Page 77 of More or Less a Countess
A faint cry left her lips when she saw him hovering over her, and she struggled to sit up, but Nick shook his head, and wrapped a gentle hand around her shoulder to ease her back down onto the bed. “Let me touch you. I won’t…no matter what’s happened between us, Violet, I will never hurt you.”
The whispered lie burned on his lips, because hewouldhurt her—had already hurt her, as surely as she’d hurt him, and he’d do so again when he left her behind.
She didn’t answer, but when he leaned over her to lick and kiss her nipples, her fingers slid into his hair. He teased the tip of his tongue over that pretty peak again and again until he couldn’t hold back any longer, and opened his ravenous mouth over the straining bud to draw her deep inside. She gasped as he suckled first at one nipple and then the other, and her fingers tightened in his hair.
Not to push him away, but to pull him closer.
Nick caught his breath at this unexpected show of trust—a trust he didn’t deserve, but one he’d take, because he couldn’t make himself do anything else. He buried his face between her breasts for long moments, inhaling her warm scent before he began to kiss and nip his way down her stomach, his tongue tracing her skin as he eased lower and opened his mouth to taste the pale flesh of her belly, right above her curls.
He hadn’t come to her tonight to taste her, or to bring her to pleasure with his mouth, but even as a distant part of Nick’s brain acknowledged this wouldn’t get him the heir he needed, he didn’t stop. For all his promises to himself to remain detached, to take her quickly, to keep a distance between them, he couldn’t stop.
Jesus. He couldn’t stop.
He needed to have her like this—to feel her grow wet against his mouth, to make her come apart on his tongue.
She tensed when he moved between her legs, and grabbed his wrist to stop him from raising the silky fabric of her nightdress, but he made a soothing sound in his throat and pressed a tender kiss to her thigh, and after a moment her grip relaxed.
“So pretty right here,” he murmured, dragging a finger through her curls before probing delicately between her thighs to open her for his mouth. She cried out, pushing at his head and trying to squirm out from beneath him, panicked at the first stroke of his tongue, but Nick held her thighs open to him, his hands gentle, and burrowed between her folds until he found her sweet center.
She let out a small cry and jerked against him, her thighs going rigid in his hands as he teased his tongue over her damp pink flesh. His strokes were light but steady and insistent, his tongue circling that tender bud until the unfamiliar sensations overwhelmed her and she began to gasp and squirm against him.
He groaned, so hard for her he was thrusting against the bed as he darted his tongue over her again and again, maddened by her breathy gasps. “Taste so sweet…want you to come on my tongue.”
She clutched at his hair as her hips moved against his face in a silent demand, chasing his tongue, her cries growing more desperate as the pleasure continued to elude her, until Nick captured the tiny bud between his lips to suckle hard, letting his teeth graze her as he sank one long finger inside her.
A low sob broke from her lips and she writhed against him, and Nick stayed with her as she arched her back with pleasure, his lips and tongue gentling when he felt the tension leave her body.
When she went limp against the bed, he rested his head against her thigh to catch his breath, his eyes closing when she reached for him to sift her fingers through his hair.
Now. Take her now.
Her breathing was slow and even, her body boneless, and he was so hard for her, aching to sink into her damp heat. He could hold her in his arms and move inside her, listen to her sighs and moans as he coaxed her to another release. All it needed was for him to slide up her body, ease her legs apart, lodge his hips between them, and it would be over with a few careful thrusts.
But none of it would happen tonight.
Nick rolled onto his side, away from her, and threw an arm over his eyes.
He would take her innocence, and he’d get his heir, because he didn’t have any other choice, but not tonight—not when he could still feel the soft drag of her fingers in his hair, still taste the sweetness of her release on his lips.
Tonight, no matter how much he might wish to, he couldn’t fool himself into thinking she was his. It didn’t matter that she was his wife, that her innocence was his to take. It didn’t matter that she was obligated to bear him an heir, or that he was the earl and she was his countess, or that they were both responsible for the Dare legacy.
Even now, while she was still breathless from the pleasure he’d given her, she wasn’t his.
She would never be his, because the specter of Lord Derrick would always be between them, and Nick, who’d spent his entire life being second in his father’s eyes, couldn’t bear to be anything but first in hers.
He drew her nightdress down to cover her and rose from the bed, but before he could turn away he caught her eyes, so wide and hopeful in her flushed face, and he paused to cup her cheek in his hand.
“I wish I could be…I’m sorry I’m not a better man, Violet.”
She made a small, pained sound in her throat, and Nick thought he saw her reach out to grab his hand, but the fire had died to embers, and the darkness pressed upon his eyes, and before he could be sure, he made himself turn away.
Chapter Nineteen
When Nick touched her, it felt like a dream. When her body was arching under his hands, when he was wringing sighs from her lips, Violet could almost convince herself it was one.
But her mind knew better.
His warm breath in her ear, his soft murmuring, his fingers stroking her damp flesh—underneath the sweetness, the bliss—her mind recognized the truth.
