Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage 01] (22 page)

With a tantalizing grip on her buttocks, he slowly undulated his hips, plowing his manhood up and down in her wetness, kneading that electrifying hard nub. A harsh cry tore from her throat. Everything faded in contrast to that amazing desire thrumming from between her legs, lancing up her flesh and making her want
more.
She needed him in
side her. But his manhood slid once more across that outer nub.

“Dear God,” she moaned. “You’re killing me.”

“Not yet,” he murmured.

Her pelvis rocked, moving to his primal rhythm, grinding him into her wetness. Propelling him into that most excited spot. Again and again. Urging his hard shaft to take, to give, to drive, to satisfy…

The muscles inside her innermost core squeezed and jumped, throbbing, pulsating. Heat surged. Rippling waves of lightning shocked through her veins. A harsh scream erupted from her throat. Awareness fled; there was only the blind rush of sensation, pulsing through her.

Slowly her senses were reborn. Her heart pounded so hard that it hurt. Her breath came in harsh gasps. Her innermost core still throbbed with the remembrance of ecstasy. She struggled to regain air, to regain sanity.

Their bodies were pressed together, slick with sweat. She swallowed hard, listening to his stampeding heartbeat. He was panting, his skin almost burned to the touch. She could not ignore his engorged shaft as it pushed, thick and wanting, into her inner thigh.

A terrified thrill shot through her; she needed to touch him,
there
. Garnering her courage, she reached down between her legs and grasped his manhood. It pulsed in her hand, stiff and throbbing with acute heat.

“God forgive me, I want you, Lillian.” It was a guttural cry.

He flipped her over onto her back and pressed his sturdy frame into her body, making her feel shel
tered and possessed at once. He claimed her mouth, his kisses intent, needy. His hands glided down her body, exploring, claiming, arousing her until every crevice thrummed with wanting, yet again. She was lost, wallowing in the ecstasy of his touch.

His fingers opened the hot flesh of her womanhood, fingering the inner lips with a searing stroke, edging upward to that incredible peak of pleasure. His pace quickened. She writhed, sobbed, and rocked with excruciating rapture.

“Nick,” she cried. “Please…”

His manhood touched her core and he groaned. “So wet…”

She wrapped her arms around those brawny shoulders, hugging him with a ferocity that astonished her. But it felt so good. So very
right.

He plunged inside her so wholly that the breath rushed from her throat. He filled her, warming her to her soul and meeting her aching need.

His movements were tantalizingly slow. Sliding in and out with excruciating strokes, he drew her back toward that vortex of pleasure. The pressure built inside her once again, propelling her forward, driving her, pushing her until she could stand it no longer. She cried out. Her muscles spasmed and heat filled her core. He pumped into her, spilling his seed. Warming her completely.

L
illian did not know how long she lay underneath Nick’s leaden form. She was blanketed in his heat, listening to his haggard breathing harmonize with her own. Time seemed to have stopped. Her world was this room, his muscular arms around her, the heady scent of passion and the darkness keeping them safe.

He slipped out of her and pulled her into the nest of his arms, wrapping his long body almost entirely around hers. She lay there, feeling his heartbeat thumping reassuringly against her back, memorizing the sensation of his smooth skin brushing hers, the bristly hairs near his manhood tickling her derriere, the scent of Nick. Man, almond and desire. She wondered if anything else would ever smell as good.

She hated to break the peace between them, but
her concern overrode her qualms. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

“Better than I was an hour ago.”

She kissed his forearm. “Me too.”

After a few more moments of silence, she ventured, “I was thinking, I will be coming into some funds in a few months, perhaps, if Mrs. Bears needs it…”

“I gave her the reward I received for finding Lancelot.”

She nodded; she should have known that Nick would not let Mrs. Bears down.

“But it was kind of you to offer,” he added quietly.

“Did you…did you lose anything of value in the fire?”

The hand cupping her elbow clenched and unclenched, and his body shifted as if he were uneasy.

“Can it be replaced?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t important.”

“It was to you.”

He was silent a long moment. “Sentimentally, yes. It was a link to my past, but I don’t know that it has any bearing on my future.”

“Can you tell me?”

She felt him shrug. “It was a lady’s redingote. The one they found me in as a babe.”

Her heart contracted. She pictured Nick as a beautiful, dark-haired baby boy, lying alone, wrapped in a lady’s outer garment. She shuddered, sensing the pain he must feel. Pulling his arms tighter around her, she held him closer still.

He squeezed her in a reassuring hug. “It was a long time ago, and I do not recall it.”

Unable to fathom the anguish of abandoning a child, she asked, “Do you know anything of your family?”

“I’ve searched, but the farmer who found me could provide me with few clues other than the coat.”

“He kept it?”

“Apparently in the hubbub of discovering an abandoned babe and bringing it to the local justice of the peace, the garment was left behind. The farmer was kind enough to keep it in case I ever came looking for my family. But I couldn’t seem to scratch up much from a puce redingote with fur lining, and the residents knew little as well.” He lifted her hair and pressed his lips to the base of her neck. “Perhaps I need you with me to solve the tough ones.”

It was a sweet comment, but it brought the future to bear. She swallowed. “What do you think is going to happen…with us?”

“Hell if I know.”

She smiled. “Me neither.”

Content with his strong arms around her and the heat of his body warming her skin, she studied the play of shadows on the ceiling.

“Why don’t you think that the redingote bears on your future?” she asked.

“I’ve wasted too much time trying to figure out my family connection.”

Closing her eyes, she nuzzled her nose into the crook of his arm. “I feel like I cannot escape my past; that my whole life is driven by my family and the choices that they’ve made, for themselves and me.”

“What of your natural father?”

“I got the feeling that my grandparents knew very
well who he was. But the subject was taboo.” On those few occasions when she had tried asking about her father, it had been like a fortress gate slamming down with a boom that had reverberated inside her soul.
“It is of no consequence,”
Grandmother would chide.
“We will not see you suffer at the hands of that unfeeling blackguard the way your mother did.”

“Does he have any idea that you exist?” Nick asked.

“My mother would fall into these fits of crying…and one time…she confessed that she had told him in a letter and had received no response. Pathetically, she had still held a shred of hope that he might come for her. She had just set herself up to be disappointed again.” After that episode, her mother had spent almost a month abed, unable to cease crying. Kane had ignored her, staying at the far end of the house, but Lillian could not escape the weeping and the fact that she could do nothing to stanch her mother’s sorrow.

“Have you tried to find him?”

“The blackguard knew precisely where we were and did not lift a finger to help us. He does not deserve to know me.”

“Brave words, Lillian. But I’m from Andersen Hall. You cannot fool me.” He exhaled softly. “At one point or another, orphans yearn to understand who their parents are and why they abandoned them. You have not searched for him because you were afraid that he would reject you yet again.”

She jerked, her eyes flying wide open. It was as if she had been looking into a mirror and he had smashed it with a hammer, shattering her reflection into a thousand shards of glass. Her heart slowed, as
if searching for something in the stillness. Gradually she became aware of her anguish. It had always been there, hiding under the bravado. The pain of knowing that her father had not loved her enough to come rescue them from Kane. That he had not loved her enough to even bother to condemn her when she had so publicly chosen to be Dillon’s paramour.

He hugged her close, brushing his lips across her shoulder. “It is perfectly natural to fear rebuff once you have already been forsaken.”

The words slashed at her heart. She was a castoff, like a misbegotten rag. Unwanted. Ill considered. But she had been loved. Her mother had tried her best. Her grandparents. Her dear friends. She had never been truly forsaken. The pain subsided but did not disappear. She might have been better off than so many others, but that did not mean that the rejection did not hurt. Exhaling slowly, she asked, “How do you deal with it?”

“I suppose like I deal with most things. As a lad, it became a puzzle to be played with. Was my real family an old one with a weighty name like Prendregast or Edmundson? Or were they a people in trade: Glasier, Smith, Baker, or Carpenter?”

“Why names?”

“It was a start that soon became an obsession. Dunn encouraged me at first, but then decided that I needed to relax a bit. Thankfully, now I’m just shy of fixated on monikers.”

She felt him shrug. “I was found on a snowy Christmastide near a low water junction where the town folk crossed the river. Hence, the Nicholas reference and ‘reed ford’ becoming Redford, thanks to the inventiveness of the local justice of the peace.” He shifted against her. “The name suits me fine, but
I’m starting to believe what Dunn always said. That your true name, the one you make for yourself is the only one that counts.”

What a wonderful philosophy,
she mused. “I hope that’s true—it always bothered me that Janus meant
duplicitous.
I feared that the name was apt, considering my arrangement with Dillon.”

“The duplicitous connotation only came from the two opposing faces of the Roman god Janus.”

“You looked it up?” She twisted around, surprised.

“I’m fixated, remember?”

“What else did you learn?”

“Janus was identified with doors, gates and new beginnings. Hence January, the first month of the ancient Roman year.”

“I’m impressed.”

“But that’s not your true name.”

She stilled, trepidation shooting through her. What did he know that she did not? “What is?”

“I have yet to figure it out.” Leaning over her, he splayed butterfly kisses along her jaw. “But don’t despair, the queen says that I’m ‘one of the most trustworthy men of the empire,’ so I shall discover it soon enough.”

She sagged with relief but could not ignore the disappointment filtering through her. Nick was right; she did want to know why she’d been abandoned and who the bastard was who had done it. She wasn’t so different from the other children at Andersen Hall, she realized.

“Was it like having many siblings, living at Andersen Hall?”

“Not really. We were all so very different. The
only commonality was our reason for residing there. But we all had a shared bond, I suppose.” He shifted slightly, recounting, “In fact, a couple of my friends actually ended up married to each other.”

“What about you? Did you ever have someone special?” The question of the innocent that he had bedded flashed through her mind.

She heard a sharp intake of breath.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t—”

He squeezed her close. “What does it matter now?”

She shrugged. “It matters to me.”

He was silent a long time.

Finally, he answered, “She was at Andersen Hall with me. A few years older.”

“Did you love her?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened to her?” Was she still around? Did they see each other even now? Her heart began to pound as she realized how important the answer was to her.

“She’s dead.”

Lillian was both relieved and saddened. “How…How did she die?”

“She took a job as a scullery maid. It was a good house. Dunn thought it was a fine fit.”

“She wasn’t molested?” she cried, appalled.

“No. She just couldn’t handle the work. It was too much for her.” Unwinding one hand from hers, he slowly brushed her hair with his fingers, as if to soothe her and, she suspected, himself. “She was fired but was too ashamed to come back to Andersen Hall. She didn’t want to face Dunn, or me. So she took to the streets. But it was like throwing her to the wolves….”

“What happened to her?”

His hand caressed her hair, brushing it against her back. “I looked for her but didn’t find her until she was already in the hospital. She had gotten a fever, and it burned the life right out of her.”

“Did you get to say good-bye?”

“No. I was too late.” Quiet shrouded the room. Still he gently soothed her hair.

“It was a long time ago. And I was a very different man then.”

“How?”

She felt him shrug. “I expect I was more idealistic.”

“Have…have there been many other women in your life?”

He leaned forward, nibbling on her ear. “You’re heading into dark waters, Lillian,” he teased. “Are you sure you wish to go there?”

“Just tell me, more than fifty or less.”

“Definitely less. But for now there is only one that counts.” Turning her shoulders, he pressed his lips to hers, sliding his tongue deep into her mouth. She welcomed him, relishing his taste and his touch. His words kindled something reminiscent of hope in her heart, but she pushed it aside, knowing that it was not meant to be. Instead, she focused on his smooth lips, the erotic play of his tongue with hers and how good he made her feel.

Slowly, he pulled back, nibbling on her lower lip. “I have answered your questions, so how about you answer one of mine?”

“All right,” she replied, slightly breathless.

“Tell me why you have never married.”

She traced her finger down the edge of his nose.
“I have a problem with being ordered about, remember?”

“I can’t imagine a man ever subjugating you.”

“Because I would not suffer it. I had enough of that from Kane to last me a lifetime.” Pressing her palm to the warm column of his neck, she felt his heartbeat pounding within. “What about you? What do you see in your future?”

“You mean family?”

She nodded.

“I’m not the family kind.”

Rubbish.
Thinking of Mabel and Andersen Hall and Mrs. Bears, she could not help but disagree. Nick considered others with compassion beyond himself. If that was not the true definition of a family man, then she did not know what was.

“Besides,” he added, raking his hand down her torso, sending delicious shivers cascading down her skin, “I’m a bear to live with.”

“Oh, you’re a bear all right,” she teased, laying her palms on his chest. “But I like it when you growl.”

“And I love it when you scream.” Suddenly his fingers tickled her rib cage.

“Stop that!” she shrieked, swatting his hands away.

Ignoring her, his fingers seemed to be everywhere, tickling her to madness. She howled with laughter.

“Stop! Mercy…please!” she begged.

“Only if you pay the piper.” He leaned his cheek toward her and patted his finger to his cheek for a kiss.

Instead she reached down and grasped his mem
ber in her hand. Smooth and warm, it swelled in her palm. “What’s that you want me to do?”

“Anything the hell you want,” he growled.

And by dawn he was the one begging for mercy.