Nicole Jordan
Desire
To all my wonderful cyber pals at The Romance Journal, RBL Romantica, Romance and Friends, ALCAP, and GRAN.
My heartfelt thanks for your love and encouragement and for helping keep me sane (relatively) these past few years.
And a special thanks to Laura, aka Webmistress Extraordinaire.
And to dearest Maggie, who started it all.
{{{HUGS!!!}}}
The women of your house will be forever cursed for their beauty. Any man they love will die.
Gypsy curse, 1623
Prologue
Cornwall, England, October 1813
Her gown fell to the floor in a whisper of silk, leaving her completely nude. Lucian drew a sharp breath at the alluring sight-her exquisite white body tinged golden in the flickering dance of candlelight, her radiant hair glowing like fire.
Was she bent on seduction… or betrayal?
Whatever her scheme, Lucian had to admit it was highly effective. Already he was hard enough to burst. Yet his every instinct remained alert to danger.
He forced a smile, his gaze roaming over the taut nipples, the luscious thighs parted slightly in sensual invitation. “Is this a seduction, my love?”
Her own smile was provocative. “Merely a welcome. I am glad you have come.”
A lie, he knew.
For a long moment he met her emerald eyes. Was that guilt he saw there in the jeweled depths?
Time stretched between them as Lucian stared at his beautiful wife, his gaze a veiled search. At length the soft hiss and crackle of the fire in the hearth broke the spell.
With a graceful shrug of her naked shoulders, she went to the mahogany side table, where a tray bearing a crystal wine decanter and goblets rested. When she had poured two glasses, she crossed the bedchamber to him and offered him one.
The wine was bloodred. Was it poisoned, or merely drugged? She’d had time to prepare either, even though he had startled her by unexpectedly following her here to the Cornish coast from London.
He took a sip, pretending to drink, and noted that she looked relieved.
She was too transparent, Lucian thought grimly, fighting the lure of her nude body and the heat rising in him. Her nervousness gave her away. She was an amateur at intrigue-unlike him. He had matched wits against the best spies France had to offer. Against Britain’s worst traitors as well.
Even as he stared at her, she averted her gaze, unable to meet his eyes any longer. His mouth thinned. Would Brynn betray him? Was his beautiful bride in league with his enemies? Had she committed treason with her damned brother, aiding the Frogs and their bloody Corsican leader, Napoleon Bonaparte?
The thought caused such an ache in his heart that he suddenly found it hard to breathe.
“Is the wine to your taste?” she murmured, sipping from her own glass.
“Yes. But then the French do make the finest wines.”
She shivered at his mention of the French.
“Are you cold?” he asked, keeping any inflection from his voice.
“I hoped you would warm me.”
She glanced up at him, temptation in her eyes. The impact sent savage heat flooding his loins. He could recall a time not too many weeks ago when he would have given most of his fortune to have an invitation like this.
“Why don’t you stir the fire,” he forced himself to say, “while I close the draperies?”
Tearing his gaze from her lush nudity, Lucian turned and went to one of the windows. Under pretense of shutting the drapes, he tilted his glass behind a table, letting wine trickle onto the carpet. With all his soul he wanted to believe Brynn innocent. Yet he didn’t dare trust her.
He could feel her gaze probing between his shoulder blades from across the room. Swearing silently, Lucian moved on to the next window. He was clearly a fool. He was obsessed with his own wife. With her vibrant beauty, her fiery hair, her defiant spirit. She was a temptress who made him ache with desire. The only woman he’d ever met who could drive him so wild that he lost control. She haunted him, even in his dreams. Especially in his dreams.
He would lose her forever if he sent her to prison.
Deliberately spilling more of his wine behind an armchair, he closed the drapery and moved on to the final window, where he stood pretending to drink from his glass. Outside a chill sliver of moon hung low on the black horizon, partly obscured by ghostly, scudding clouds. A blustery wind blew off the sea; he could hear waves beating the rocky shore below.
A good night for treason.
Inside, however, the bedchamber was warm and hushed. Lucian sensed Brynn before he heard her soft footfall as she came up behind him.
“Are you still angry with me?” she whispered in that low, sultry voice that could tie him in knots.
Yes, he was angry with her. Angry, heartsick, regretful. He had never known a woman who could bring him to his knees… until Brynn.
He snapped the drapes shut.
Composing his features into a mask, he turned slowly to face her. Her gaze, he noticed, went immediately to his glass that was now only one-third full. The relieved smile she gave in response ripped at him, but Lucian made himself remain still. He would play her game, would see how far she intended to take her betrayal.
Her finger dipped into his wine, then rose to glide along his lower lip. “How can I assuage your anger, Lucian?”
“I think you know, love.”
Her own lips were red and moist with wine, and he fought the urge to crush his mouth down on hers. He forced himself to remain immobile, even when she slowly, provocatively, slid her fingers into the waistband of his breeches.
When he gave no response, she relieved him of his wineglass and set it down along with her own. Then she began to undo the buttons at the front placket of his breeches.
His heart was thudding in his chest when she drew open the fabric to expose the stiff erection that stirred so eagerly between his thighs. With a tempting smile, she closed her caressing fingers around the base of his pulsing arousal and sank down to kneel at his feet.
A muscle flexed in Lucian’s jaw as he grimly struggled against the fierce ache she incited in him. He should be pleased that Brynn was willingly taking the lead. Since their first meeting she had fought him. For the three months of their stormy marriage, they had been locked in a contest of wills.
While her fingers stroked, she leaned closer to press her lips along his throbbing shaft. Lucian jerked when she kissed him there. Her lips were warm on his flesh. His skin felt hot, seared by the erotic touch of her mouth as she softly ran her tongue around the swollen head, the sensitive ridge below…
He felt her lips close around his distended length to take him more fully in her mouth. Lucian gave a grimace of pleasure, fighting for control. His now-rigid member thickened still further as she explored him with her mouth and tongue, tasting the slick contours.
Desperately he tried to keep his mind divorced from his senses as she made love to the most intimate part of him. He had been the one to teach her this-how to use her new skills to such devastating effect. He had shown her pleasures of the flesh, led her to embrace her woman’s passion.
Lucian shuddered. Her mouth was a firebrand, her teeth softly raking.
She was wrong about his feelings for her. He wanted Brynn for more than a broodmare or a convenient lover. Perhaps it had begun that way, but now… Now he wanted to possess her completely.
And yet she seemed more unattainable than ever. She was his wife in name and body, but he could not claim her heart.
He groaned at the thought, and at her exquisite ministrations.
“Am I paining you?” she asked, a smile in her voice.