Chapter Sixteen
Nicholas was firmly ensconced with Mr. Fletcher and Philip, the wicks of the oil lamps burning low as they finalized the details of Philip’s takeover, when Jasper’s unmistakable tones rang through the house.
“For God’s sake, let me pass and I’ll do it myself.”
“My lord, if you’ll only wait.”
Nicholas excused himself and leaned out into the hall. “Jas?”
“Thank God,” Jasper said, sidestepping Philip’s butler. “You must come at once. It’s an emergency.”
Emergency was a widely defined term in Jasper’s world. It covered everything from inebriated love-interests to invading hostile troops.
“I’m in the middle of something important,” Nick explained.
Jasper went rigid with affront. “More important than Amelia’s safety? Or her virtue?”
What the devil had happened now? “I’m sorry, Mr. Fletcher. Philip.”
“We have it from here,” Fletcher promised.
Heart racing, Nicholas left them to it.
“You need a dress coat.”
Nicholas stopped. “Jasper, this had better not be another one of your schemes.”
“They won’t let you in without a dress coat. They may try to not let you in anyway, but we’ve got to get in to get her out.”
“Who is they? Where are we going? Where is Amelia?”
“The Sinner’s Ball.”
Mother of God. Nicholas had never been to La balle du pécheur, but he had heard enough stories in Paris to know Amelia did not belong there. They were rumored to combine the showmanship of the old Italian masques with the secrecy and sexual depravity of a Greek orgy.
“We have to hurry,” Jasper told him.
Hands already turning clammy with nerves, Nicholas led the way to his rooms to grab his coat. “How do you know she’s there?”
“Goddamn Renton mentioned it in front of her at that Chesterfield soiree and she got it in her head that I should take her.”
“Which you wouldn’t.”
Jasper glared at him as they took the stairs two at a time. “Of course I wouldn’t. I’m eccentric, not an idiot.”
“So how could she be there? It’s bloody impossible to get in without an invitation.”
“She has one.”
“What? How?”
“She stole mine.”
“Stole it?” Nicholas had a hard time imagining Amelia as a thief. “Are you certain?”
“Completely. Are you going to keep questioning me like I’m simple-minded, or can we get on with it? We’re already late.”
Nicholas changed into evening dress faster than he ever had in his life. Still, every minute it took for them to get back down the stairs and into Jasper’s waiting coach felt like an eternity.
“How do you know she took it?”
“Because it’s missing, and apparently Amelia paid a secret visit to my house today.”
“That doesn’t mean she took it.”
“She lied to my butler, claiming she left a necklace that she was decidedly not wearing the night we went to Crockford’s.”
“Are you certain?”
Jasper sighed. “Have you ever known me to misremember anything to do with a woman’s bosom?”
Fair point.
“She took it, Nicholas. Points for cleverness and all that, but she doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.”
Even Nicholas wasn’t entirely certain, but what he did know made him stick his head out and shout for the driver to pick up the pace. Looking out, he realized they were on a road headed out of London. “Where are we going?”
“Not far.”
Nicholas clenched his teeth, silently willing himself not to lose his temper. “Jasper.”
“There are rules, Nicholas.”
“And you care about them?”
“I ought to. I made them.”
So Jasper was one of the founders of La balle du pécheur. It wasn’t terribly surprising. They had a tendency to crop up in cities Jasper haunted, and decadence and debauchery were two of his favorite pastimes. “If anything happens to Amelia, I am going to blame you.”
“As you wish. I won’t notice, because I’ll be busy blaming you.”
“Me?” Nicholas exclaimed.
“You.” Jasper leveled a glare at him. “You should have shot Montrose and put an end to this ages ago.”
The sight when Amelia entered the ballroom froze her in place. Bodies—naked, exposed bodies—were everywhere. Not three feet in front of her, a woman was bent over the lap of a man who was gasping in pleasure, while another man lurched rhythmically against her backside. She met Amelia’s stare with a wink as she increased the bobbing motion of her head.
Was that…were they…
It was, and they were. Amelia was suddenly thankful her masque was covering most of her face. As it was, the skin across her throat and chest felt impossibly warm.
To the left, a woman was stretched out across a table while another woman dripped honey across her skin. A couple sat on a couch a few feet away, touching each other intimately as they watched the second woman bend down and lick the honey from the first. To the right was a scene much like the woman with her two male companions, but all three were men.
Amelia’s eyes widened as far as they would go. She should have listened to Jasper. This was not what she’d thought.
Whatever she must do to get rid of Embry.
An arm slipped around her, coming to rest not at her waist but between her legs—stroking the trouser-clad juncture of her thighs. Amelia’s shock came out as a squeak.
“Aren’t you delightful,” a man’s voice growled in her ear. His teeth scraped her earlobe and a rigid protrusion pressed against the small of her back. He dragged her hand back, cupping it against his arousal. “What’s your pleasure? Do you like to command or submit?”
Her eyes flicked back to the couple on the couch. The man had joined the women with the honey and his partner was stretched out on the couch alone, pleasuring herself. “I…like to watch.”
“Don’t we all.” He chuckled, still moving his fingers between her legs. “But you know the rules. Everyone participates.”
Everyone participates? Oh, hell. She had to get away from here, but first she had to get away from her extremely amorous new acquaintance. “I’ve only just arrived. I haven’t yet decided where I’ll start.”
He turned her around, cupping her backside in his hands. “Start with me.”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t think. Just wrap those sweet, pink lips around my cock.” He let her go to undo the buttons on his trousers.
Amelia backed up and spun straight into a wall of masculine chest. The smell of coffee and oranges filled her senses. Her head snapped up, finding a familiar shadowed jawline and rigid set of lips beneath the edge of a black domino. That feeling of being completely safe dropped over her again. How could he feel so right, just standing there?
“Ni—”
He put his fingers to her lips. “Names aren’t allowed. Are you all right?”
Amelia nodded.
Nicholas glared over her shoulder at the man she’d stepped away from. “Are you certain?”
“I am now.”
Jasper joined them, distinct even with his bright harlequin mask, and inspected her from head to toe. The usual twinkle of mischief was missing from his eyes. “Ah, yes. She’ll do nicely. Bring her, we’ll find a room.”
“She’s mine,” the man with his trousers open protested.
“Is she?” Jasper sounded doubtful. He looked the other man up and down with a smirk before turning back to Amelia. “Lady’s choice. Will you stay with him or come with us?”
Safely standing between Nicholas and Jasper, Amelia felt much bolder than she had a moment ago. She pretended to consider the question. Looking Jasper over the way he’d done to her, she pursed her lips. She circled Nicholas, running her hands along the lines of his back and legs. There was an edge of warning in the look he gave her when she came back around to his front.
“I’ll come with you.”
Jasper smiled. He sketched a bow to her acquaintance and led Amelia and Nicholas through the ballroom. The sounds and smells of passion surrounded them as they stepped carefully past prostrate forms and outstretched limbs. All three of them received their fair share of groping before they made it to the other side. Only Jasper appeared to be enjoying himself, returning the fondling in kind.
“Shouldn’t we be going back toward the carriage?” Nicholas asked.
Jasper didn’t answer. He motioned for them to wait while he went to speak with an attendant. After a moment, the attendant handed him a key and Jasper returned, gesturing that they should follow him. They went up a flight of stairs and down a short hallway, stopping in front of a door.
Jasper handed Nicholas the key. “Lock it behind you. I’ll come back for you in a few hours.”
Nicholas did not look happy. “We need to take Amelia home.”
“Amelia should never have been here in the first place,” Jasper said with a flat stare in her direction. “But since she is, we might as well follow through with her plan.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?” Jasper asked. “In a few hours, the worst of the depravity will be over. Most people will be too exhausted. You and Amelia can put on a bit of a show without any real danger.”
Amelia blushed. The idea of doing any of the things they’d passed on their way through the ballroom, especially where anyone could see her, was scandalizing indeed.
“And now I must go make amends for bringing not one but two novices to the ball,” Jasper announced.
Amelia wondered what form the amends would take.
“Must?” Nicholas mused.
Jasper shrugged. “Must, desire. It’s all the same at the Sinner’s Ball. I’ve done my part. You can lock yourselves in, or not. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something that interests you.”
They watched him walk away down the hall.
“Is he terribly cross?” Amelia asked.
“He was. Mostly he’s just glad we found you and that you’re safe.”
“And you?” she asked Nicholas.
He didn’t answer, but the set of his jaw was not encouraging.
The click of the lock sounded overly loud to Nicholas’s ears. Now that they were alone, the fear he’d been carrying on the ride turned into nervous energy and threatened to burst through his skin. “You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked. Her face hadn’t been visible beneath her mask, but he’d felt her tension when she’d run into his chest.
Amelia nodded. The ostrich feather in her cavalier’s hat bounced with the motion.
“I wanted to strangle that man for touching you.”
Amelia put her hand on his forearm. “He didn’t hurt me.”
It was Nicholas’s turn to nod. He wrapped his arms around her, satisfying a primal part of himself that needed tactile confirmation that she truly was unharmed.
“It’s my fault really,” Amelia said. “From what I gather, his behavior was perfectly acceptable for where we are.”
Yes, it was, which begged the question. “What are you doing here, Amelia?”
“I thought it could finally put an end to the engagement. Surely Embry wouldn’t want me if he thought I’d…”
“Been servicing strange men in a public ballroom?” Nicholas offered.
“Precisely.”
“Did it not occur to you that you might be expected to actually give truth to some of the rumors you were hoping to spread about yourself?”
Amelia leaned back to look at him. “I thought there would be a wandering hand or two, but that it would be like Crockford’s. I’d planned to be seen, and flirt, and then come home.”
Sweet, naïve Amelia. “And how did you plan for Montrose to hear of it?”
“Surely someone would mention it.”
“The point of the Sinner’s Ball is that it isn’t talked about.”
“Except it absolutely is,” Amelia argued. “I heard about it and so did you.”
“Through our association with Jasper. I doubt Montrose consorts with any of tonight’s attendees.”
“So it was for nothing.”
Nicholas wanted to yell and chastise her, but he didn’t have the right. She was her own woman. He didn’t get to be angry about what she chose to get herself into. Instead, he feigned a lightness he didn’t feel. “Not for nothing. I’ve gotten to see you in trousers again, which is always a torturous delight.”
“Do you like my costume?” She backed away and did a turn. “It was Julia’s idea.”
The crimson trousers fit her like a second skin. There was a sword belted to her hips and the billowy white shirt was open in front, exposing the smooth skin between her breasts as if she were a lothario lounging in dishabille. “It’s very compelling. You’re a cavalier?”
“I am La Maupin, the famous seductress who made conquests of men and women alike, and fought duels over honor.” She bowed with an extra flourish.
Nicholas was given an uninhibited view of her breasts all the way down to her navel. “Have you bowed to anyone else?”
“No.” Amelia righted herself. “Why?”
“No reason.”
She reached up and ran her fingertips along the edge of his half-mask. They dipped down, tracing his lips. They fluttered there while she said, “Hullo, Nicholas.”
A different man would have let her continue. A different man would have taken what she was offering and been thankful. But Nicholas could only be himself. He’d thought he could manage an affair, but he couldn’t. Seeing her with that other man’s hands on her downstairs had nearly killed him. He’d been in love with her from the day they met and he wanted more from her than curiosity. “Amelia, don’t.”
She frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“The other night was amazing, the best moment of my life, but I can’t. It’s not good for me.”
“Why?” At the rejection, bold Amelia turned back into the shy girl she’d been growing up.
Nicholas hated to be the cause, but he had to stand up for himself. “I can’t turn my feelings off. I will be your friend, always, but I can’t do this to myself.”
“I’m hurting you,” she said. There were tears at the edges of her words.
“It’s all right. I just can’t go through with it.”
She ducked her head, worrying the sleeves of her shirt. “Would it hurt less if you knew I loved you?”
The air grew thick around him and the room suddenly felt ten degrees warmer. “Do you?” Please let it be true. Please let it. He could live a thousand scandals, survive whatever was in front of them, if it were true.
“I need you—as much I need Julia. And in a different way. When you’re around, I feel safe. Like everything’s been made right. And when you’re gone I don’t entirely feel like myself. And I want you. Desperately. So yes. I think that’s what that means.”
“Say it.” He needed to hear it from her gorgeous, perfect mouth again.
Her lips curved up and her forehead creased. She sounded it out slowly, like a foreign language she wasn’t sure of. “I love you.”
Nicholas pulled her into his arms, sliding his hands down to the small of her back. “It hurts much less. It might not even hurt at all.”
“Say it back to me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Unless you don’t. If you don’t, you don’t have to.”
Nicholas laughed. “How can you doubt it? I’ve said it a hundred times.”
Amelia looked at him with uncertainty in her eyes. “Never to me.”
Was it true? Had he told everyone on earth except Amelia? He had so much to make up for. “I love you, Amelia Bishop. I have loved you every day since the day we met. And I will love you long after I am gone from this earth.”
She blushed under her mask and it was breathtaking. “That’s quite poetic.”
“I’ve had a great deal of time to work on it.”
“Will you kiss me now?”
He lifted her hat from her head, tossing it on the bed. When he untied the strings of her mask she tilted her face up to his. “Yes.”
“Will you do other things with me now?” Amelia’s hands slid down his chest, popping the first of his buttons free.
“That depends.” Nicholas pushed her shirt free of one shoulder. It fell to her elbow, exposing one exquisite, pale breast. “It might start to hurt again. I shall need you to keep telling me.”
“I love you,” she interrupted.
Nicholas covered her breast with his palm. Her lips parted. The peak of her nipple tightened and raised against his hand.
“I love you.”
Nick brushed his thumb across it. Amelia’s surprised inhale filled him with a deep satisfaction. He dropped his hand back down to her waist and lowered his head. He took her nipple between his teeth, teasing it with his tongue.
“I love you,” she gasped.
He pushed the other shoulder clear, baring her to the waist. Amelia moved against him. He pulled her closer, easing his thigh between her legs. He covered the newly bared breast with his palm while he continued to pay homage to its twin with his mouth.
“Nick,” she said again, a demand this time.
He smiled against her skin. “We have plenty of time, Mia.”
“But I want—”
“You’ll have it. I promise.”
She gave in, leaning back to give him unhindered access. Nicholas took full advantage. He worked them both into a fervor as he worshipped each tiny detail of her breasts. When he finally lifted his head, she pulled him back down and claimed his mouth for her own.
It was a desperate, breathless kiss. Amelia was trying to communicate a need she didn’t have a name for. There was a hollow, aching void inside her. More than tingles, more than pleasant friction. She needed Nicholas in places he couldn’t possibly be. She wanted him inside her, around her, surrounding her. All she had was their joined lips and mingled tongues. She used it, trying to fill herself with him as best she could. It wasn’t enough.
He knew. Amelia felt his muscles flex and she was being lifted. Her legs wrapped around his waist. His hands molded themselves to her backside and then the mattress was at her back. Soft, downy pillows framed her head and Nicholas rested above her. She was surrounded.
“I love you.” She said it as a demand, kissing him again.
Nicholas ground his hips against her, pressing her further into the bed.
Ecstasy.
He pushed against her, matching the rhythm of their tongues to the rhythm of his hips. Amelia buried her hands in his hair. She pulled, urging him on. Urging him closer. She bit his lip. Nicholas bit back.
“I love you,” she begged.
He sat up, pulling off her boots. Amelia tore at his shirt. He shrugged it off along with his jacket. She took a moment to admire the beauty of him. Hard planes and angles that rippled under her touch, like he was the one on the brink of coming apart instead of her. The buttons of her trousers gave way under his hands.
It was the strangest feeling as he pulled the fabric clear of her legs. She was completely naked. The feeling of being so exposed made her want to cover herself, but the expression of admiration in Nicholas’s eyes made her want to fling her limbs wide and let him look his fill. She settled for doing neither. “You still have your clothes on, and I am completely naked.”
“I like you completely naked,” Nicholas teased. “And I don’t want to frighten you.”
What a ludicrous concept. “Why would I be frightened?”
“It might be a bit surprising.”
“I should think so, but it’s still you, isn’t it?”
He grinned. “Yes, it is still me.”
“Then I couldn’t be frightened by it.” The one thing on this earth she would never be frightened of was Nicholas.
He took a deep breath. The buttons of his trousers came free one by one and he pushed the fabric past his hips.
Oh my. Amelia couldn’t stop her eyes from going wide. She’d seen sketches of Michelangelo’s David, but Nicholas’s manhood was so much more…upstanding. It was very like the men she’d seen in the ballroom. For some reason, she’d thought they might be anomalies based on the perversity of their activities.
“Are you all right?”
“I am.” Amelia sat up on her knees to get a closer look. “Are you? Does it always stick out like that?”
“Not always.”
“What makes it…” Amelia made a raising gesture with her hands.
Nicholas’s smile was lopsided. “Beautiful women. Friction. Inconvenient timing.”
It was too interesting not to investigate. Her hand hovered above it. “May I?”
He took a deep breath and nodded.
Amelia ran her fingertips across the length of him. It was fascinating, hard and soft at the same time. She closed her hand around him, squeezing as she marveled at the combination of velvety soft skin and rigid core.
Nicholas groaned. His hips flexed, pushing forward into her closed fist. The look on his face was something she’d never seen before. Amelia repeated the motion, dragging her closed fist to the head and back down to the base. He gasped out loud.
Truly fascinating. She did it again.
Nicholas’s hand flew out, grasping her shoulder. “Amelia.”
“You like that.” It wasn’t a question. She repeated the gesture.
“God, yes.” His eyes were closed and he was taking deep breaths.
“Does it make you tingle?”
He smiled, but his expression was tense, almost tortured. “And then some.”
The effect she was having on him made her bold. It was a powerful feeling. “Where?”
He took her free hand, cupping her palm gently around the soft orbs between his legs. “There.”
Amelia tested them with her hand. They were nothing like anything she’d ever felt before. There was no rigidity there, like liquid forced to choose a form. Nicholas reacted to every movement. His fingers tightened on her shoulder.
Testing a theory, Amelia rolled them in her palm while she stroked up and back with her hand. Nicholas groaned again and suddenly she was being pushed back into the mattress with her hands pinned above her head.
“I wasn’t done.”
His mouth interrupted her. Amelia could feel the rigid hardness of him against the inside of her thigh. She moved against it. When it slid against the moisture that had escaped her center, slipping up to rub against the knot of sensation between her legs, the pleasure intensified—coiling and magnifying at her core. She shifted, rubbing him up and back against it. Nicholas groaned against her lips, matching her movement.
Little jolts of electricity pulsed through her with each movement. She wanted more. She moved faster. The sound of their bodies slipping against each other grew louder. Amelia cried out with each completed journey. Nicholas reached between them, sliding his finger inside her. Heaven. That was what she wanted. He pushed in time with their movements, adding another, and then a third. Her body stretched to accommodate the new sensation. She felt full, so very close to what she needed, but not quite.
“Nicholas. I need—”
“I know. I need it, too.” He kissed her lips, resting his forehead against hers. Nicholas withdrew his fingers and positioned himself in their place. “I love you, Amelia.”
“I love you.” Something important was about to happen. She could feel it in the air, in the tension of his body. In the way her nerve endings and his seemed to reach out for each other, especially in the place between her legs where he was waiting.
He moved. It was different. There was a heat to him, and a perfectness of fit, that his fingers could never replace. Amelia felt him in places that had never been touched. He pushed deeper and deeper still. When he came the last of the way, fully encased by her body, he pressed against something that sent a wave of heat and pleasure through her. She cried out.
“Did I hurt you?” Nicholas tried to withdraw himself.
Amelia trapped his hips with her legs. “Again. Do it again.”
Nicholas surged forward. Amelia couldn’t help it—she moaned.
“You’ll be the death of me with those sounds, Mia.”
She didn’t care. She couldn’t have been quiet if her life depended on it.
They rocked together in a rhythm that set the headboard thudding against the wall. Little beads of sweat broke out on Nicholas’s brow. Amelia chased the feeling higher and higher. She urged him on with her body and her words. The frissons of pleasure arced through her. She lost track of time, of the room, of everything except Nicholas and the way he felt inside her.
When she crashed, it was in a crescendo of sounds. Nicholas’s arms tightened around her as he found his own release. He murmured broken curses and words of adoration as he shook against her. When he settled, he rolled to the side, bringing her with him.
He kissed the top of her head and stroked her back. With her head on his chest, Amelia could feel his heart hammering against his ribs.
“Why did we wait so long to do that?”
The chuckle rumbled against her cheek. “I don’t know.”
Amelia looked up at him. “Promise me we won’t wait so long before the next time.”
“We’re never going to leave this room.”
That suited Amelia perfectly.