Page 74 of Miss Flibbertigibbet and the Barbarian
They all rose and headed for the door.
Adriana led the way, reiterating to Phillip that he would be introducing them to his ladylove later in the morning.
Nicholas brought up the rear. Considering the three before him, he couldn’t help but smile. They might have started the day estranged, but they’d fallen into a style of interaction that was very familiar to him.
Family was a remarkably powerful thing.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Nicholas was lying on his back in his bed, staring at the moonbeams traversing the ceiling and wondering if he’d won the challenge Adriana—possibly unwittingly—had laid before him the previous night, when the doorknob turned.
An instant’s pause followed, as if a silent debate was being waged on the other side, then the door opened, and Adriana walked in.
Nicholas smothered a triumphant grin. After closing the door, she started across the room, and the moonlight caressed features set in a rather pensive expression—pensive enough to make him wary.
She halted by the side of the bed and imperiously waved at him to move over, then she shrugged out of her light robe, let it slither down, and clad only in a whisper-fine nightgown, climbed beneath the sheets and settled on her back beside him.
He blinked into the dimness, unsure what she expected of him.
She huffed. “I thought you might come to my room.”
“I wouldn’t presume.” And that would definitely have been a presumption. “Not after you were so sure that one night would be enough for you.”
“Yes, well, that was before. Now…” She turned on her side, facing him.
He felt her gaze on his face, turned his head, and through the soft shadows, met her eyes.
She studied his expression for a moment, then said, “I really don’t know what more I don’t know, so to speak—what more there is for me to explore—but I don’t want to spend the night thinking about Phillip or his Viola or even The Barbarian, and I suspect that, between us, you and I can create an effective distraction.”
He fought to keep his lips straight. “So I’m just a distraction?”
Entirely seriously, she replied, “It’s something you excel at.” She held his gaze, and again, her features reflected an inner uncertainty that was more about her than him. “As for the rest,” she softly said, “I can honestly say that I just don’t know.”
She leaned close and kissed him, and he accepted the kiss and sued for more, and when she granted his petition, he swooped and claimed and parted her lips.
He’d never seen her as a lady who could be easily steered; she had to be tempted. He had to lure her to see and appreciate the full gamut of what, together, they might have—a cornucopia of sensual delights. If she would take his hand.
If she would be his.
Granted the opportunity he had hoped to gain, with single-minded determination, he set about advancing his cause, namely that of seducing her into becoming his wife.
Whatever it took. Whatever she needed to convince her to be his. To take his hand and walk forward beside him into a future that, together, they would shape.
He knew that was how, for them, a marriage would work, and he rather thought she knew it, too.
As the moon waned and the shadows wrapped about them, and they wrestled and gloried amid the tangled sheets, he devoted himself to wooing her with passion.
With the depth and intensity of feeling she and only she evoked.
Addie had returned to him determined to learn more. Instinct assured her there was a wealth of experience she’d yet to gain. That she’d barely scratched the surface of the intimate domain. What she’d imagined as a pond had turned out to be an ocean. As his hands roved her body and his lips and fingers teased her flesh and pleasure rose in a wave and crested and washed through her, she was increasingly certain that instinct was correct.
Correct in driving her into this man’s arms.
Correct in urging her to remain there. To seize him and let him seize her.
To embrace all that might grow between them.
The physical experience was only a part of it. There was so much more she sensed, elusive and enticing, in the background. The elements of the power that seemed to well and grow and infuse them as they writhed and joined. That filled them to bursting as they rode hard for the peak and straight into the nova of ecstasy that hovered beyond.
