“Next time,” she promised.
His half smile didn’t reach his eyes. They both knew there wouldn’t be a next time.
“Move up against the pillows,” she directed him. “Lie in the middle of the bed.”
Never taking his gaze from her, he complied. “Now I’m further away from you.”
“Not for long.”
Rather than lean his head back against the pillows, he propped himself up on his elbows again to watch her.
At the moment she was standing still, staring at the dark-haired, dark-eyed man reclining nude atop her bed sheets. The fire glinted orange and gold across his bare chest and long limbs. His shaft jutted toward his stomach. The muscles of his bent arms curved hard and strong. His wide lips looked firm, kissable. A hint of stubble shaded the line of his jaw.
The best part, the unbelievable, inconceivable, astonishing part, wasn’t merely his presence, but that she could have him without worrying about her cursed visions. She could touch him anywhere she wished, kiss him anywhere she wished, meld her flesh with his anyway she wished. He was a miracle, a gift, an answer to a secret prayer.
And tonight he was hers.
What should she do first? The possibilities seemed endless. The night, however, was not. Evangeline rounded the bed, climbed atop the mattress, lay on her side next to him.
“How long will you stay?”
Another pensive half smile flickered as he muttered, “I feel like I should be asking you that.”
She brushed the soft dark hair from his brow. “I mean tonight.”
“I know.” He regarded her in silence for a moment. Then: “I told you I was yours to command, and I meant it. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”
“Then I shall endeavor to stay awake.”
“I can help with that.” This time his smile reached his eyes.
If it were possible to freeze an image of him in her mind forever, then this was precisely how Evangeline wanted to remember him. His eyes crinkling, his mouth curved in a rakish grin, his body so close every inch of her flesh could feel his heat.
“May I touch you?” she asked.
“Anywhere.”
“Thank you.”
His grin widened. “I’m fairly certain the pleasure will be mine.”
No, the pleasure would be hers. She reached up with one hand, cupped the side of his face, brushed the pad of her thumb against his cheek. She leaned over, pressed her lips hard against his. A brief kiss. She would take her time after she had a chance to explore him.
She ran her hand down his corded neck and along the width of his shoulders. His shoulders were so wide, his skin so warm, his scent so intoxicatingly masculine. She laid her head on his chest. Small wiry hairs rubbed against her cheek. His heartbeat thudded against her ear. She slid her palm from his shoulder to his hand and laced his fingers with hers.
“Gavin?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Yes?”
No. She couldn’t say it. To give voice to her feelings would only make leaving even harder. And what if he didn’t feel the same way? She couldn’t bear to know. Not now. Not yet.
She unlaced their fingers and lifted herself on one elbow. She stroked his face, his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his stomach, reveling in the different textures of his body beneath her palm. Parts of him were smooth. Parts of him were scratchy with tiny hairs. All of him was hard, strong, scalding to the touch. She scooted further down the bed and ran her hand along his thigh, his foot, his toes, then back up the other side until her fingertips brushed against the root of his shaft. He flinched.
“Does it hurt?”
He smiled. “Only in a good way.”
She returned his smile, pleased to touch him without the encumbrance of clothing. She curled her fingers around the heat of his flesh, caressed, squeezed, stroked. He grew bigger, hotter. She glanced up at his face. His gaze was locked on the movements of her hand around his cock, his breath shallow, his muscles tense.
“If I keep touching you like this, would I be able to give you the same pleasure you gave me in your studio?”
His eyes flicked to hers. “Undoubtedly.”
The naked desire in his unguarded expression filled Evangeline with a strange, glorious sense of power.
“I can do anything I want to you? With you?”
His eyebrows lifted. “I’m yours.”
She hesitated, nodded, then rolled atop him. Her breasts flattened against his chest. When she bent her knees on either side of his thighs and pushed herself into a sitting position, the length of his shaft pulsed between her legs. Her body responded in kind. She rubbed herself against him experimentally and gasped at the rush of pleasure. The delicious sensation of rubbing in long, slow strokes up and down the length of his cock had her tingling and trembling just like when he’d touched her with his finger.
“Do you feel me?” She ground her body against his again. “What I’m doing?”
“God, yes.” His heated gaze captured hers. “I can’t wait to bury myself inside you, to feel your body clenching around me, to make you come, over and over, until you take me with you.”
She shivered at the passion in his eyes and continued the intoxicating motion for a few moments before scooting upward to kiss him.
The movement swept her breasts over his chest, her nipples hardening as they scraped across the hairs. She sucked in a startled breath at the unexpected pleasure, then did it again. Her entire body responded, heating, moistening, quickening.
His eyes closed briefly, as if in pain. She kissed his lips, his neck, his jaw. Rough stubble scratched at her mouth. She began to wonder what that familiar texture would feel like against her breasts instead of her mouth. She broke the kiss, inched a little further upward, lifted her breasts in her hands. His gaze locked on the display.
“Anything I wish?” she asked again.
“Anything.” The word came out strangled.
She leaned forward until her breasts grazed the side of his face. She pivoted slightly, letting the line of his jaw scrape against one nipple at a time. When her body clenched in response, her eyes widened.
“No matter what I rub against you,” she murmured, “I feel feverish. You make me ache and… need.”
“Me, too,” Gavin muttered.
In response, she splayed her fingers on the pillows above his head and leaned over.
He grabbed her hips, tilted his head, and suckled a puckered nipple into his mouth. Her legs trembled. Without releasing her breast from his mouth, he slid one hand over her thigh and tilted the pad of a finger against her damp core. She whimpered. He continued his tender assault with his hand and his tongue, teasing, nibbling.
When he slid his finger inside, the pressure proved too much. She cried out, tensed, her muscles spasming as the waves of pleasure hit her. When the aftershocks faded, he slipped his hand from her. She fell forward, panting against the pillow, cheek to cheek with him.
“Sorry,” he murmured, not sounding the tiniest bit contrite. “I meant to wait for you to ask.”
“Somehow, I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you.”
He chuckled.
“If,” she began, and lifted her head.
He stopped chuckling.
“If,” she repeated, “you make love to me right this second.”
“Thank you, God,” he muttered.
Before she had a chance to so much as blink, his hands gripped her hips and he rolled them both over in one fluid movement. He trapped her wrists to the pillows on either side of her head and kissed her.
Without lifting his mouth from hers, he nudged her legs apart with his knee, settled himself between her thighs, rubbed his cock against her core just as she’d done when straddling him. The tingling, trembling pressure returned. Every inch of her body yearned for him.
“I said,” she breathed against his mouth, “right this second.”
He tilted his hips. A tantalizing pressure built as his cock nudged her flesh,
rubbed against her wetness, dipped a little inside. The brief twinge of pain dissipated under the onslaught of amazing new sensations. He slid the tip of his tongue across her lower lip, across her teeth, into her mouth, every thrust mimicking that which he did with his cock until both tongue and shaft were buried inside of her. She gasped into his mouth. Incredible. He cupped the back of her head, kissed her.
She bit him, suckled him. He rocked his hips against hers, urgent, strong, driving himself deeper inside. His pelvis rubbed against her with an almost unbearable pleasure. She bent her knees, gripped him with her thighs, met him thrust for thrust. This must be what it felt like to truly share one’s soul. She couldn’t have chosen a better man.
His limbs tensed and flexed as he moved inside her. When she bit back a helpless moan, he broke the kiss, panting, the hair across his forehead damp with sweat.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, cradling her to him.
She smiled. “You told me that already.”
“Did I tell you I’ve dreamt of this?” A deep, claiming thrust accompanied the last word.
Her eyelids fluttered. “So have I.”
“You’re perfect.”
“So are you.”
“Ha.” Still buried inside her, he grabbed her wrists and rolled onto his back. “Straddle me.”
“What happened to me giving the orders?” Hands splayed on his chest, she pushed herself upright and trembled when his shaft shifted inside her.
“Ride me,” he commanded, his gaze dark and heated. “You can control the rhythm. I’ll match my movements to yours.”
She tensed her thighs, rose up, lowered. He slid his palm from her knee to her hip, then down across her stomach until his thumb circled the area just above their joined bodies. When she fell forward, he captured her breast in his mouth. He bent his knees so her rear rested against his thighs, angling his shaft even further inside her. His fingers never stopped their exquisite torment of steady circular strokes.
Her body clenched, once, twice.
“Gavin,” she gasped. “You’re making me…I’m going to…”
He lifted his mouth from her breast long enough to say, “Do it.” He continued tilting his hips, filling her, stroking her. “Come for me,” he whispered.
She couldn’t help it. She cried out, shattered against him, gripped his torso with her thighs. His shaft jerked inside her, throbbed against her contracting muscles, then suddenly jerked free. He took her mouth in a demanding kiss.
Muscles trembling, she collapsed atop his chest. She lay there several minutes listening to his racing heart slowly return to its normal pace. The musky scent of their lovemaking filled the room.
He stroked her hair from her face, kissed the top of her head, wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight.
“I could make love to you for the rest of my life,” he murmured into her hair.
She nodded against his chest. “I’m going to miss you.”
He paused, tensed, pressed his lips fiercely against her forehead. “If I was ensured of living long enough to follow through on a promise, I would make you one now. You’re not the kind of woman a man can just walk away from.”
She shook her head, lifted her chin to make eye contact with him. “It’s all right. I’ve never been the marrying kind.” At the moment, however, she couldn’t remember why that was. “But I don’t want you to walk away. Not yet. I’m still awake. I want you to stay all night, and love me again. Will you?”
“Of course.” He tilted his neck forward, kissed her. “I can’t help it.”
“Thank you.” Evangeline rubbed her thumb along the edge of his jaw, smoothing the bristly stubble, tracing the line of his scar. “How did you get this?”
“Dueling.”
Her eyes widened. “Dueling?”
“Not over anything honorable, trust me.”
She kissed the scar, then his lips. “Then over what?”
“A girl. My brother’s girl. David caught us kissing and called me out immediately. We couldn’t duel with pistols because we were the only heirs and my father would’ve killed us both. David chose rapiers, said we would fight till first blood. I’ll always believe he meant to slice open my neck. I didn’t blame him, then or now.” Gavin glanced away, as if unwilling or unable to meet her eyes. “I told you I wasn’t a good person.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen, same as the girl. David was twenty.”
“What happened to the girl?”
Gavin gave a wry chuckle. “He married her. Not long after, my parents died. I haven’t seen my brother since.”
“How many duels have you fought since then?”
He finally glanced at her, frowned. “None.”
“Stolen kisses from anybody else’s fiancée?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then I don’t think you’re a bad person. You made a mistake.”
“I make lots of mistakes. I’m impulsive and selfish.”
“You may have been in the past, but you’re not now. You’re the most selfless, caring man I’ve ever known.”
“That’s because you’ve only managed to be around men who are even bigger pricks than I am.” He tried to dispel the shame of his words with a smile, but his eyes were tortured.
“Stop it.” She gripped his chin with one hand and crushed her lips to his. “I wouldn’t make love to you if I thought you were an irredeemable blackguard. Over a decade has passed since then. You were young. People change.”
“Do they?”
“I think so. I like you just the way you are.”
His cock stirred. “I like you just the way you are.”
“Just don’t duel over me,” she teased, pulse racing at the thought.
“I will if I want to,” he growled, flipping her over and driving his shaft inside her. “If you so much as think about kissing another man, I swear I’ll meet him at dawn.”
“I would never,” she gasped, locking her legs around his thighs. “Only you. I promise.”
“Good.” He laced her fingers with his, crushed his mouth to hers, pumped his hips.
She arched against him, hands locked with his. “How much longer are you mine to command?”
Her heart pounded so loud, she almost didn’t hear his whispered reply.
“For as long as I live.”
Chapter 37
Gavin was still in Evangeline’s bedchamber when the sun rose. He’d meant to quit the room when she fell asleep, but couldn’t make himself leave her earlier than absolutely necessary. So he stayed, stroking her hair, watching her sleep, holding her close.
And realized what a precious gift she’d given him.
Not just her virginity—although that had seemed a miracle, too—but even more precious than that, she’d given him her unconditional trust. He hadn’t forced her to do so. He’d somehow earned it.
She would not make love to a murderer. She would not fall asleep in the arms of a man of irredeemable evil. She said so herself, did she not? She believed in him, even when all evidence suggested she should not.
It was a new sensation, being trusted implicitly. He hadn’t lied to her—he’d been an incorrigible youth. Amazing that he hadn’t been forced to duel on a regular basis. Nor had he lied when he said he’d call out any man who dared to touch her. Sweat beaded on his skin at the very thought. Horrifying.
He pulled her closer into his arms. When she left, he wouldn’t have much say over it, would he? He wouldn’t even be there. Might never see her again at all.
Unacceptable.
But what could he do about it? They were no closer to solving Heatherbrook’s murder than when they began. Edmund and Francine had flat-out said they believed him responsible. His own family regarded him with suspicion. The way that Stanton woman sent off missives, the constabulary would arrive with a rope and shackles any day now.
Legalities of guardianship aside, he could hardly ask Evangeline to stay with him when he wasn’t
sure how much longer he’d be able to stay himself. If he truly cared for her, he would have to let her go. Give her a bagful of money. Send her off in his best coach. Hope she thought of him once in awhile.
He should give her something to take with her. A memento of the short time they had together. Something to let her know they would always be together in his heart.
But what? Jewelry? A nice long string of pearls, perhaps. Something that even if she wrapped it thrice around her neck, the longest strand would dip across the slope of her breasts, brushing against the tender skin where the pale curves met with the trim of her bodice.
No. There was no time to order anything. She planned to leave today.
What did he have to give her? Nothing. Neither literally nor figuratively. She deserved better. She should be in bed with a better man than him. She should be…but he would die before giving her up to another. Bad enough he couldn’t protect her from her stepfather. He could hardly ask her to stay at the very house she’d seen herself being abducted from.
He’d rather her leave him for safety than be taken by force. Maybe she’d even let him join her, after the modiste’s visit. He’d promised Jane a new wardrobe when Madame Rousseau arrived in a couple days. He could say his goodbyes and slip away in the excitement of new clothes. Perhaps save himself a trip to the gallows in the process. Would Rose let him visit if he were a fugitive from justice? He certainly couldn’t visit if he were dead.
Evangeline tilted toward him, snuggled closer, opened her eyes.
“What a grim expression,” came her sleep-thickened voice. “What are you thinking about?”
“Death,” he answered. “By hanging.”
She stared at him for a second, then sighed. “Good morning to you, too.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, instantly contrite. He should’ve said “puppies” or “lemon ices.” Yet another fine example of the many ways he wasn’t good enough for her.
He bent down and kissed her anyway. When he lifted his head, her expression was still pensive.
“If I’m leaving anyway,” she said slowly, “I don’t see why I can’t just admit I was with you in your office. Who cares about my reputation if I can save you from the gallows?”
Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1 Page 30