To Tempt a Scandalous Lord by Liana De la Rosa

Chapter Nineteen

Finally.

It was the only coherent word in Niall’s mind as he kissed his wife. Touched his wife. Tasted his wife. After the tense, sexually frustrating weeks of circling each other like pugilists in a close bout, they had finally allowed their attraction to overrule the animosity that burned between them.

Alicia was just so damn lovely, and completely comfortable in her own skin. She did not shy away from his caresses. She leaned into his kisses, silently begging for more. Niall had not meant to sample the delights between her thighs so soon, but her eager, passionate responses had been an aphrodisiac he had been unable to deny himself.

He had to be patient, though.

Alicia might not be a blushing virgin, but it didn’t mean he could take her hard and fast like his cock wanted. Instead, she deserved to be worshipped, and he was determined to be her most devoted acolyte.

Niall stroked the hair from her face and studied her. For all her confidence, the blush that swept over her silky skin told him she was still nervous. Well, so was he. Everything about their relationship had been fraught with discord, and he wanted their first time together to be a new start.

Trailing his fingertips down the valley between her breasts, Niall smiled when her breath hitched. “How responsive you are. Do you like it when I touch you, dearest wife?”

Alicia licked her lips, her gaze unfocused. Before she could respond, he brushed the back of his knuckles over one puckered nipple. A sharp gasp escaped her mouth, and her gaze turned needy. “Can’t you tell I do? Please don’t stop.”

“Stop?” Niall turned his attention to the opposite nipple, pinching it between his thumb and pointer finger. “So you don’t want me to stop doing this?” he asked, as he ran his thumb over the tip.

Her back arched off the bed, a moan slipping from her lips. “No. Please, Niall. I need more.”

“More, you say?” He couldn’t contain the chuckle bubbling up his throat. “Would you consider this more?” he asked, leaning down to drag his tongue over one sensitive tip.

“Yes,” she hissed, sinking her fingers into his hair. “Again.”

“So demanding,” Niall scolded, but obediently licked it again before he sucked the tip into his mouth.

He lavished attentions on her pretty breasts, praising their beauty as he nipped and worried her flesh. When Alicia was writhing under him, distracted by his ministrations, Niall trailed a hand lightly down her belly to the juncture of her thighs. When he ran one finger along her cleft, she froze, like a bow pulled taut.

“Aww, hello my lovely friend,” Niall murmured, his gaze glued to her face, intent on her every reaction.

Her eyelashes fluttered closed as he rubbed his finger against her sensitive flesh, her little pants of breath coasting across his cheek. Niall bit back his own groan when that telltale flush turned her skin rosy, and as his finger continued to stroke her, he leaned down and sucked hard on her nipple.

Alicia’s shriek echoed off the chamber walls, and he allowed himself a split second of satisfaction before he acknowledged the pain in his throbbing cock. Bringing himself over her sated body, he gripped himself in hand, and dragged his cock against her wet, hot slit. Alicia choked a sound in the back of her throat as her hands gripped his hips, pulling him closer.

“Please, Niall,” she bit out, her brown eyes blazing, “I need you. Now.”

That was all he needed to hear. Niall stroked his cock down her wet heat once more, and then thrust deep, swallowing her cry of pleasure with a scorching kiss.

Despite his desire to go slow, to be gentle, Niall had to move. Hitching her leg over his hip, he pulled out only to sink deep again, his thrusts inching her up the bed. Her arms linked about his shoulders, holding him to her with nails sunk deep.

“That’s it, darling,” he whispered when she tilted her hips up to meet his. “Take me deeper. I want all of you.”

Alicia threw her head back at his words, the gravelly, desperate note in his voice, the needy way he clutched her hips as he thrust into her causing tears to build behind her eyelids. And when he nibbled along her chin and then bit down on her earlobe, she choked a cry as she tensed, bolts of pleasure streaking from where they were joined across her skin. Niall groaned into her neck before it became an incoherent stream of whispered praises he pressed into her neck, cheeks, and lips with hungry kisses as he found his release deep inside her.

Rolling to the side, Niall threw an arm over his head as his chest heaved with each ragged breath. Glancing at his wife, he spied Alicia under a cascade of her blond hair, her eyes closed, and a dreamy sort of smile hovering over her panting mouth.

Niall turned to his side and propped himself up on his elbow. Giving in to the urge, he leaned down to kiss her, running his tongue along her bottom lip, desperate to taste that smile.

“I hope you are satisfied.”

“Very. It was everything I hoped our coupling would be,” Alicia replied, opening one single eye and closing it again. “Were you? Satisfied?”

“No.”

Alicia’s dark eyes flew open, disbelief and hurt visible in their depths.

“What we just shared was much more than satisfying. It was…” He paused, his gaze darting about as he tried to think of a word adequate enough to explain how fulfilling sex with her was. “It was…transcendent.”

Niall wasn’t sure what her response would be to his revelation, but it was not the snort and explosion of giggles he received. Alicia put a hand to her mouth to try to stop her laughs, but such measures were pointless.

“I’m sorry,” she said a moment later, wiping moisture from under her eyes. “I was not trying to be rude, but you can be so…so much sometimes. I’ve heard the rumors, you know. Of your affairs with other women. Women who are more worldly, more sultry than I could ever hope to be. Not that I want to be, mind you. I’m perfectly happy with who I am, but I would never think to describe a physical coupling with me as transcendent.”

“But that’s how I described it, and it wasn’t hyperbole.”

Alicia stared at him for a long moment. “Are you sure?”

He clutched at his chest dramatically. “You wound me, my dear.”

She smacked his hand. “You’re ridiculous.”

Reaching for her, Niall clenched his jaw when her lovely breasts met his chest. Grasping her leg under the knee, he dragged it over his hip. “Perhaps being with you, in this bed, has addled my brains.”

Raking her nails through the hair on his chest, Alicia arched a brow. “Now that I can believe. It’s not like cholera hadn’t already done a number on your poor body.”

“I am perfectly hale,” he growled, grinding himself against the apex of her thighs. “Allow me to show you.”

Niall didn’t give her a chance to respond before he claimed her mouth with his own.

…

Sometime later, delicious tingles still ran up and down Alicia’s body from their last round of lovemaking. Niall had been a virtuoso, her body his instrument, and she was certain it would still hum for him, for his touch, for hours to come.

They lay facing each other, the sheets tangled around their waists, comfortable in this newfound closeness.

Reaching up, Niall brushed an errant curl from her face. “Tired?”

“Yes,” she breathed, turning to nip at his fingers when they danced down her cheek. “But happy.”

A slow, devastating smile stretched across his face. “I’m happy, too.”

An intimate silence descended upon them, and Alicia relaxed into the moment. Gone was the tension that had ebbed like a tight string between them since their wedding, and her heart rejoiced that she could finally enjoy time with her new husband.

“Tell me about your family?”

Alicia shifted, suddenly unsettled. “You want to know about my family?”

“Of course. You know my sisters. My brothers by marriage. I want to know about you, too. About your childhood. I want to know my wife.” Niall paused, then said, “You mentioned experiencing illness when you were young…”

“Oh,” she mumbled dumbly.

Gone was the dreamy feeling that had lulled her into a restful state. Her mind raced, shying away from the memories of that time. Rolling to her back, she focused on the coffered ceiling in an attempt to calm herself.

“I…I don’t know where to begin.”

Niall’s hand settled on her waist and pulled her close, tucking her back against his broad chest. His scent enveloped her, settling her nerves. With his heat surrounding her, Alicia sighed and relaxed once more.

She swallowed convulsively for a long moment. “I grew up in Westmorland, near Grasmere. I was my parents’ only child until I was seven and my mother delivered a healthy baby boy. He was named Edward, and he was the sweetest, most beautiful baby you ever did see. We all doted on him, but especially my mother and father.”

Alicia paused to shudder out a breath, and Niall pressed a kiss to her hair.

“I had a dear friend who lived at the vicarage in town. Mary had a merry laugh, and everyone liked her because she was kind and funny and friendly. We learned from one of my mother’s friends that Mary and her older sister were both dreadfully ill. It was believed they had cholera.” She sighed. “They had housed a missionary who had recently returned from service in India. We learned that a cholera outbreak had hit the Ganges Delta earlier in the year.”

Niall grasped her hand, and rested their linked palms on her stomach. It gave her the confidence to continue. “My parents forbade me to visit her, but when I learned Mary’s sister had died and it appeared she would as well, I couldn’t stay away. I slipped away one afternoon and was able to spend Mary’s last moments with her before she died. I’m so glad I was able to say goodbye. Unfortunately, I began to feel ill the next day.”

“Oh, Alicia,” Niall murmured, holding her closer.

“I don’t remember much about the next week or so, but I do recall glimpses of my worried parents flitting about me. When I had finally recovered enough to be coherent, I learned the awful truth that not only had Edward contracted it, but so had my mother. Neither survived.”

More than two decades had passed since her mother and Edward had been buried in the little cemetery behind the church, but Alicia could still picture their fresh graves. She still relived the weeks she spent gathering wildflowers to adorn the barren earth of their final resting places.

“That’s how you knew what Edith had when she began to grow ill, isn’t it?” Niall said, his voice muffled by her hair.

She nodded. “As soon as I learned of her symptoms, I knew.”

“And it’s because of your quick thinking that the other children were not infected.” Niall nuzzled into the crook of her neck. “You’re why I’m still here.”

Turning in his embrace, she pressed a kiss to his chin. “Don’t make me regret my decision to nurse you.”

Niall claimed her mouth in a fervent kiss, dispelling the dark memories and all the hurt that came with them. It was sometime later that they finally pulled apart.

“What happened to your father?” He stroked a thumb across the back of her neck. “He didn’t get sick, too, did he?”

“He didn’t…but he was never the same.” Alicia inhaled. “I don’t think I existed to him afterward. He rarely spoke to me, content to let my governess and the staff tend to my needs. When he died, he left everything to a cousin, and provided no settlement for me.”

An awful ringing sounded in her ears. It had been a dozen years since her father’s death, and her memory of that awful time still stole her breath. Thus it took her several moments to realize Niall had grown still. When he pulled back, his gaze was confused.

“Are you saying he left you with nothing?”

Alicia nodded wordlessly.

“Your father died and left you with no way to care for yourself?”

She nodded again.

“How old were you?” he demanded.

“I was just shy of eight and ten.”

Niall stared at her for a long moment, his eyes a brewing thunderstorm. “I assume he thought leaving you alone and penniless in the world when you were fresh from the schoolroom was a just punishment. Your father was a fiend.”

Alicia didn’t know what to say. She had long forgiven her father for his cruelty, but hearing Niall angry and indignant on her behalf made her want to cry anew.

“Is that how you came to marry Lindsay?” he bit out, unaware of her emotional struggles.

Swallowing down the tears, she nodded. “He and my father had known each other, but were not necessarily friends. Lindsay was traveling from his estate in Scotland and stopped for the night in the village when he learned of my father’s death. And of my plight. He found me at the vicarage and offered to marry me.”

Even in the dim light, Alicia could see his brows knit together. “Just like that? He barely knew you.”

“But he knew I was desperate for help.” She brushed a tear off her cheek. “I think Lindsay was lonely. He’d been married twice before. His first wife died in childbirth when they were quite young, and his second died from a wasting disease. I represented companionship. I may have been some twenty-five years his junior, but it didn’t seem to bother him. And I was certainly not in a position to be bothered by the fact that he was so much older than me.”

“Of course not.” Niall stroked a hand along her cheek and let his fingers trail down to her jaw, which he cradled tenderly. “But he was kind to you, yes?”

Her smile trembled. “He was. I was never terribly fond of Lindsay, but he made me feel safe. I had never felt more hopeless, more alone, than I did in the days after my father’s death. Safety and security became paramount.”

“And then you were forced to marry me, and I couldn’t even manage to be kind to you. I was reserved and distant.” Niall pressed a kiss to her forehead and kept his mouth there, his soft breath heating her skin. “I’m so very sorry.”

Alicia nibbled on her lip, desperate to preserve the moment. “And I’m very sorry that we found ourselves married before we allowed fate the opportunity to determine if we should be.”

“Hush,” he murmured against her skin. “Truth be told, I was already battling an infatuation with you when the mishap occurred.”

Alicia groaned, dropping her head to his chest. “Did you truly think I considered you a villain? Oh my dear, I have long considered you the exact opposite.”

Grasping her chin, Niall tilted her face until her gaze met his. “Then show me exactly what you think of me.”

Looping her arms around his neck, Alicia pulled his head down until his face was scant inches from hers. “Gladly.”

Then she pressed her lips to his, and forced herself not to think of all the things she left unsaid, the secrets she still kept, and indulged in this moment of intimacy with this man she’d come to love.