Nicole Jordan - The Passion

But Aurora stood her ground. "I feel sorry for you, Father. I truly do. I thought you had more pride. I never would have expected you to sink to this pathetic level."

"How dare you…" Belying his drunkenness, Eversley cursed and lunged for her, his hand poised to strike.

Nicholas moved like lightning. In an instant, he hauled the duke up by his cravat, spun him around, twisted his arm behind his back, then forced him forward till his face was mashed against the far wall.

Eversley gave a strangled cry of pain.

Nicholas's voice was low and harsh in response. "I've been itching to do this ever since I heard what a bullying brute you are."

"Get your… damned hands… off me!" Eversley exclaimed, gasping for breath.

"What? You don't like getting a taste of your own medicine?"

"Damn you… I will have you horsewhipped! I will have you arrested… for assaulting a peer."

"You are welcome to try. But I'm giving you fair warning. If you ever lay a finger on your daughter, I'll slit your gullet. You harm so much as a hair of hers, and I'll hunt you down like the scum you are. You won't live to see your next sunrise. Do I make myself clear?"

Weakly the duke nodded, but Nicholas still wasn't satisfied.

"Keep out of her life, do you understand me? I don't want to hear that you've spoken even a whisper against her."

"Yes! All right!" He nearly sank to his knees when Nicholas released his savage grip.

Aurora had watched the exchange with her heart pounding, forcing herself not to intervene. When her father's malevolent glance found her, she lifted her chin and returned his gaze, dry eyed. She deplored violence, yet she couldn't be sorry for this clash. The duke had finally met his match – someone who couldn't be intimidated or made to cower in fear from his rages. Nicholas wasn't terrified in the least by his threats.

Nicholas turned then and offered her his arm, and she went willingly. Neither of them spoke as he escorted her from the house and outside to the waiting carriage.

Instead of riding, he tied his horse to the rear and joined her inside, yet Aurora scarcely noticed. As the coach drew away, she stared unseeingly out the window at the fading view of her home.

She was still trembling, but her strongest emotion was a vast feeling of release. She was free of her father, after years of living under his oppressive thumb. She had broken his hateful hold over her. She couldn't help him, she finally acknowledged. No longer was she constrained by filial duty; she needn't feel any responsibility toward him at all. With his violent repudiation of her, he had relinquished any right even to her compassion.

Surprisingly she felt no guilt, only a deep sadness that it had to end this way, with the severing of blood ties.

It was a few moments before she realized that Nicholas was watching her with a hooded gaze.

"You are well rid of him," he said finally.

"Yes." She shook her head, amazed that she had endured his tyranny for so long. "All my life he has been like a shadow hovering over me… dark and menacing. He made my life a misery… He was always so hateful, so violent."

Nicholas's dark gaze intensified, yet held a touch of wariness. "I regret you had to witness that, but sometimes a bully can be stopped only by force."

"Perhaps so." She glanced down at Nicholas's hands. He had strong, beautiful hands, capable of violence and yet… Not all men were angry and brutal as her father was.

She gave him a fragile smile. "Thank you for what you did. I might not have found the courage to break free of him if not for you."

Nicholas felt her soft smile curl inside him and wanted to shout in triumph. She had dealt with one invidious relationship in her past. Now what remained was the ghost of her former love.

At the thought, Nick set his jaw. It would be far more difficult to free Aurora from that powerful influence. But he was determined to succeed. He would make her feel the same love for him that she once had harbored for her dead love. She would be his wife in every way.

The trouble was, he had only two weeks in which to do it.

They arrived well after dark at an elegant mansion hidden in a dense beechwood forest of the Chiltern Hills. At school, Aurora had heard whispered rumors about the pleasure houses wicked noblemen kept tucked away for their sinful purposes, but she had never envisioned anything quite so decadent. The chateau of honey-colored stone more closely resembled a miniature palace than an English manor, while the richly appointed interior had a distinctly exotic cast, with its tapestries and statuary and portraits of nudes.

They were greeted by a small staff and shown to separate rooms. Aurora found herself in a scented, dimly lit chamber hung with silks and brilliant paintings.

A low, wide bed stood against one wall, scattered with tasseled cushions in the Eastern manner. Near the divan, a table was set for a late supper. Along the opposite wall, marble arches led to a walled courtyard paved with brightly colored tiles.

Lured by the quiet splash of a fountain, she went to stand beneath one of the arches, staring out at the dark night. She could almost imagine herself stepping into Desiree's journal, a prisoner in the sandalwood splendor of a palace harem.

But she was no prisoner, Aurora reminded herself. Desiree had been enslaved and carried off to a strange land as a concubine, while she was here of her own free will. And yet she feared that like Desiree, she would be vulnerable to her master's exotic temptations and sweet seduction.

She sensed Nicholas before she heard his soft footfall. Wordlessly he slipped his arms around her from behind and drew her body back against his. Aurora sighed with pleasure at his warmth, his hardness. He was already hotly aroused, and yet they had barely touched. She shivered with anticipation of the night to come.

For a moment they simply stood there together in the hushed silence. She could hear the beating of her heart, feel the strong beat of his.

"Regrets?" he murmured finally against her ear.

He was asking if she was sorry to be here with him. She wasn't. She had qualms, but no regrets. The danger was very real, Aurora knew. It would require all the willpower she possessed to shield her heart from this powerful, vital man and the emotional firestorm he kindled inside her. Yet his promise of paradise was one no flesh-and-blood woman could ever refuse.

"No, no regrets."

"Good," Nicholas said softly.

Somewhere in the darkness came the musical trill of a nightingale.

"Then I have something to ask of you, sweetheart," he added quietly. "I want to renew the pact we made on our wedding night. For these next two weeks we live only for the present. While we're here, we have no past, no future, no discord… no inhibitions. We are lovers, simply that. This will be a time of forgetting, of sharing, of exploring. We can indulge in any fantasy we wish."

Aurora shut her eyes at the vision of heaven he offered. For these next two weeks, she could abandon herself in his arms, could completely indulge her passion for Nicholas. Perhaps then she could appease the hunger that was a constant ache inside her.

And then he would leave her, and her life would finally be at peace.

"Will you do that for me?" he prompted, his lips nuzzling her ear.

"Yes." She couldn't deny him anything he asked; she couldn't deny herself. She needed his kisses, his embrace, his passion. Needed them desperately…

Murmuring his name, Aurora turned in his arms, seeking his mouth. Nicholas was wrong, though. This would not be a time of forgetting, but of remembering.

She had to store up memories of him to cherish after he was gone. Enough memories to last a lifetime.

He led me on an odyssey, into the fiery heart of passion.

His mouth was magical, his sensual heat creating a storm of sensation within Aurora. She felt want, yearning, need all rioting through her as they undressed each other with a feverish urgency. She was on fire, she was soaring, she was falling…

No, not falling. Nicholas had swept her up in his arms, his hot mouth still drinking deeply of hers. He carried her inside to the low couch, where he followed her down amid the silk cushions. She wrapped her arms around him, hot and feverish, wanting him desperately -

She barely heard the soft, intrusive rap on the door, but Nicholas gave a sudden shudder, as if striving for control.

"Wait, angel…" He took a deep breath and tried to untangle himself from her. "That will be supper. I asked that it be served here."

Reluctantly Aurora released him, missing his warmth already. He stood up fluidly, unfolding his nude body in a movement that was purely sensual, and with a final heated glance at her, let the gauzy bed curtain fall to conceal the divan where she lay.

Aurora drew the silk sheet up to cover her nakedness and waited impatiently. She could hear Nicholas admitting the servants and ordering the trays to be set on the table. Then the door shut quietly, leaving a hushed silence. A moment later Nicholas drew the curtain aside.

Aurora could feel her heartbeat quicken as she took in the sight of his magnificent body.

"Are you hungry?" he murmured.

"No… Yes… for you," she answered almost shyly.

His dark eyes met hers, shadowed flame. "You can satisfy your appetite, love, for as long as you wish."