Nicole Jordan - The Passion

She had to end it now, before she was too late.

"You are wrong," she said, almost pleading. "I don't want passion. I want only to be left alone."

"I don't believe that. I remember the captivating woman you were in our marriage bed. I won't let you forget the passionate lover you were that night."

"Nicholas, please…just… go."

In answer he turned her slowly to face him, his arms at her waist lightly holding her captive, his searching eyes dark and intent. She stood helplessly looking up at him, drowning in his gaze.

"Aurora…" The word was a sensual husk of a whisper.

Then he bent his head.

Aurora gave a soft moan of protest as she pressed her hands against his chest. She didn't want his kiss… didn't want to feel his warm lips moving upon hers, to open to him and take his breath into her mouth. Didn't want to lift her arms and entwine her fingers in his hair, to feel this wild, throbbing hunger that he alone could rouse in her…

His kiss deepened, becoming heated and urgent, while his arms tightened around her. Aurora made, a soft whimpering sound of need. She was keenly aware of his hard body, the rigid evidence of his mounting desire pressing against her. She heard his breath become more ragged as his devouring mouth plundered her own.

Excitement flared through her senses at the promise of the unbearable pleasure he offered. He wanted her. And heaven help her, she wanted him…

At that moment she heard a footfall on the steps leading to the kitchen. Alarm rippled through Aurora, giving her the strength to pull away from his forbidden embrace.

She was safely across the room, her heart thrumming erratically, her body still vibrating with riotous sensations, when Danby appeared.

"Young Lord March is being attended to, my lady," the butler informed her. "Is there anything else you wish?"

Aurora struggled for command of her passion-hazed senses. "Yes, Danby," she managed in a shaky voice. "Will you see Mr… Deverill out? He was just leaving."

Without another glance at Nicholas, she fled.

Watching her, Nick locked his jaw, willing himself not to follow. He sure as hell hadn't wanted to let her go. Yet maybe it was fortunate they had been interrupted, for he might not have stopped kissing Aurora until he was sheathed deep within her. He'd been so blinded with need, he could have taken her right there, in her kitchen.

It was only when he was driving his curricle back to his hotel, however, that Nicholas had time to consider his ravenous craving.

He was hard pressed to explain the power Aurora held over him. He had never met another woman whose touch produced such a blaze of desire in him. What was it about her that made her so damned tempting?

She was beautiful, true. She possessed a spellbinding combination of beauty and wit, intelligence and grace, that he'd rarely found in any other woman. Her resistance to his wooing, too, made her unique among her sex.

Unquestionably, he was driven by the challenge she presented. Not only did his competitive nature compel him to try to win the battle of wills between them, but having her so near, yet untouchable, was a sweet, sexual hell that roused his every primal male instinct.

But what he felt went far deeper than mere competitiveness or lust. Without realizing it, he'd become caught up in desire. The desire to claim her fully as his.

He was playing with fire, he knew, but never before had he been so willing to be burned.

Nick's mouth twisted in a dark smile. His friends and family would be amazed to find him so enamored of a woman – certainly of his own wife. But whether he wanted Aurora so intensely because she'd bewitched him or because she continued to deny him, he was less inclined than ever simply to walk away.

What had begun as a practical resolve to fulfill an obligation to his father and make the best of an unwanted marriage had somehow become a vital need. The more he came to know Aurora, the more certain he was that he wanted her for his wife.

He wasn't wrong about her. She had a wild spirit inside her that longed to be free. Her exquisite ministrations earlier in the park had proven that. Her momentary daring had startled and delighted him, giving him a savage release that had left him temporarily sated.

His triumph had been short-lived, though.

Remembering, Nicholas cursed. To see her retreat back into her self-protective cocoon afterward had infuriated him. He had wanted to shake some sense into her. And when she had spoken so tenderly of her love for her late betrothed, he had wanted to hit something.

Fierce possessiveness flooded Nick at the memory. He was jealous of a dead man. Her idolization of the late, great Geoffrey, Lord March, was enraging. But until she got over her memories of March, she would never be able to move on with her life… or give herself freely to anyone else. To him.

Nick set his jaw grimly. He was accustomed to rescuing damsels in distress, but usually the peril came from a physical threat. This time, however, he would save Aurora from herself.

He would claim her for his wife… and he would make her forget that she had ever loved another man.

He made his intent clear; he was determined to have me, body and soul.

Contrary to Aurora's hopes, young Harry's arrival in London did little to solve her dilemma: how to avoid her persistent, unwanted husband. Rather Harry's visit merely gave Nicholas further pretext for intimacy. He called at her house frequently, ostensibly to entertain Harry and take him to see the sights of London.

Their almost instant camaraderie greatly dismayed Aurora. Nicholas had won over the boy with his tales of ships and seafaring, along with liberal doses of charm. Yet she was reluctant to disappoint her newest young charge by refusing Nicholas entry to her home.

Frequently she was even grateful for his intervention. It was no small task, keeping an energetic ten-year-old occupied. She took Harry on her morning rides in the park, but that hardly scratched the surface of his adventurous itch. He wanted to see the world, beginning with every inch of London.

Fortunately – or unfortunately for convention's sake – Raven befriended him, and the two could often be found racing through the park like wild Indians. Aurora could hardly scold, since she had instigated the morning gallops in the first place.

Even wild gallops, however, could not compete with the entertainments Nicholas offered. Harry came home wide-eyed and excited when they visited Exeter ‘Change to see the tigers and Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, which boasted curiosities from Africa and the Americas. Three days later he suffered a stomachache from eating too much gingerbread when they attended a local fair with conjurers and tumblers and rope dancers.

When Aurora fretted that Nicholas was overindulging the boy, he brushed off her concerns and told her not to worry.

"Of course I worry," she responded. "I am responsible for him."

"I won't allow him to come to any harm, I promise you."

She had to be content with that, but there was no question Nicholas was encouraging Harry to test his wings, or that the boy had contracted a feverish case of hero-worship.

Raven accompanied them to Astley's Royal Amphitheater for a spectacle of acrobatics on horseback. The next day Harry attempted one of the feats of horsemanship and fell off his mount, skinning his knees and bloodying his chin.

Aurora was alarmed, but Nicholas reminded her that skinned knees were a rite of boyhood. When she would have continued protesting, he warned her not to try to rein the boy in too tightly, or he would think she was smothering him as his mother did.

Still, she didn't like it that Nicholas was aiding and abetting Harry's rebellion.

The final straw was Burford's Panorama in Castle Street, which offered murals of, among other things, the naval victories of Admiral Nelson on the Nile. All Harry could talk about afterward was going to sea.

"I think perhaps it's best if you cease taking him to any more entertainments," Aurora told Nicholas during their morning ride the following day.

"Why?"

"Because Harry is an impressionable young boy. I dread to think what wild notions he is picking up from you."

"I would hardly call an exhibit of Egyptian hieroglyphics wild."

"It is not the entertainment but your company that concerns me. You are scarcely the best influence, Nicholas."

"Brandon, please, my love."

Aurora raised her eyes to the sky. "It disturbs me that Harry is becoming so attached to you. I don't like to consider how disappointed he will be when you must leave." Or how she herself would feel. "He sees you as a hero because of all your adventures."

"From all reports, I don't hold a candle to his late brother for adventures. According to Harry, your Geoffrey was a spy."

Aurora shook her head. "Harry is quite mistaken. Geoffrey was the last man who would ever become involved in spying."

"Why do you say so?"

"He was far too intellectual. He always had his nose in a book."

"He sounds deadly dull."

The accusation irked her, yet Aurora found herself averting her gaze in chagrin. She had scarcely thought of Geoffrey in the fortnight since Nicholas's arrival in England.

A sharp ache filled her at the realization, along with a profound surge of guilt. How could she be so disloyal to Geoffrey's memory? She had known him all her life, but she could barely remember him now, his image was so eclipsed by Nicholas's vital presence.