Page 72 of A Scandal at Stonecliffe

Scooting back a little onto his legs, Verity unbuttoned his breeches, freeing him at last. “My goodness,” she made a face of amused surprise. “Eager, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” he told her through gritted teeth.

She gave him her seductress smile again, her eyes gleaming, as she grazed her fingernails along his shaft. At his choked noise, she laughed softly and bent to kiss the soft skin of his stomach, her tongue making tiny swirls across it.

Stripping his breeches down his legs, Verity journeyed over his legs and abdomen, tasting and teasing, her touch so light it made him shiver, then stroking him with a firm hand or her agile tongue.

Nathan groaned, his fingers digging into her thighs. “You’ll drive me mad.”

“Mmm. You know I always like to win.”

“Then I yield.” Sweat bedewed his brow, and his entire body felt aflame. “I have to be inside you.”

Verity’s eyes were molten gold as she moved forward and slid slowly down onto him. She moved with exquisite slowness, and finally, with a growl, Nathan rolled over, taking her under him. His thrusts were hard and fast, hunger riding him. He was desperate to have her, to meld with her. At last he came in an explosion of fierce pleasure and utter release and collapsed against her, his breath ragged. He rolled onto his side, still holding her, unwilling to let go.

Verity held him, laying a soft kiss on his shoulder, her voice barely audible as she murmured, “I love you.”

Later that night, lying in bed with her, Nathan played that moment over again in his mind.

Had Verity really said she loved me?

It had been so brief and soft, and he had been so dazed, sated, and still spellbound, that he’d been incapable of stringing a thought together, much less asking a question or making a reply.

He had fallen asleep, of course, and when he had awakened a long time later, he found himself alone, one of the pillows from the sofa under his head and an afghan thrown over him. Verity had also left a glass of wine and plate of cheese for him and taken his clothes. She’d certainly been busy while he slept, all without waking him up. The woman could be as silent as a ghost. It was a little disquieting.

Nathan had been glad for the food and drink, as he’d awakened starving, and he had downed them as he wrapped the afghan around him and went in search of Verity. She was asleep in bed, her hair a cloud upon the pillow, dark in the dim light of a low-burning lamp. He slipped into bed beside her and propped himself up on his forearm, watching her and thinking.

He wasn’t sure whether she’d been too kind to awaken him or if she had wanted to be by herself after the intense intimacy. He knew her body well now and was rarely astonished anymore by the things she said or did, but Verity was still a mystery to him in so many ways.

She’d left a lamp burning for him. He wished he knew exactly what Verity thought, what she wanted of him, how she felt. If she had indeed murmured that she loved him, had she regretted it? It seemed too late, too awkward to bring it up now. He was sure he would get an unwelcome response if he awakened her to question her, and tomorrow in the light of day, Verity was likely to slide out of it some way. She held her feelings close, guarding them like a treasure.

Which made what she had said tonight even more important. His instinct was to respond to her, to tell her that he loved her, too. Because, God help him, he did.

It wasn’t the sort of love he had felt for Annabeth, that low yearning, but a seemingly insatiable desire to be with Verity, a compelling need. He had fallen into passion with Verity at first, but Nathan had known from the beginning that there was no future for them. Still, in the past few weeks, all his preconceptions had fallen by the wayside.

They had been together almost constantly on this journey to Scotland and back. One would think he would have felt constrained by the close quarters or irritated by something Verity did or said, that they would have quarreled or their passion would begin to pall.

But it had been both thrilling and comfortable being with Verity, and it seemed as if his desire for her only grew with each passing day. They were close in a way he’d never felt with any other woman. It had been almost as if they were married.

That thought brought him up short. Did he want to marry her? Was that even a possibility? Verity had told him most decidedly that she would never marry anyone. And no matter how much he loved her, he couldn’t deny that Verity was in no way the wife he had always imagined—the mistress of his house, the mother of his children.

His chest warmed as he imagined her in his home, sharing his life, and, really, a brood of wild red-haired children would probably be the menace he had once imagined, but they would be fun. Just like their mother. And he would love them beyond all reason. Just as he did their mother.

It made perfect sense that he had never imagined a wife like Verity—he had never met anyone like Verity.

Could he be happy with her for the rest of his life? He gazed at her, studying her profile, the curve of her eyebrow, the line of her jaw. She turned toward him, as if sensing his presence, and snuggled close to him, and his heart stuttered in his chest.

The real question was: Could he be happy for the rest of his life without her?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

NATHAN SPENT THE next morning going very visibly from one place to another, establishing that he was once again in the city. Verity had managed to beg off in order to check on the cases she had neglected while they were in Scotland. In the afternoon, however, she couldn’t resist joining him to visit Fairborn’s Confectionary.

Though Nathan was intent on making sure Malcolm knew that he was back, Verity was able to convince him to stay in their carriage to keep an eye on the shop. It would not do if their quarry saw Nathan or Verity first. And the men were already distinctly aware that Nathan was onto them after the chase with Sloane.

The coachman alternated between driving up and down the street—Russell asked no questions, having long ago become accustomed to Verity’s odd requests—and pulling up in front of some other business for a time.

Watching the shop was, all in all, a rather boring exercise, and Verity spent much of her time planning what to wear that night at the theater. She was still uncertain about going out undisguised, but she hadn’t known what to say to Nathan when he had pressed her on why she had wanted to wear a wig, so she had decided against it. The time for telling him about overhearing Stanhope in the park had passed. At this point her “not telling” looked more like hiding what she’d learned.