played him false.

“You shouldn’t,” he announced, then clarified in a firmer voice, “I shouldn’t.”

Meredith blinked, frustrated. “But you do. We both do.”

His hands fell away from her, leaving her bereft and aching. An altogether different fire than that of moments ago began to burn in his eyes. Scorched beneath a gaze that no longer looked at her with appreciation and wonder, she felt like Eve wanting to shield herself in shame.

“Cover yourself.”

Those two little words struck her like a slap, and she suddenly felt as she had seven years ago: the naive girl in her freshly pressed nightgown, sitting in a great big bed as she waited for the wedding night of her dreams to arrive. Only it never did. Firelight had flickered off Edmund’s flaxen hair, lending it a reddish hue as he loomed over her, his words all the more unbearable for the airiness in which he uttered them. Darling girl, it would require more than a sour-faced vicar’s daughter to tempt me. I only married you to appease my father.

She shook off the bitter memories and reminded herself that Nick was not Edmund. Nick had kissed her, touched her. He wanted her. His hungry gaze swept over her face, taking in the riot of hair tangling about her neck and shoulders, settling at last on her br**sts. “I said cover yourself.”

His voice fell hard and fast, firing her into action.

Fumbling with her dress, she spoke with forced lightness, feigning indifference, wanting to hurt him as his rejection was hurting her. “I had thought you might be up to the task.” Her eyes raked his face and body in cold appreciation. Sighing and pretending his rejection was of little account and not a crushing blow, she added, “Since you have not the inclination, I suppose I shall have to wait until my wedding night.”

He snatched hold of her wrist, his grip punishing.

Meredith’s glare flicked from his face to where he clutched her wrist. In a quiet voice she commanded, “Let me go.”

She watched as varying emotions flitted across his face, battling for dominance. At last he gave a curt nod, appearing to reach a decision.

“You want it so badly?” he growled. “I’ll give it to you.”

Chapter 19

Nick crushed his lips to hers, kissing her so fiercely he knew her lips would be bruised for days to come. A dangerous combination of lust and fury spiraled through him. The lust he understood.

She drove him mad with desire—had done so from the start. But the fury he could not. The thought of her with another man had done it. Which he knew was illogical, given that she was only husband hunting at his insistence. He wanted her married, wanted her gone from his life.

Nick groaned, both with desire and frustration. He couldn’t make sense of it. All he knew was that for now, tonight, he would have her. She would be his. This damnable longing would never depart until he sated himself with her body. Only then could he let her go.

“No backing out now,” he warned between kisses, almost as much for him as her. His hands roamed her body. He grasped the edges of her bodice and yanked it back down.

His mouth devoured hers. She matched his kiss, sliding her tongue against his in a sinuous dance. She tasted like honey, and he kissed her long and hard, drinking from her nectar until he grew intoxicated. His anxious hands kneaded her br**sts until she moaned in his mouth.

Exultation ripped through him when she buried her hands in his hair and pulled his head to her br**sts.

Looking up at her, he flicked his tongue over one nipple and then the other. Her eyes darkened and fire flooded his veins as she squirmed enticingly beneath him.

Still, in the back of his mind was the knowledge that he was making love to the very woman who had tricked and deceived and vexed him to the point of madness. At what point had she become desirable and not just the proverbial fly in the ointment of his life?

As if she could read his thoughts, she frowned and shook her head determinedly. “No more thinking.”

Taking his face in both hands, she pulled him back up and kissed him soundly. The sweet feel of her palms on his cheeks stimulated him like the most expert courtesan’s touch, obliterating all else from his mind. Right. No more thinking, just feeling.

With a groan, he deepened their kiss, digging his fingers in the smooth roundness of her shoulders.

She eased the kiss, murmuring against his lips, “I want to be with you. When I’m an old married lady, I’ll have this to remember.”

Opening his eyes, he broke their kiss to stare down at her. He brushed the flyaway tendrils at her temples with his thumbs, again disturbed at the thought of her with another man. Then he answered her with another, longer kiss. Right now he did not want to think of her marrying anyone. Like her, he wanted to create a memory—with no phantom husband between them.

He kissed her thoroughly, determined to have no more words. The kiss grew hotter, feverish. He jerked her skirts to her hips. His hands made short work removing her undergarments. His palms skimmed the soft satin of her thighs until his fingers found the center of her and tested her readiness for him. Finding her moist to the touch, he buried one finger into her wet warmth. She lurched against him with a cry, her delicate muscles clenching around him in sweet welcome.

His ragged breathing filled the coach, accompanied by the sweet little noises she made in the back of her throat. He worked a second finger inside her, preparing her for him and groaning when her untried muscles flexed around his fingers. He found her tiny nub and circled it with his thumb as he thrust his fingers in and out, in and out, imagining it was his hard length buried in that tight heat.

His thumb worked harder at that little pearl until she cried out. Shudders overtook her entire body as her h*ps thrust against his hand.

Aching with need, he could wait no longer. His hands trembled in anticipation as he slid his fingers from her slick channel. Freeing himself from his trousers, he guided himself to the apex at her thighs. His eyes met hers as he hovered at her entrance. A feeling like no other seized him as he slid inside her and impaled her beneath him with one smooth thrust. A feeling of Tightness, completion, perfection. That everything in his life had led to this moment with this woman. He groaned even as she stiffened beneath the invasion. She jammed her eyes shut against the pain, her breath escaping in a hiss, and he quickly set to work refueling her fire.

Bending his head, he fanned his warm breath against her ear, licking and nipping at the lobe with his teeth until he heard her breath quicken and felt her muscles mold around his manhood like the perfect fit of a glove.

He pulled back and drove into her again. She moaned, her fingers digging into his arms.

Gratification filled him and he moved again, faster, pounding her to the seat cushion, inflamed by her rapturous cries and the dig of her fingers on his biceps. She met him thrust for thrust, lurching off the seat and burying her face in his neck as he pumped. Her hard little teeth bit him through his shirt, just above his nipple, inflaming him to move faster, harder. She shrieked with her own release and collapsed back on the seat, a fine sheen of perspiration making her br**sts glow in the dim confines of the coach. She moaned low in her throat as he covered her plump mounds with his hands, clutching them in possession as he continued to drive into her, her tight sheath milking him, the tightest, hottest thing he had ever felt. He threw back his head, a primal cry escaping him as he gave one last shuddering thrust.

Nick dropped his head in the crook of her neck, inhaling her woman scent. His manhood still lay buried inside her, and for the life of him he did not want to withdraw.

“That was…” She paused, as if searching for the word. She finally arrived at it. “Nice.”

” Nice?” he muttered against her throat. “If that was nice, spectacular would kill me.”

“There is no adequate word.” Her fingers ran through his hair in luxurious strokes that made his scalp tingle.

With no small amount of alarm, he realized he was in no hurry to leave her arms. His body felt heavy, content, sated… the old familiar hollowness nowhere to be found.

He felt full, replete.

And it terrified him almost as much as it thrilled him.

They remained just so, silent and locked together in a sticky union of flesh both were loath to break.

He felt her heavy sigh beneath him. “We have to dress.”

He withdrew, not looking at her as he straightened his garments. From the rustling beside him, he knew she did the same. Their timing could not have been better for he felt the carriage rolling to a stop. Parting the curtain, he saw that they were parked across the street from Lady Derring’s mansion. Looking back at Meredith, his breath stuck in his throat. She looked lovely—skin flushed, eyes glowing. Like a woman well loved. Her gaze avoided his as she collected her reticule off the seat.

He could think of nothing to say. He had sense enough to refrain from blurting out Stay. Even though the thought ricocheted inside his head. She had to return to her world. Where she belonged. Just as he belonged in his.

With one hand on the door latch, she looked back over her shoulder at him. “Good night.”

Before he could reconsider, Nick grabbed her arm to stop her from getting out of the hack and hauled her against him, kissing her with all the thoroughness and skill he possessed. He splayed a hand behind her head, anchoring her for his ravaging mouth as he buried his fingers into the mass of her unbound hair, luxuriating in the silken tresses against his roughened palm. Those familiar mewling sounds rose from her throat, firing his blood. Hard and aching again, his hand dove beneath her skirts, his fingers searching out her heat again.

The driver called out something, his uncultured accents loud and abrasive on the air. Like a frightened bird, Meredith tore her mouth from his, her words spilling forth in a rush, “He’ll wake the neighborhood. You have to let me go.”

His first impulse was to reply that he didn’t have to do anything. That the driver could bloody well wake the entire city for all he cared.

Then common sense returned and he nodded. Sliding his hand from beneath her skirts, he pulled back.

With one last unreadable look, Meredith was gone, out the door like a wisp of smoke, leaving him to dwell over all the things he would like to do to her given the proper amount of time.

And a proper bed.

He had the presence of mind to bark out his destination to the driver as he settled back against the seat, determining that he would heed her words and indeed let her go. This time for good.

* * *

Nick wrenched his shoulders and arms free of his jacket and flung it on his bed before he realized the large four-poster was occupied. Bess lounged on the damask coverlet, stretched out like an elegant cat, her cheek resting in her palm with an idleness that belied the steady intent of her gaze. Straightening, he crossed his arms over his chest.  “So, Nick.” She spoke his name slowly, toying with the beaded threads fringing her low bodice, an expert ploy to attract his attention to her generous br**sts, and one that he had seen her use countless times—on him and others. “That’s her?”