The Captain of All Pleasures (Sutherland Brothers #1) Page 77

“So did I!” She giggled. “It was quite funny when I told Grandmother you knew the truth. That night, she and Chapman paced the floors, wondering what to do, until she hit on an idea.”

“And what was that?”

“ ‘Chapman,’” Nicole grated, imitating her grandmother’s scratchy voice perfectly, “ ‘perhaps we should kill him.’ ”

After five days of travel and five nights of separate rooms in roadside inns, neither Derek nor Nicole was interested in celebrating their nuptials in any way but one. Within minutes after the ceremony, they were back in their room, so quickly that tears lingered in her eyes from Derek’s solemn, serious tone when he promised himself to her. After they’d signed their names together, that fierce, elemental look flashed in his eyes, and they’d all but ignored the congratulatory wishes.

His passion easily ignited her own. As soon as the door to their room at the inn closed, without a word they assailed each other. She grabbed at his clothes, fighting buttons, filling her fists with his shirt, occasionally twisting her arms behind her to help him with her intricately wrought dress.

“To hell with this,” he growled at her resisting clothing, ripping through enough of her bodice to get his lips on her br**sts.

“Derek,” she said his name like a prayer, with the first pull on her nipple.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he murmured, his breath hot against her damp breast, before thoroughly attending to the other. “I can’t believe you’re here. With me.”

“Oh, Derek I want you inside me,” she whimpered. “Now, can we now?”

He groaned low in his throat as his hand dove beneath her dress and slid up her stockings. Running his fingers up her thigh, he grasped the flimsy material barring him and ripped that away as well. She felt his returning hand discover her moist and hot, his fingers seeming to luxuriate in her.

“Please ” she moaned.

Shoving up her skirts, he moved her against the wall and hastily freed himself. Her hand shot out to grip his stiff flesh springing forth, curving around the shaft to pull him to her. Just as she was about to guide him in, he put his hand tight over hers and moved the head up and down against her wetness. Up and down once, twice. She keened his name as ecstasy spiked through her, her eyes flashing open in surprise at her swift response.

He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and plunged into her before she’d even stopped convulsing. “You drive me mad,” he ground out as he clenched her hips. “For months I ached for you,” he rasped against her lips.

Once more she called his name; as he slammed into her again and again, she never took the ease of a climax, only continued straining toward something even more consuming.

Each time he sank into her, she flew closer too intense, nearing pain. She tried to hold on. Tried to see to his pleasure with clasping, frantic hands. In that final instant when he’d grown too large inside her, when the low rumbling broke from his throat, she shattered, feeling only rapture and Derek pouring hotly into her.

Chapter 29

Though they’d spent three days in Scotland, in bed, neither Derek nor Nicole wanted to leave the shelter of their room and return to reality. Outside, rain spilled down in sheets, but inside they were warm, basking in firelight and a haze of contentment.

“Being a husband,” Derek said as he lazily skimmed the backs of his fingers up her thighs, “is quite easy.”

“You think so?” she sighed. She was languid, relaxed as she hadn’t been since her last time in his bed. She’d needed him, needed what only he could give her. She lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, eating grapes from his hand.

“With the right wife,” he said with a grin. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what this”—he ran a finger up her cle**age—“or this”—he palmed her uncovered derriere—“is doing to your ancient husband?”

She looked down to see his thick erection tenting the sheet, and her lips curved. She’d take care of that shortly .

During the afternoon, in the time they weren’t making love, they’d enjoyed a delicious lunch of medallions of veal sent up to their room in the quaint inn. Now they sprawled on the bed absently snacking on fruit and, she imagined, reviving for the rest of the night.

“I think we should go to Italy for our honeymoon. Take a couple of months—”

“Months?” She sucked another grape from his fingers. “You know I need to be back to help Father and Maria.”

He frowned. “No, I didn’t know that,” he said, and dropped his hand. “Nicole, your father made his own troubles—he shouldn’t look to you to bail him out.”

“He’s not.” She sat up and pulled a cover over her. “He would never take a dime from me. I want to help.”

“You know that by helping him, you’re hurting me?” he asked her, a peculiar look on his face.

She supposed they were about to have their first married fight. Just days after the ceremony.

“What do you think you can do to help him?” he asked as he set the tray of food on the bed table. “You told me he has Maria involved now.”

“They’ll need someone in England. I can handle the correspondence here—”

“You mean handle the creditors. You are a countess now, and if you think I’ll let my wife wrangle with a pack of those bastards, you are insane. Much less creditors bent on liquidating my main competition.”

“I can’t believe you’d say that.” She shot him a hurt look before she jumped from the bed and slid into a shift.

He leaned forward. She’d forgotten how intimidating he could appear. In a softer, deceptively reasonable tone, he explained, “Nicole, you can’t work with him because very shortly he’ll have nothing to work with.”

She almost blurted out that they’d gotten new, more favorable financing, but she wouldn’t betray her father. She wanted to shock the world, and her disbelieving husband, when Lassiter Shipping came back stronger than ever.

“You are no longer involved with that line,” he said, his jaw tight. “Period. I would have expected a little more bloody loyalty from my wife . Let your father figure his way out of this.”

“Why can’t you compromise? We can find a way around most of the direct competition—”

“Why should I compromise?” he snapped. He leapt up as well and began stabbing his legs into his trousers. “You need to decide where your loyalties lie. Every second you help him is time in which you neglect me.”

“So this is about more than the companies, isn’t it? You want my loyalty and think I can’t give it to you and him both.” The thought that she’d deliberately led Derek to believe her father was without money fluttered in her mind. When he began to say more, she interrupted, “Don’t tell me to choose. You do not want me to do that right now.”

His eyes bored into hers, his face tense.

“Don’t ask me to choose between you, who is being overbearing and unreasonable, and my father and Maria, who were there to pick me up when you abandoned me.” A tear slid down her cheek.