Page 24 of The Duke's Improper Bride
“You know I will help,” he said somberly. “But I’ll do so as a friend, not as a condition of our marriage.”
Her touch burned. She held his hand. The pad of her delicate thumb ran over the dried smears of paint on his skin, and then to his skinned knuckles.
“You have such beautiful hands,” she said. Isaac was arrested by her touch. She examined the lines of his hand with her fingers, igniting a fire within him.
“They’re only hands, Nora.”
“No,” she insisted.
He froze, watching her pass over his hands with trembling fingers, tracing the scars and calluses in careful detail.
“Your hands hold stories,” she whispered. Then, to his surprise, she brought his hand to her lips and slipped his index finger into her mouth.
Isaac unraveled on the spot.
She ran the tip of her tongue along the underside of his finger before drawing her teeth down, and then dragging the tip of his finger forward and free from her lips. She peeked up at him, searching for a benediction. When he offered none, still shocked from her brazenness, she cradled his cheeks.
“You hold so many stories, Isaac, and I find myself wanting to h-hear them all.”
Isaac’s reached for her cheeks, drawing her face closer to his. “Sweet,” he whispered, bringing his lips to her forehead. His lips trailed down to her eyelids, then her button nose, until her arms wrapped around his neck.
“Tell me,” she whispered in his ear. “Oh, please, Isaac, tell me your s-story.”
His fingers threaded through her silky hair as he continued his exploration—one sweet kiss at a time as he committed her face to his heart. She smelled like heather, his little Scottish rabbit.
“T-tell me,” she whispered again, her voice catching as his lips moved down to her neck. “I s-so want to know you.” He savored the feel of her body pressed unabashedly against him, her flesh fitting to his as if they had always been two parts of a whole. He drank her in like a fine brandy, slowly and wholly, drunk on the way his body responded to hers.
I found her.
The thought stumbled into his heart and burst into an absoluteness that coursed through his veins and sank deep into his bones. His whole life he had been plagued by wearing his heart on his sleeve. Never did he feel the way he did now with Nora in his arms,hisNora.
Their lips joined in a shared passion that sang to Isaac like a siren’s song. So perfect. He longed to tell her everything, bare his very soul to her, but he foolishly thought that his kiss did just that. As they deepened their kiss, as his tongue entered her mouth and tasted sweet chocolate, Nora swayed and sank toward the ground.
Isaac gripped her elbows, releasing her lips, and instinctively drew her to him as they sank toward the floor.
“Tell me what you want me to say for you to agree and I will say it. I want so badly to say something poetic now and sweep you off your feet. You deserve to be wooed and fussed over, and I’m making a terrible mess of this proposal.” He laughed nervously. “But please, marry me.”
“Tell me the t-truth,” she said in a small voice. Her eyes were like the great lochs of Scotland, so deep that a man could lose his life seeking the bottom. He felt himself dropping perilously into their depths. There was no hope for his recovery.
He kissed her nose and her long, fluttering eyelashes.
“I love you,” he whispered. The confession surprised him. There was no doubt that she belonged in his arms, that they were destined to grow old together, that they would etch happiness onto each other’s faces. And yet that wasn’t the whole truth.
I am so many men, he wanted to confess.I am more than this man before you, yet this is all I have to give. It was a humble offer, especially for a duke, when others might say he possessed everything a man could ever want.
Nora traced the line of his nose before fluttering over his lips. Her face was blank, lost once more in thought; her mind was a busy place. Then a small smile started at the corners of her mouth and spread to her lips until she was gazing up at him and laughing once more, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Yes,” she answered, “yes, I will marry you, Isaac,” she said before pulling his lips to hers.
Chapter 7
Nora found herself staring at Isaac’s short missive. His handwriting was much like everything else about him—strong and elegant.
She chuckled to herself, raising a her palm to her cheek.
“Are you ready, miss?” Nora’s maid, Anne, asked.
Nora lifted her head and looked at Anne dressed fully in black and nodded at the young girl’s reflection in the mirror.
