Page 107 of A Duke Changes Everything
She was half sitting, half leaning on her folded arms, her chin tipped down as she napped. Then, as if sensing his gaze, her eyes fluttered open, and she offered him a beaming smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” He was ready to take on the devil himself if he could get her to smile at him that way again.
“Then I shall be off,” the doctor said as he turned to collect a leather bag from a table near the settee. “I’ve left instructions with the staff for treating your wounds.”
Nick touched the edge of the bandage on his face. “What’s under here, Doctor?”
The old man held two fingers up, one an inch or so from the other. “A burn, about that length. A cinder must have struck you and remained on your skin long enough to leave its mark.” The man’s eyes assessed Nick’s face, tracing the line of his father’s blade. “There will be a scar, but it will fade in time.”
“Thank you, Dr. Burke.” Mina stood and escorted the gentleman to the sitting room threshold. When he was gone, she came back and settled her backside on the edge of the settee near Nick’s thigh.
He wrapped a hand around her waist, savoring her nearness. Sliding a hand up her arm, he pulled her closer, leaning in to take her mouth. He wasn’t gentle. He couldn’t do this with any kind of gentlemanly restraint. Her hair hung down her back, unbound but for a few strands pulled into pins. He sought those pins and worked them free. Dragging his fingers through her hair, he flicked his tongue against her lips, and she opened to him on a delicious moan.
He was hard and ready to have her climb into his lap, let him sink inside her heat.
But someone cleared their throat on the sitting room threshold, and Mina sprang away from him.
“Will you be wishing for a supper tray, Your Grace?” Emma called in her soft voice.
“No,” Nick answered immediately. The only thing he wanted to taste was Mina.
“Yes,” she protested. “You should eat something.”
He arched a brow, failed to hide his smile, and she seemed to take his meaning. Her cheeks bloomed with heat.
“Some soup, perhaps? Thank you, Emma.”
The young woman backed out of the room and had the good sense to pull the door shut behind her. But when Nick leaned in to kiss Mina again, she held him back.
“Wilder tells me you planned to depart for London today.” She wrapped her fingers around a button on his shirt, not meeting his gaze. “Will you mind staying at Enderley a bit longer? A few weeks?”
“With you?” Nick’s throat rasped, but it wasn’t the smoke he’d inhaled. It was fear.
“Yes,” she said simply. Too simply.
“Yes?”
“That’s the answer I should have given you three days ago.” She scooted closer, cupping his scarred cheek against her palm. “I’m sorry I made you wait. I’m sorry I made you go in that tower. I’m sorry for ever making you think I cared more about Enderley than you.”
“We can stay here if you want.” Nick grabbed her hand and kissed her fingers. “My hatred of this house was irrational. My father is dead, and you’re right. This estate is the people who live here, the ones who love it.”
“But, you see, I’m prepared to go to London.” She let out a low seductive chuckle when he pulled her fingertip into his mouth. “If you’re in the city, that’s where I want to be. If you’re here, that’s where I’ll stay.” Her eyebrows dipped, her chin hardened, and her voice went mock stern. “I insist we never live apart.”
“Already making demands, Duchess?” Nick leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers. “I agree. Anything you want, tell me.”
“Just you.” Mina kissed his scarred cheek, the edge of his mouth near his bandaged cheek, and then his lips. A soft, delicious kiss that was over far too quickly. “The house, the club, all of that will fall into place, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” She made him want a life he wouldn’t have imagined a month earlier. Made him believe happiness, contentment, peace was in their grasp. “But honestly, right now I can’t think of anything but locking that door, removing every stitch of your clothing, and making love to you on this settee.”
“Your wounds.”
“Nothing hurts when you’re this close to me.”
Her hand was balanced on his thigh as she leaned into him. Nick shifted her palm over an inch.
“I promise you, Duchess, I feel quite up to the task.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
