leg over Nick’s hips and wrapping an arm around his waist.
She was profoundly grateful not to have to ask that he hold her. He seemed to know, and to know how to go about it, enfolding her snugly against him, but not so tightly she felt smothered.
Gradually, as the tumult in her body eased, Leah became aware of Nick’s erection. It lay along her stomach now, thick, hard, and hot, a discordant note of rigidity in a soft tangle of bodies. Tentatively, Leah reached between them and brushed her fingers across the plush head of his member.
Dear God, Aaron had not at his most passionate been possessed of such dimensions. She fitted her hand over him, testing his width and length in slow, careful movements. As intimately as they were embracing, Leah felt the stillness in Nick’s body, heard his sharp inhalation. She tucked her face against his chest and waited for him to dissuade her.
But he remained still, waiting, and so Leah followed her own urge to explore him.
She traced her fingers over his balls then teased through the hair at the base of his shaft. When she circled his shaft with her fingers then stroked the length of him, he hissed and pushed into her hand. She repeated the stroke, and he pushed more strongly.
“Show me,” she whispered. “Nicholas, I don’t know how… Show me.”
He wrapped his hand around hers and tactilely explained the rhythm, the grip, and the stroke, then left it to her as he held her tightly, tucking her leg up over his hip.
“Tighter,” he whispered, moving more quickly. “You won’t hurt me, I promise. Beelzebub’s cock stand, yes, that’s it…” A few more moments of that, and he gently disentangled her hand from him, so he was thrusting against her belly. Gripping her buttock, he held her to him, and in the seamless seal of their bodies, Leah felt a spreading warmth as Nick pulsed against her.
“Oh, lovey…” He tucked her head against his chest and kept her there, where she could feel his breath soughing in and out and hear his heartbeat as it gradually slowed beneath her ear.
“I hadn’t meant to do that,” Nick said, stroking a hand over her hair. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, his words striking hard against an ache that had been building in the pit of her stomach. He hadn’t meant to do that? Hadn’t meant to
As arousal ebbed and fatigue reasserted itself, Leah’s previous sense of loneliness stirred back to life too. Except it wasn’t as simple as loneliness. Her throat constricted around a sharp ache, and what she felt in that moment was desolation.
Hopelessness.
It made no sense. She was wrapped in Nick’s arms, he’d just shown her more spectacular physical pleasure than she’d known existed, and he was promising her more of that as part of her due as his wife. He had even let himself find pleasure as well.
As the first tear squeezed its way past Leah’s closed eyes, she knew a despair so great that if Nick hadn’t been holding her, she might have physically flown apart. This closeness Nick was willing to settle for, it wasn’t going to be enough. For all Nick’s tenderness and consideration, it was without love, a subversion of the intended purpose of marriage, a parody of the union Leah had longed for.
He did this with many other women, and did more than this too.
Nick shifted carefully, bringing her over his body to sprawl on his chest. “Tell me again that you are all right, lamb.”
He’d felt the heat of tears, no doubt. Leah furtively wiped at her cheeks where she was curled against him.
“Here.” Nick reached out a long arm to the night table and retrieved a linen handkerchief. He dabbed gently at her cheeks, then while she shifted up, mopped at their bellies.
“We’re not quite spotless,” he said, “but the linens are safe. Now come here, let me hold you, and tell me what bothers you.”
“You mean well,” Leah allowed as she eased down against him on a tired sigh. “But you can’t repair my feelings, Nick. I do not believe I will be availing myself of this aspect of your marital offer.”
His hands, which had started stroking her back, went momentarily still, then resumed their steady, gentle caresses.
“You are not all right,” he concluded. “Talk to me, Leah.” He drew the covers up over her back and wrapped his arms more securely around her. “Please, talk to me.”
“I bore Aaron Frommer a son.”
Again, Nick’s hands went still on Leah’s back.
“I’m listening,” he said, angling his head to kiss her temple. Those two words were offered in what had to be the gentlest, kindest tone Leah had ever heard, and her resolution faltered.
“Aaron was a good man,” Leah said, “but he had not one tenth your skill with the ladies, Nick. He cared for me, though, and so I was pleased to find I carried his child. He would have been pleased as well.”
Nick apparently divined the argument she was about to make. “While I can’t be pleased to think my child might cost your life.”
“I bore my son easily, Nick. I labored but a few hours, and he was born with a perfect complement of fingers and toes.”
“Where is your child now, Leah?” Nick asked, his hands moving again, more slowly than ever.
“In heaven.” Leah took a shuddery breath. “He caught a fever when he was little past a year. I went into town to fetch the doctor, the midwife, the healer, anybody who might have been able to help. My Italian was far better than my brother’s, and by the time I returned a few hours later, my baby was gone. Darius gave me some time to grieve, but brought me back to England shortly thereafter. My mother was asking for me, and I did very much miss her.”
“I am so sorry.” Nick gathered her close, rolled, and blanketed her with his naked body. “I am so very, very sorry.”
He stayed there, over her, sheltering her and holding her until Leah was holding him in return and letting tears long repressed pour from her. She clung, and cried, and clung some more, until her grief was spent and her body too wrung out to cling anymore.
“I’ll be right back.” Nick kissed her nose and eased from her embrace. He brought her a glass of water, watching while she drained about a quarter of it, then helped himself as well. He set the glass aside and turned serious blue eyes on her.
“You will marry me?” he asked, expression pensive.
“I will. But there won’t be any of this pleasuring, Nicholas.”
“Move over.” He shifted and climbed under the covers with her. When she kept to her own space, Nick flopped to his side, curled his body around hers, and wrapped her in his arms.
“You did not enjoy what we did?” he asked, his cheek resting over her temple.
“My body was very favorably impressed,” Leah said, glad he could not see her face. “I’ve never known such sensations, Nicholas, and for that, I must thank you.”
“You’re thanking me, and now you’re willing to marry me, but you do not want to repeat the experience?”
“I do not.”
“Was it… me?”
“Nicholas?”
He shifted, his nose against her nape. “I’ve been told stallions are less vulgarly crafted than I am in my aroused state.”
“God above, Nicholas.” Leah glared at him over her shoulder. “You are the envy of every man, of this I can be sure, and you are the most magnificent dream of any honest woman. But in a sense, it is you that troubles me.”
