The Most Wicked Of Sins (25 page)

“I am too. I have done some appalling things and I only hope that you can forgive me, and that we can be together,” Ivy said softly. “I love you, Nick. I do.”

“I love you too.” Nick breathed a great sigh of relief, and she felt the rigidness of his back muscles relax. “Lord above, you can’t believe how happy I am right now. When you took the ring off—”

“I never did! It slipped off when I pulled my hand away.” Ivy nestled herself against the curve of his chest. “I want nothing more than to be your wife, to be with you…forever.”

Nick bolted from the settee and snatched the emerald ring from the table. He knelt before her and took her hand gently into his. “Marry me, Ivy. Say you will marry me
tomorrow.”
He poised the ring over the tip of her finger.

“I will marry you,” she said, not able to stop the gentle, delighted laughter that rode her words, “and were it possible, as soon as tomorrow.”

He slid the ring over her knuckle and pressed it to the base of her finger. “Tomorrow it is then.” Just then a small clock on the mantel pinged the midnight hour. Nick turned and looked at it, silent until twelve bells finished sounding. Then he kissed her. “It’s our wedding day, Ivy.”

“What?” She blinked at him. He was jesting with her about marrying tomorrow, was he not?

He tipped his head at the table with the candle upon it. “That’s a special license from Doctors’ Commons. I had it with me tonight, in the carriage.”

Ivy’s breath seized in her lungs. “S-so that means—”

“We can marry whenever we like.”

Ivy grimaced. “Well, not exactly.”

Nick gave her a quizzical look.

“I promised my father I would bring you to speak to him first.”

“Your f-father?”

Ivy nodded slowly. “A courtesy, Nick. Nothing more. I love you, and no one can stop me from marrying the man I love.”

He stood and opened his mouth, but she leaped from the settee and pressed her lips hard against his, stifling any words.

She ignored a brief murmur of protest, easing her hands around his waist and pulling him against her. Her mantle fell to the carpet as his chest, hard and warm through his thin lawn shirt, pressed against her breasts. “It is our wedding day, after all,” she whispered.

A low chuckle welled up from inside him. “That it is,” he said, as he lifted her and carried her up the stairs to his bedchamber.

Who at one time has not envied the happiness of a bride on her wedding day or the groom on his wedding night.

Unknown

Feverish with desire, Ivy frantically tugged at the lacing of Nick’s lawn shirt and just managed to lift it over his head as he unfastened the last tiny pearl button at her back and pushed her gown into a blue silk puddle on the floor.
p. Never had she so urgently wanted anything in her life as she wanted Nick at that moment—and it seemed he needed her just as much. He reached behind her and unfastened her corset as Ivy fumbled with the buttons of his front fall. Balance was sacrificed at that moment and they toppled together in a tangle onto the huge tester bed.

Nick rolled beside her, his fingers opening her chemise, inching it downward until she was spilling out of it. He cupped her, and she felt his breath, sweet with brandy, hot on her throat. His thumb flicked over her nipple, then he gently squeezed it, rolling it between his thumb and index finger. She squirmed against him.

Ivy caught his wrist and tried to stop him, tried to pull him on top of her, but he wouldn’t allow it. He pinned her hands above her head and lowered his mouth to her other nipple, drawing it between his lips. There was a draw, and something lit through her, racing down through her body, between her legs. “Dominic—”

“Nick.”

She bucked against him, but he didn’t stop, and his hand moved over every bit of exposed skin, easing over every contour, making her writhe, before finally dipping under the hem of her chemise and centering on the wet cleft between her legs.

Her free hand caught the waist of his trousers and she felt the last remaining button beneath her fingertips. She fumbled with it until at last she was able to edge it through the buttonhole. The front fall opened, and she felt his hard erection spring free against her hand.

Ivy didn’t know what to do. She’d heard whispers and stories when in Edinburgh, but hearing was very different from doing, especially when she couldn’t see beyond Nick’s head and shoulders.

She curled her fingers around his thickness, feeling its heat in her palm. The heat of his hardness seared her hand. She tried to lean up and look at him there, but Nick pressed down harder upon her.

Since she could not see that part of him, she decided to feel every part of his hard manhood and see with her fingertips.

She ran her fingers along the satiny skin of his length until she reached a round-edged ridge. She caged the ridge with her fingertips and slowly moved her hand upward, until she reached a divot in the plum-shaped head.

She ran her thumb around the tip of him, using the same circular motion as he was doing between her legs, before gripping him and running her hand down to his base and skittering over the soft hair covering the tight balls of flesh she found below.

Nick groaned, and that encouraged her to tighten her grasp around his erection and slide her hand up and down him again, faster and faster each time.

He raised his head from her breast, and in the muted moonlight, she saw him squeeze his eyes shut, his breathing becoming pants. She felt the whole of his body tightening, the same way hers was. “Christ, Ivy.” His voice was ragged and low.

She released him and fisted her hand in his hair, dragging him back to her lips, needing to feel his hot tongue thrusting inside her mouth.

As their lips met, his fingers dipped into her, as his thumb circled the tiny bud at the joining of her folds, making her more and more sensitive to his caresses everywhere else as well.

Her heart was pounding in her ears and between her legs. Her body jerked, and her breath caught in her throat. She arched her back and raised her hips against him, pinning his hand between them.

“Now. Please, Nick, now,” she gasped.

“Not yet.”

She tugged at his shoulder, urging him over her. He obliged, but then slid down lower and opened her legs. Her breathing came faster as she waited for him to enter her. But he didn’t. He lifted one of her legs over his shoulder, then she felt the smoldering wetness of his tongue on the pink pearl at her core.

God, she hadn’t expected this. She felt shamed, but thrilled as he fed upon her most private of places, sucking her, gently flicking her bud while his fingers moved inside her and curled just a bit, caressing a place that made her dizzy with pleasure. She reached down to pull him up again, but she couldn’t reach his shoulder and found her fingers running through his hair, pressing his head harder between her legs as she arched against his fingers’ thrusts.

Her head was spinning, and her body tensed, but she didn’t want it to end this way. She needed to feel him inside her, filling her with his length.

Almost as though he heard her thoughts, he slipped his fingers from inside her and kissed the silken skin of her inner thighs. He lowered her leg and nudged her legs wider, as he knelt between them. Her whole body pulsed with excitement, and gooseflesh swept over her skin.

He leaned over her then, at last, supporting his weight on one hand beside her shoulder, and with the other stroked the head of penis between her wet nether lips. She was writhing against him, needing more, and she dug her heels into the bed and forced herself down, driving his hardness inside of her.

He moaned as the scalding tip of his erection entered her, and he couldn’t endure the wait any more than she could.

He thrust into her, burying himself until his body met her damp curls. Pausing, he looked down at her face with passion-glazed eyes and then bent to kiss her mouth. “Christ, Ivy, you are so beautiful…so passionate. I love you.”

She peered up at him, her eyes welling. “I love you, too.”

Slowly, he began to thrust inside her, nearly drawing out completely before pumping into her again. Ivy grasped his broad shoulder and brought her legs higher, feeling him slam deeper inside her. She moved her legs around his trim waist, trying to lock her ankles to allow him to pound into her harder, deeper still.

A sheen of sweat gleamed upon his back, and he groaned as he thrust into her. Heat spiraled at her core, and just when she thought she’d reached the pinnacle of sensation, he pushed one thigh from his side and leaned up, circling his thumb over the bud between her legs. Molten heat suddenly flooded her body, and she arched her hips up against him, driving him hard inside, as she felt her muscles contract around him, grasping him tight.

Nick moaned with pleasure and arched hard into her.

Reaching up, Ivy set her hands on his shoulders and drew him down to her. He kissed her gently and relaxed his body over hers. “I love you, Ivy.”

Ivy wove her fingers through his hair and kissed his lips. “I love you, my soon-to-be-husband.” She grinned wickedly up at him. “And just think, once we’re married we can do this every night—and morning.”

Nick laid his head next to hers and laughed. “About that,” he began, “do you think it would be acceptable to wait until morning to ask your father for your hand?”

Noon
The Sinclair residence

Before Ivy entered the dining room, she paused in the passage to check her appearance in the large mirror in the entryway. She knew her copper locks were neatly brushed and her rosebud day dress, one of Priscilla’s actually, was perfectly respectable and fashionable as well. It was her complexion she fretted over. Her cheeks specifically. For since last night, they’d seemed to be perpetually flushed.

And so they were now. She scowled at her reflection in the silvered glass until she remembered that brides were supposed to be blushing. At that moment, Ivy convinced herself that her pink cheeks were befitting of a young woman about to married to a dashing gentleman, and so she put it out of her mind, and there it remained for the entirety of the quarter minute it took for her to walk from the passage into the dining room, where her brothers and sister awaited.

“Isobel didn’t blush until after our wedding night.”

Oh dear God.
Sterling, her eldest brother, and his new wife Isobel were sitting at the head of the table.

“You know that’s not true, Sterling,” Isobel said, “Do not mind your brother, Ivy. I admit I blushed every time I thought of him, even before the wedding.”

“Thank you, Isobel,” Ivy said, circling around the table to embrace her sister-in-law and brother. “I spent too much time in the cool air last eve, and my cheeks are…chapped, ’tis all.” She set her hands on her hips. “How is it that you two came to be here on such an auspicious day?”

“Da told us nearly a month ago that you’d be getting married this week and that we should be in attendance,” Sterling told her. “And he was right, wasn’t he?”

“He was, only he didn’t get the name of the groom right.” Grant winked at Ivy.

“He is a handsome fellow, tall and strong too,” Isobel added. “Fits perfectly with the Sinclairs. I am not surprised you accepted him.”

What was that?
Ivy tilted her head and peered at Isobel, who was smearing marmalade on her toasted bread. “You’ve seen him?”

“Oh, yes. He met with your father in the garden early this morning.” Isobel looked around and realized that everyone, except her husband, was staring at her. “You were asleep. I, on the other hand, have still not adapted to Sinclair hours, and I shared tea in the garden with the duke and your Lord Counterton shortly after they concluded the interview.”

Ivy grasped Isobel’s shoulders. “How did they seem? Are you sure Da accepted him, agreed to our marriage?”

“Good heavens, Ivy,” Siusan chided. “Allow Isobel to finish her noon meal, she has to nourish two, you know.”

“Two?” Priscilla came to her feet. “Do you mean there will be a baby soon?”

Sterling could not help but grin then. “Aye. We wanted to wait until after the wedding to tell everyone—only somehow Su seems to have learned of our news.”

Siusan laughed. “No one told me. I simply noticed…a slight change in Isobel’s slim build. I honestly didn’t know for sure, Sterling, until you admitted it.”

Ivy was delighted with the news of a baby, but at this moment she had her own concerns. “Isobel, about Da and Lord Counterton—”

“If ye would like to know about our interview, Ivy, please join me in the parlor.” Her father, wearing his dress kilt, stood leaning on his cane in the doorway of the dining room.

“The wedding will be tonight, as you know, in the Counterton rose garden,” the Duke of Sinclair told Ivy. “It shall be a private ceremony. Only our family, Counterton’s cousin, Mr. Dupré, and his uncle and his wife will be in attendance.”

Mr. Dupré is Lord Counterton’s cousin?
Ivy was flabbergasted.
No wonder there is a resemblance.

“Poplin and Mrs. Wimpole, of course, since it seems that the Counterton staff…is not as well able to handle such a grand occasion.”

To say the least,
Ivy thought,
but they’d probably do no worse than the Sinclair staff.

“Da, please, tell me”—she swallowed hard—“do you support my marriage to Lord Counterton?”

He paused for a long moment. “Aye, but likely not for the reasons ye might expect—that his father and I had been acquainted in our youth or that he has a large estate and a title.”

“No?” Ivy had forgotten that Nick had once told a story that their fathers were acquainted, but at the time Ivy had believed the notion to be only a fabrication of a gifted actor’s lively imagination.

“Nay. I accepted him because he is a good man. He loves ye, and…because yer love for him brought about a change in ye I honestly dinna think possible—ye learned the value of putting others and their needs before those of yerself. Ye came to love someone, not for the things he had that would make ye the envy of others, but for the man, the good man, that he is.”