Led Astray by a Rake (The Husband Hunters Club 1)

“As my wife, you have far more privileges than Miss Monteith ever did.”

“I doubt the queen will care what I call myself.”

Nic sighed and leaned back again, dropping her hand. “Any other woman would be thrilled by my offer, but not Olivia. She doesn’t feel the slightest inclination to meet the queen. She prefers driving around the streets of London, handing out pennies to ragged children.”

“I like children,” she retorted, staring straight ahead.

“Good. Let’s make one.”

She turned to stare at him, finally shocked out of her calm reserve, and he laughed.

“Oh, Olivia, your face. I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

She supposed she would let him see her righteous indignation or refuse to speak at all, but Nic didn’t respond to either. So she let herself relax, reaching up to play with the lace on her bodice, and said, “Here, Nic? I don’t think the queen would approve, do you?”

He smiled, and then he laughed, and then he shook his head.

But Olivia’s eyes had turned serious, that clear blue look that seemed to pierce his soul. “Do you really want a child? An heir? Or is it your mother who wants one?”

Nic glanced down, his fingers twisting on his cane. “The Laceys have lived at Castle Lacey for generations. It’d be a shame to end it now.”

“Do you want to be a father, Nic?” she said softly.

He didn’t answer her, and a moment later the next act began. Olivia turned back to the stage and pretended to watch the singers, but it took a long time for her heart to slow its beating and the butterflies in her stomach to stop fluttering.

As they made their way to supper in their private room, Nic wondered how Olivia had managed to turn the tables on him, and why he’d let her. He could almost think she knew about Jonah, but he was certain she didn’t. If Olivia knew she wouldn’t scruple to tell him.

“Oh,” Olivia said, her face lighting up as they sat down, and she saw the strawberries and cream. “You remembered.”

“Your favorite,” Nic replied. “You told me when we feasted in my bedchamber, the day after I brought you back from the ball.”

And we made love before and afterward, and it seemed like time stopped for those brief, exquisite moments.

But he didn’t say that.

Olivia lifted one of the ripe, juicy fruits between her finger and thumb, and bit into it. The pink syrup ran down her chin and she dabbed at it with her napkin, smiling at Nic like one of the urchins she loved so much.

“Wonderful,” she sighed.

Nic helped himself to the next strawberry, popping it into his mouth whole. The juice oozed from the corners of his mouth, and Olivia laughed as he tried to catch the trickles with his tongue. She reached across the table to him and used her finger.

“What will Abbot say if you stain that neck cloth?” she teased, and sucked the strawberry juice from her fingertip.

Nic’s eyes went hot.

Olivia felt her body begin to heat up in response. Slowly, she slipped her finger from her mouth and licked it with her tongue. He followed her movement. She reached for another strawberry, biting into it, and he leaned over the table, taking the remaining part of the fruit in his own mouth, so that for a moment they were face-to-face. And then he severed the strawberry in half and his mouth closed on hers.

The sweetness of the fruit, the warmth of his lips, were somehow all the more delicious. Olivia found herself arching across the table, following his mouth. As he moved back, she moved forward, and suddenly he’d grasped her about the waist, and she was sprawled across the table and the strawberries and cream, her arms about his neck.

“Nic,” she gasped.

He ran his hand across her décolletage, and then chose a strawberry. The next moment he’d slipped the ripe fruit down into her cleavage. Olivia’s eyes widened as she watched him settle it comfortably between her breasts, then he smiled and began to try to tease it out with his tongue.

The sensation made her toes curl.

The strawberry slid farther down between her breasts, lodging there, and Nic pushed down her bodice, finding first one nipple and then the other.

Olivia arched against him, lying half across the table, her fingers in his hair. He ran his tongue over the swell of her breasts, lapping at the strawberry juice.