Grace Burrowes - [Lonely Lords 05]

by Gabriel

  Every bit as much as a cook anticipates enjoying the dishes she prepares, Polly wanted to consume him.

  “You’re deciding which spices would go best,” Gabriel rumbled in her ear. “I do the same thing, you know. On the hotter days, something bracing, like lavender, peppermint, or lemon suits you. On cold, windy, wet days, you put me in mind of cinnamon and nutmeg and tropical sweetness.”

  “Of cloves?” Which she occasionally wore because cloves symbolized dignity.

  “I have always been fond of the fragrance of cloves.” He kissed her nose then lapsed into his whispering.

  “You torture me with the tenderness in your touch, the innocent curiosity, and the possessiveness of your hands. You make me want to hear you claim me as your own, only and always your own, for you are mine, and mine alone.”

  She kissed him to stop that nonsense, because the way he touched her left her all too willing to believe his words. His caresses were deliberate, as if he were determined to monitor her response to every touch and kiss.

  And Polly realized between one sigh and the next, that for them both, there was newness here. True, they both had experience, but this luxurious learning of each other, this leisurely exploration of what pleased her and aroused her, it was new for Polly. And precious. Gabriel’s care with her provoked a wealth of tenderness toward him she hadn’t felt toward another, not ever.

  “Gabriel?”

  He grazed his nose along the upper curve of her breast, where Polly had indeed dabbed a drop of oil of clove. “My dear?”

  “You don’t need to linger over this part,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair. “I know what comes next, and I’m not concerned with being impressed.”

  Nor was she concerned with being impressive, which was surely a symptom of a woman besotted.

  “You have such confidence in me,” he mused, then gathered her breast in his hand and covered her nipple with his mouth. “Is this what comes next?” He settled in to draw on her. “You must tell me, Polonaise.”

  “Mmm.”

  She felt him smile against her skin, but didn’t care that her dignity had gone begging. The sensations he aroused were different from before, more intense, and both local to her breast and diffused into all the secret corners and depths of her body. This wasn’t what had come next, not in her few, awkward couplings with Reynard, and not in the very few encounters she’d attempted thereafter.

  What typically came next was grunting, poking, and panting for the man, and enduring for Polly, while she wondered what was wrong with her that she couldn’t enjoy passion the way a sophisticated, experienced female was supposed to.

  “Stop thinking, my love.”

  “I can’t think. You steal my wits when you do that.”

  “I don’t steal them.” He switched breasts, dragging his nose across her sternum in a slow, teasing slide. “I put them in a safe place, where they won’t do themselves an injury. You aren’t begging yet, though, so I must exert myself further.”

  “Not much further,” Polly assured him, because she struggled to get out even three words as she arched her back and tangled her fingers in his hair. “I won’t beg, Gabriel.”

  “Perhaps not.” He left off teasing her breast. “You might be incoherent with pleasure, though you could beg me without words.” He shifted off her, and she nearly commenced begging that moment. She preserved her pride by hiking a leg across his hip when he settled on his side next to her.

  “You are so delectable,” he murmured, running his hand down her sternum. “I could spend the entire night touching you with one hand.”

  She struggled to take an even breath. “You could not. Not if you value your life.”

  Gabriel leaned in and swiped his tongue over her breast. “A threat. That’s encouraging.” He made a little threat of his own, gliding his hand down to linger over her ribs and belly, then teasing his fingers through the curls over her mons.

  “I believe you grow interested, Polonaise.” He let her feel the press of his erection against her hip, and she wrapped her hand around him to indicate the accuracy of his surmise. He laughed quietly and cupped her sex with his hand while she ran her fingers over his cock. “I certainly grow interested.”

  “You mustn’t encourage me.” Polly ran her thumb over the velvety head of his cock, then over and over that spot right under the tip, the one that made him hiss through his teeth with pleasure.

  “I’ll distract you,” he challenged, sliding his fingers slowly, slowly down, over curves, through curls, and into soft, damp folds of intimate flesh. He stroked gently while Polly’s knees fell open and her hips rolled toward his touch. “Be still a moment, love, let me learn my way a little first.”

  She tried to comply but soon realized this was one of his tactics to provoke begging, and it was working wonderfully. “Let me move,” she pleaded. “When you do that…”

  He circled the little bud of flesh at the apex of her sex again, slowly, watching her face by the firelight.

  “Not yet,” he whispered, leaning in to draw on her nipple. “Soon.”

  “Gabriel…” Her hand landed in his hair, to hold him to her, while the urge to move against his touch was building, overwhelming pride, dignity, wit, and any remaining vestige of modesty. “Gabriel, you make me want…”

  She heard the bewilderment in her own voice, because this kind of wanting was torment. It wasn’t a craving for a hot cup of tea on a cold day, or for bed when exhaustion threatened. This kind of craving trumped the desire for her next breath and her next sunrise. “Oh, please, Gabriel…”

  “Then yield to your pleasure,” he rasped, intensifying the pressure of his touch. “Yield to me, Polonaise.”

  With a slow, groaning inhalation, she thrashed out her need against his hand, all pretense of thought abandoned as pleasure washed her mind clean and rendered her body his to delight and torment and delight yet more.

  “Be easy,” he whispered, shifting to again cage her body beneath his when she was reduced to a panting, pleasured, witless thing. “That was to raise your expectations a mite.”

  “Raise my expectations?” She whispered her incredulity into his neck, wrapped her legs around him, and tried to steady her breathing. He settled himself over her, not pressing her down, but giving her something solid, warm, and wonderful to anchor herself against.

  “You are worth every patience and sacrifice a man can make with a woman in bed, Polonaise. Did you command it, I should willingly roll over and go to sleep, having seen to the first hint of your pleasure. Hold still.”

  He kissed her, and she felt his erection kissing at her sex at the same time, soft nudges with that smooth, blunt, warm tip of him, right against her sex. She turned her head, away from his mouth, so she could focus on that one splendid feeling. He seemed to sense what she needed, for he laid his cheek against hers and let her have the first hint of penetration.

  “Gabriel…” His name was a prayer of thanksgiving as Polly gave a slow roll of her hips and rejoiced until her body met his, and from nowhere, her sheath was clutching at his cock in renewed paroxysms of pleasure. And this was worse, far worse than what had gone before, because he was inside her, filling her, and focusing her pleasure right there, until it rebounded and ricocheted through every particle of her being.

  “I can’t do this.” She hadn’t meant to speak out loud; she’d merely thought the words endless moments later as Gabriel held still above her, his hand cradling the back of her head while she pressed her face to his shoulder.

  “Do you know how profoundly you please me, my heart?”

  She burrowed against him, afraid to move lest her body visit more excesses of sensation upon her. “But, Gabriel, I can’t bear this…”

  “Shall I withdraw?”

  “I couldn’t bear that either. Please… let me catch my breath.”

  As he kissed her cheek and gathered her closer, Polly had the sense he’d wait all night, all week, or the rest of her life if she asked it
of him, and that realization let her relax a little.

  “You do this,” she suggested. “I’ll hold still.”

  “Do this?” He gently pushed into her, and Polly felt a lightning strike of pleasure right up her spine.

  “Slowly.” She fought for a breath. “I’m not usually like this. I’m never like this.”

  “I hope you’re always like this with me, Polonaise.” Though to Polly’s ears, there was a slight harshness in his voice. He advanced so slowly, not a thrust at all, more a glide.

  “I like that.” Polly relaxed a little more. “When you move like that, it’s almost soothing.”

  “We’ll go slowly then, until you say otherwise.”

  “Can you pause a moment?”

  He went still.

  “Now try a single, slow… yes, like that. Oh no…” She was off again, unable to stop her hips from bringing their bodies closer. “Gabriel… Not again, oh, please…”

  “Be still,” he whispered. “Let it wash over you like a spring shower. Breathe in the pleasure, Polonaise.” He inhaled slowly, and the pressure of his chest against her breasts reminded her how to breathe even as the pleasure came for her again. It wasn’t so voracious this time though, not as terrifyingly intense.

  “That wasn’t as overwhelming. Can you be still for a time again?”

  He became her slave in truth, giving her one-half a slow thrust, then one-quarter, as she experimented with her own limits and pleasures. When she’d relaxed enough to let him rock her from one slow, sizzling peak to another, she brushed his hair off his forehead and wrapped her legs around him more securely.

  “You’ve impressed me,” she assured him. “Much more of an impression, and I doubt I’ll be able to walk tomorrow.”

  “You might be sore.” He kissed her brow. “You should start the day with a hot bath.” He made as if to withdraw, but Polly stopped him by locking her ankles at his back.

  “I’m not going to be that sore,” she said, though in truth, she had no way to gauge such things. They’d been joined far longer than her previous experience indicated was possible. “You are worth every patience and sacrifice a woman can make in bed with a man, Gabriel. This woman at least.” Also out of bed, which was why she’d soon be leaving him.

  “You’re sure?” He braced above her. “If you give me leave to seek my own pleasure, I’m not certain I can be a gentleman about this, Polonaise.”

  “You mean, you’re not sure you can minutely manage your behaviors at my every whim?”

  “Not now. Not very impressive of me, but I’m ready to go off like a primed cannon.”

  She smiled, and he saw that smile and must have taken courage from it.

  “You’re on your own then, my girl. Try not to scream the house down.”

  It was a short march off a very high precipice, but as Gabriel set up a slow, relentless rhythm, Polly gained insight into how much restraint he’d shown her. By the third deep, hard stroke, she was coming again, but this time, she didn’t tell him to stop, nor did she go still herself.

  She tried to ride out the pleasure, but he kept driving into her, until her sense of her own skin dissolved and she was wrapped around him in a desperate embrace, and still she clutched at him, internally, externally, mentally, emotionally. She was wrapped so tightly in his embrace, she heard a roaring in her ears, then a hot, screaming pleasure seized her, more intense than before. Her vision went dark, and Gabriel was all around her, inside her, and with her, even as Polly’s sense of her physical limits evaporated into pleasure upon pleasure upon pleasure.

  “Ye heavenly hosts.” Gabriel tried to raise himself off her several lifetimes later, but Polly held him close.

  “Not yet.”

  He complied, but didn’t let her have half the feel of him she needed.

  “Closer. Need your weight, or I’ll fly to pieces.”

  He snugged his body back down over hers. “Better?”

  She nodded, having used up her spare breath through at least the next week. They breathed in counterpoint with each other, a novel intimacy, with Polly’s body hitching as aftershocks shivered through her.

  “Did I hurt you?” Gabriel’s lips slipped over her eyes some moments later, and Polly realized there were tears on her cheeks.

  “Not hurt. The opposite of hurt.”

  “My love”—Gabriel’s voice was bewildered—“you are in tears. What is the opposite of hurt in this situation?”

  Polly wrapped her arms around him out of sheer excess of emotion. “You’ve made some hurts better. Hurts that can’t be seen.”

  He kissed her eyes and took some of his weight from her, and she let him. They lay like that for a long, long time amid clean linen and the scent of cloves, the only sounds the fire crackling in the hearth and their gradually steadying breathing.

  “Will I set you off if I withdraw?”

  “Likely, you will, but, Gabriel, having done this with you, you’ll likely set me off if you look at me.”

  “You do it then. I might start up again myself if you permit me to linger, and I’ve tried your body and your patience enough for one night.”

  “You want me to touch you?”

  “Gently. I’m a little sensitive too, but yes. Untangle us, as it were.” He raised up enough to allow Polly to reach between their bodies.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” Not ever, which nearly provoked fresh tears.

  “Understood.”

  He wasn’t going to give her any more guidance than that, so Polly took her courage in one hand and her lover in the other, and eased him from her body. “Like that?”

  “Just like that.” He climbed off her, leaving the covers flipped back. “Don’t run off. Would you like cool water or warm?”

  “Warm.” She didn’t mistake his meaning. She liked it, liked the intimacy of it and the consideration. He came back to the bed with a basin of hot water poured out from the kettle on the hearth swing and mixed it with a little of the cold drinking water from the nightstand.

  “Spread your legs, love.”

  She eased her knees apart and watched as he regarded her intimate flesh.

  “I want to go at you all night,” he said, wringing out the cloth.

  “I want to go at you all night, too.” Polly closed her eyes as he gently held the cloth over her swollen parts. “That feels good.”

  “But if I moved just so”—he applied a touch of pressure—“you’d likely be galloping off again, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know…” She opened her eyes to visually offer him permission. He moved his fingers on her, and sure enough, her body drew up in one tight, sweet little contraction.

  “Amazing,” he said, pressing a damp cloth to her very gently. “Do you know what you’ve done for my confidence, Polonaise?”

  “This has to be an aberration.” Polly stared at the shadows dancing above them rather than meet his gaze. “I’m not usually like this.” Though she was usually a lowly cook, and trying to convince all and sundry she was a spinster cook at that.

  “Oh, right.” Gabriel wet the cloth, wrung it out again, and tucked it against her. “Call it an aberration when you share such passions with me, will you? It’s what you’re owed, Polonaise. Every damned time.”

  “I couldn’t survive such owing. Gabriel, I don’t think this was normal.”

  “It isn’t,” he replied, using the cloth on himself as he sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s so far beyond normal there’s something of the transcendent about it, Polonaise.”

  On that peculiar remark, he put the basin back near the hearth, leaving Polly puzzled and longing for him.

  He was only halfway across the room, he’d just pleasured her witless, and she longed for him. God help her.

  “Now I see what you’re about.” Gabriel put his hands on his hips, and naked as God made him, frowned down at her in the bed. “You’re on my side of this bed. You thought I wouldn’t notice your poaching. Back to your own territory and give a fellow so
me room to cuddle up after his exertions.”

  Polly obligingly scooted at least six inches closer to the middle of the bed. “Can you cuddle on top of me?”

  “Briefly,” he groused. “Only briefly.” He climbed over her, situated himself above her, and rested his cheek on her crown. “Tell me about the tears, Polonaise.”

  “Must I?”

  “Yes, else your precocious little mouth will get to exploring my sensitive parts, and you’ll be suing me for return of the use of your privy parts by noon tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know why I cried,” she said, nuzzling his chest. “I didn’t realize I was crying. I think it was in relief.”

  “Of?”

  She bit her lip, trying to think of a credible dodge.

  “Polonaise?” God himself couldn’t have put more imperiousness into the simple utterance of her name.

  “Loneliness.”

  “Ah.” That was all he gave her as he wrapped a hand around the back of her head and cradled her face to his throat. “Just so.”

  She took comfort from that embrace, so close and cherishing, and felt her body give up the last of its passion-induced tensions. She was safe with him; he wouldn’t trespass or presume on the strength of their physical intimacies.

  But then, he was so perceptive and she was so transparent, he wouldn’t have to.

  ***

  Holy, ever-loving, squalling infant Jesus.

  Gabriel tried to slow his whirling thoughts, taking comfort from the way Polly wrapped herself around him in sleep. No wonder she’d dropped off so easily; Gabriel had never seen such passion in another person. Her body was virtuosic in its erotic tendencies, taking pleasure from every smallest taste of sexual congress.

  She’d come on his hand; she’d come at the first hint of penetration. She’d come when he’d done little more than attend her breasts. She’d come when he moved, come when she’d moved.

  And when he’d come… her pleasure had plowed over his gentlemanly intentions like a tidal wave wipes out all in its path. The sense of union… of meshing souls… not even in Latin could he have fashioned words to articulate such sentiments.

  And while he could attribute some of her sensitivity to years of abstinence, for the most part Gabriel knew Polly had simply found a man who showed her some consideration. All over again, he wanted to take his fists to whoever had been so cavalier with Polly’s virtue, with her pleasure, and with her confidence.