Nicole Jordan (50 page)

“The devil I didn’t. You led me on a frustrating chase for months. And when I thought you still loved that bastard…I wanted to slay him with my bare hands.”

Shaking her head, she met her husband’s gaze steadily. “My other love died a long time ago, Thorne. And even then it was more girlish infatuation than true love. It was nothing like what I feel for you.”

“Perhaps so, but to reassure me, you’ll need to declare your undying love for me every day for the rest of our lives.”

Diana smiled. “I think I could manage that.”

His hand moved to cover her breast, his warm palm stroking. But then he suddenly paused, shutting his eyes and shuddering, as if remembering something dire. “To think how close we came to never finding each other. Thank God for your uncle. I’ll always be eternally grateful to him for ending your elopement.”

“So will I.”

He gave her a soul-stopping smile, before his mouth turned wry. “And I suppose I owe my father a debt of thanks as well, damn his infernal interfering. Had he not been so adamant about seeing me wed, I would still be searching for you.” Thorne’s expression turned fervent as he bent to kiss her. “I’ve been waiting half my lifetime for you, Diana.”

She had been waiting her entire life for him, she thought dreamily as she surrendered to the hungry plundering of his mouth. Thorne was every wonderful thing she had ever wanted—protector, lover, husband….

Fierce joy blazed through her as he settled his strong, virile body over hers. She loved him so much, she trembled with it. When he filled his hands with her breasts and spread her thighs with his own, she opened fully to him, welcoming him with all the yearning inside her.

Their bodies joined, he surged heavily into her, moving in an exquisite, relentless cadence, letting her know the pounding rhythm of his heartbeat.

Passion and pleasure, need and desire, all merged into one, the lines between giving and receiving blurring and melding, their powerful feelings of love as unbreakable as the marriage vows that now bound them together for life.

She shattered with him stroking deeply inside her, and then he came in his own fierce explosion, filling her with his seed as she wept soft, mindless cries of rapture.

Afterward Thorne lay with Diana in his arms, her cheek pressed over his heart, her dark hair spilling like a mantle over his skin. He felt utterly sated and content. Every time he made love to her, he felt as if he splintered in a thousand pieces, but then each and every time, she made him whole again.

Completeness.
That was what he had missed all his life. He’d enjoyed a full, challenging existence before Diana, but loving her had brought brand-new meaning to the word
living.
To the word
fulfillment.
She was indeed his match, body and heart and soul.

She brought him more joy and contentment than he’d ever known, and he wanted it to last forever.

Tenderly Thorne pressed his lips against her hair and shut his eyes with a sigh. “My lovely wife…” he murmured, savoring the sweetness of it.

He must have dozed, but some subconscious part of him missed her warmth, for he gradually became aware that Diana was no longer lying in his arms.

When he opened his eyes, it was to find her sitting up in bed, her hair swirling around her bare breasts, candlelight glowing over her pale skin. Her vibrant loveliness not only made him ache, but instantly aroused him again.

Shifting his gaze lower, Thorne realized that she held a sketch pad in her lap and a pencil in her hand. Her teeth were worrying her lower lip while she frowned in concentration as she drew.

When her attention remained wholly focused on her art, he reached out to touch her bare hip. “What are you doing, love?”

Her frown disappearing, she turned her head to gaze down at him. “A preliminary sketch for a new portrait of you. I want to capture the look.”

“What look?”

“Here, see for yourself.”

Diana passed the pad to him.

Thorne pushed himself up on one elbow to study it. The sketch showed him fully nude, his hair windblown like many of her others. But his expression was different this time. She had caught a look of love and passion and joy in his eyes.

He nodded slowly in approval. “You’ve captured exactly how I feel about our marriage.”

“It’s how I feel, as well.”

“I know,” he said, his lips curving in a very male smile. “This is the same expression I see on your face every time you look at me.”

“Is it?” Diana asked curiously.

“Exactly.” Studying the sketch again, he frowned. “But there is one major problem.”

“What problem?”

“This rendering is solely of me. I look lonely there all by myself. You should be in this sketch with me.”

Her mouth quirked with laughter as she held out her hand. “Very well, let me have it.”

“Later, love.” Thorne tossed the pad on the floor and drew Diana down to him for another passionate kiss. “Your art can wait, but I cannot.”

By Nicole Jordan

Paradise Series:

MASTER OF TEMPTATION

LORD OF SEDUCTION

Notorious Series:

THE SEDUCTION

THE PASSION

DESIRE

ECSTASY

THE PRINCE OF PLEASURE

Other Novels:

THE LOVER

“I
must warn you,” she said, a wry smile curving her lips, “attempts to intimidate me usually have precisely the opposite effect. You won’t frighten me away.”

Thorne realized he was beginning to enjoy himself. Certainly he no longer wanted to drive her away. Instead he wondered if he could persuade her to stay. “In that case, you are welcome to join me. But you have on far too many clothes. You would be far more comfortable without your gown.”

Her eyes widened at his brazen suggestion. He’d often been accused of having a wicked sense of humor, yet suddenly she was no longer amused. She lifted her chin again, eyeing him coolly.

The directness in her gaze, in her stance, was challenge incarnate. And he could never resist a challenge. Especially not from a woman so alluring as this one.

He took the final step toward her, so their bodies almost touched. It startled him, how badly he wanted her. He couldn’t remember ever being this aroused this swiftly….

Please read on for a sneak peek at
Trey Deverill’s story, the next breathtaking volume in
Nicole Jordan’s Paradise series.
Coming in Summer 2005.

LONDON

APRIL 1811

H
er first
sight of the wicked, dashing adventurer Trey Deverill startled Antonia Maitland immensely, for he was unmistakably, breathtakingly nude.

Seeing his unclothed body was purely accidental, of course.

Glad to be home from her select boarding academy for a spring holiday, Antonia handed her bonnet and gloves over to the waiting butler and turned toward the map room, where her father oversaw his vast shipping empire. She was eager to see him for the first time in over a month.

“I believe you will find Mr. Maitland upstairs, Miss Maitland,” the butler intoned. “Possibly in the gallery.”

“Thank you,” she replied, knowing her father must be communing with the portrait of his beloved late wife.

Antonia ran up the wide, sweeping staircase and hurried along the elegant east wing of the mansion. Ten years ago, shortly before her mother’s unexpected death in childbirth, Samuel Maitland had spared no expense to build the grand residence in a newly fashionable district of London just south of Mayfair. But his favorite room was the portrait gallery, where he kept his wife’s memory alive.

Antonia’s current favorite room was the luxurious, newfangled bathing chamber, located at the far end of the corridor. When she saw her father’s valet exit the room and disappear around the corner, she almost sighed in anticipation of a hot bath. Upon reaching the corridor’s end, she saw that the door had been left partway open. But when absently she glanced inside, she stopped short.

A man had just stepped from the large oval copper tub.

A sleekly muscular, powerfully built man.

A shockingly nude man.

She could see the side of his tall form—his bronzed back and taut buttocks, his lean hips and long sinewed legs, all streaming with water. Suddenly breathless, she stood riveted at the sight of his body: hard muscled, vital, beautiful, except for the disfiguring scars on his torso….

As if sensing her presence, he lifted his head alertly and swung toward her, giving her a fuller view of his loins.

“Oh, my…” Antonia murmured, startled and fascinated at the same time.

Swiftly she jerked her eyes away from that forbidden masculine territory, only to have her gaze roam helplessly back up his body. In all of her sixteen years she had never seen anything so stunning as this man. Or magnificent. Nor had she experienced such a purely, primal feminine reaction.

Heat flooded her skin, and she felt a sudden, shocking warmth between her thighs.

When she managed to drag her gaze higher, she realized that his face was as sinfully handsome as the rest of him. But it was more his striking, sea-green eyes beneath slashing brows that gave him such a bold and wicked appeal.

When those clear green eyes locked with hers, Antonia felt fresh heat sear along all her nerve endings.

He reached for a towel to cover himself and draped the linen around his lean hips. “I beg your pardon.”

Realizing she had been staring witlessly, she blushed to the roots of her dark red hair and stammered a reply. “No—It was entirely my fault—I should not be here….”

“Miss Maitland, I presume?”

“Yes…. Who are you?”

At her bluntness, a crooked smile flashed across his mouth. “Trey Deverill,” he replied to her question, watching her expression for a reaction.

She gave him one; her eyebrows shot up as she recognized the name. She’d heard tales of the notorious Trey Deverill over the years—from various shipping merchants and sea captains, and from her father as well. Deverill was an adventurer and explorer, renowned in particular for battling pirates on the high seas.

She had often imagined what he was like, but given his celebrated reputation, he was younger than she’d expected. And in the flesh, he was far more…
vital
than her fantasies.

Deploring the direction her mind was taking, Antonia cleared her throat to compose herself and spoke, hoping to sound more mature than a green schoolgirl. “Forgive me for my rudeness, Mr. Deverill. It was merely a shock to find you…like this. I am not normally so easily flustered.”

“Understandable under the circumstances,” he observed, amusement glinting in his remarkable eyes.

He, on the other hand, seemed not the least embarrassed, she noted. Or inhibited. No doubt he was fully aware of the effect he had on females. On
her
. He stood at his ease, his head cocked to one side, contemplating her.

Or perhaps he was merely waiting politely for her to cease gawking and leave.

“Would you oblige me by shutting the door?” he finally said.

“Yes…certainly.” Coming to her senses at last, Antonia reached forward for the door handle.

“Oh, and Miss Maitland?”

She tensed, wondering what he meant to say. “Yes?”

“I don’t think we should mention this unfortunate encounter to your father. He would skin me alive for compromising you.”

Her blush only heightened, if that was possible. “Believe me, sir, I have no intention of mentioning this to
anyone
, most especially my father.”

Firmly shutting the door, Antonia hurried away to resume her interrupted search for her father, determined to try to forget the decidedly scandalous encounter with the exciting adventurer.

Yet as she fled, Antonia knew without a doubt that the wicked, breathtaking image of Trey Deverill’s body would be indelibly etched in her memory forever.

LONDON

JUNE 1815

With a start, Antonia awakened from a dream, her skin burning, her body shivering with longing. In the dim light of early morning, she lay in bed, tangled in her sheets, aching for the elusive fulfillment that had once again drifted just out of reach.

Giving a sigh of frustration, Antonia rolled onto her back to stare up at the canopy overhead. The dream always ended the same way—with a disappointing emptiness that left her aching and unfulfilled.

As a girl she’d had lovely dreams of a dashing pirate who carried her off on a glorious adventure. Then she’d met Deverill and tasted his stunning kiss. From that point on, he had become the sole focus of her dreams. For four years now she’d imagined him making love to her, sweeping her to a world of dark desire and searing pleasure.

Yet she was only tormenting herself by dwelling on him this way. And now that Deverill had returned to London in the flesh, it was imperative that she quell her wanton imaginings, or she would never be able to again look him in the eye.

With another sigh, this one of self-disgust, Antonia threw off the covers and rose to dress for her usual morning ride.

She was still feeling restless and out of sorts by the time she left the house, although the bright, sunny summer morning raised her spirits a little as she descended the front steps of the elegant mansion. Her horse and groom awaited her in the drive, but her thoughts were distracted enough that she noticed nothing else until she came face-to-face with the very object of her wicked fantasies.

Antonia halted abruptly, her eyes widening. With complete nonchalance, Trey Deverill leaned against the stone-and-ironwork livery post, watching her, his arms folded over his broad chest, one highly polished boot crossed over the other. He was dressed for riding in a tailored, bottle-green coat that reflected the green in his eyes, and he wore a tall beaver hat over his thick, unruly hair that seemed to tame his rakish good looks the slightest degree.