by Heather Snow
The pain he saw swimming in the pale green depths of her eyes pierced him as surely as the lances the French had used at Waterloo with such deadly efficiency. Good Christ, he hadn’t meant for this. He’d only been trying to help her in the same way she’d been helping him. “Oh, Pen,” he murmured, stroking her face, her tears warm and wet against his palm.
He had to stop her crying. It tore at him to see her in such anguish, even if she’d needed to hear the truth.
So he gave her something else to latch on to, as she’d done for him when he’d needed the distraction in the carriage that night.
He kissed her.
Chapter Fourteen
Penelope stilled with shock as Gabriel’s lips touched hers. But then he pressed against her mouth with a fierceness that drove out everything in her mind and everything in her heart.
Everything but him.
She wanted nothing more than to lose herself to the distraction he offered. She grasped at his shoulders, running her hands over their broad, muscled length. But the embrace didn’t bring him close enough. Not nearly close enough. So she clutched at his neck and rose up on her toes, trying to pull herself into him.
Gabriel groaned, a raw sound that sent a thrill skittering down her spine. It only intensified when he tightened his arms around her, bringing her tight and flush against his chest—right where she wanted to be.
But she knew the delicious contact wouldn’t suffice for long. Even as her breasts flattened against his hard planes, hot need curled through her. It rose up from her core in twisting tendrils, weaving through her like hungry vines, pulling and stretching within her.
Hands slid into her hair. His large palm gripped her head, tilting it so that their mouths met at a slightly different angle. His tongue slid into her then and she moaned around it, accepting it. Craving it—and more.
Still clutching his neck, she rose a little higher . . . just enough to rock her hips against his, tearing a ragged moan from them both. Encouraged, she rolled her hips in a slow circle against his hard arousal as the vines of need stretched tighter. And tighter still when his hands left her hair to grasp her beneath her hips and drag her over him again.
She pulled her mouth away from his. “I need you.” And she did. Needed to remember what it was like to lose herself to desire. Needed to forget the ache of guilt that never seemed to leave her. Needed to feel something—anything but the pain that pierced her heart. She loosened her grip on his neck and ran her fingers down his arms, over the hands that kneaded her hips so erotically. She tugged his hands into hers and stepped backward, pulling him with her. “Come.”
She gave him no time to protest, leading him unerringly to her chamber door. Bless Liliana for putting them on the top floor rather than in the family wing. She’d done so because their adjoining bedrooms opened onto the long gallery, and she knew Penelope would wish to utilize the gallery for exercise should the rains return. But all Penelope could think of at this moment was that it meant her bedroom, and the mindless bliss she was about to find in it, was only steps away.
Keeping one of his hands firmly in hers, she pivoted to fumble with the doorknob with her other. As the door creaked open enough for them to squeeze through, she tugged him inside.
Once the door was safely closed behind them, she turned to face him again. His chest rose and fell in choppy, heaving pants and his golden brown eyes glowed with heat. He leaned back against the door as if he needed it to brace him. He looked dark and delicious and entirely too clothed. He also looked aroused and wild . . . and hesitant.
Her stomach fluttered anxiously. She didn’t want him to come to his senses. She couldn’t bear it if he did. She stepped into him once more, pressing herself against him from shoulders to toes, sliding her arms around his neck to cup his face. “Please, Gabriel. Don’t think,” she said, placing light kisses against his jaw, under his chin until she was thwarted by his cravat. Then she trailed her lips back up to whisper against his mouth, “Please. Just take me.”
Her plea snapped whatever restraint he was holding on to, and Penelope gloried as he spun with her in his arms and pinned her against the door. His lips took hers in a voracious kiss as he dipped his knees and then rose again, dragging his body against hers in a slow, hot slide. His chest scraped along her breasts, his abdomen bumped her own, and his arousal burned against her mons. Even through both layers of their clothes, the heat between them was enough to make her swoon. Were she not pinned between his body and the door, she was certain she’d be in a puddle on the floor.
“Gabriel,” she gasped, before his name turned into a groan. His mouth had moved to her ear, and his teeth nipped at the delicate lobe before his tongue swiped out to soothe it.
She slid her hands down his chest and pulled at his shirttails. She wanted to tug the garment over his head, but she didn’t wish to wait that long to touch his skin, so she slipped her palms under the fabric and ran them over the ridges of his stomach. His muscles leapt beneath her touch, and he sucked in a breath. But then his mouth robbed her of breath when it slid down her neck to bite gently where her neck met her shoulder.
She could stand it no longer. She slipped her hand past his waistband and tore at the buttons of his fall. As soon as she got them open wide enough, she shoved his trousers past his hips and down to his knees. Gabriel hissed as he sprang free, a sound Penelope registered with wicked delight even as she used her foot to finish undressing him, pushing his trousers down around his boots.
“Pen,” he rasped, his breathing gone ragged. A pleased smile spread across her face at seeing him so undone. So close to taking her.
And then he spun her in the cage of his arms, tearing at her laces. A few tugs and her bodice sagged a little. His knuckles scraped against her back as he wrestled with the spiral lacing. As soon as she was able, she shrugged the gown off of her shoulders, allowing it to slip down to her waist, where she helped it the rest of the way off.
“Good God,” Gabriel muttered from behind her. She imagined how she must look, her back cinched tight in her stays, her flared hips and bottom bared to his gaze. She felt amazingly wanton and she wanted him to feel the same. She pressed herself backward into him.
It worked better than she’d hoped. Gabriel made a low growl in his throat and slammed her against the door, bracing his hands on either side of her. His hard body covered hers, his clothed chest to her clothed back, his bare loins to her naked bottom. His hard erection burned between her thighs, tantalizingly close to where she needed him. Her temperature spiked, as did her desire. She laid her cheek against the cool wood, sighing against it. Then she rolled her hips again.
“Ah,” he moaned as his mouth opened on the back of her neck. She shuddered violently as he slid his length against her, rubbing along her slickness with firm slides that tantalized but could never satisfy. She burned with her need, but after several sliding thrusts, she feared he would never come inside her.
Just when she thought she could stand it no longer, he turned her to face him again. As she wrapped her arms around his neck once more, he yanked her right leg off of the floor and wrapped it around his hip. She let go of his neck with her left hand and moved it down his body to grasp his swollen shaft. It slid against her palm, thick and heavy and hot. Something clenched within her, knowing she was so close to having him now, to satisfying the gnawing need that no longer lay dormant inside her.
It had been so long since she’d felt this rush of desire. She’d had many offers over the past two years, but none that had even tempted her.
Well, she was more than tempted now. Somehow, Gabriel had broken through the dark shell she’d been hiding in, to the very heart of her. She wasn’t certain how or why or even what it meant. She only knew that what she felt for him in this moment was more than just physical need. It was a deep, desperate longing that frightened her—though not enough to stop her from having him. Now. She rubbed the head of him against the center of her pleasure, and a shiver of sparks rippled through
her before she parted her blond curls and poised him at her entrance. “Come to me, Gabriel,” she pleaded.
“Pen,” he moaned before his lips captured hers. His fingers dug into her hips as he lifted her, pulling her other foot off of the floor and encouraging her to wrap that thigh around him, too. As her heel dug into his muscled backside, he thrust up into her.
Yes! she wanted to cry, but she hadn’t the breath for that. Instead, she thrust her tongue into his mouth, tangling with his as he buried himself in her heat again.
Lord, she needed this. She clutched Gabriel to her and moved her hips frantically, hoping he would grasp what she wanted. It took only a few hard thrusts to know that he understood completely. He filled her with rough, merciless strokes that fed the fire building inside of her. It was everything she’d hoped for—better even. When he jerked his mouth from hers so he could breathe, she simply laid her head back against the door and reveled in the jarring slam of his body into hers as her entire body tightened and stretched, reaching and striving for the explosion she knew was to come.
And then it was there, bursting upon her with a suddenness that made her cry out with the intensity of it. Her orgasm must have triggered his, because Gabriel drove into her one, two, three more times before pulling her hips hard against his and emptying himself within her pulsing heat.
Gradually, their moans gave way to heavy breaths as the sweat on her skin cooled. She was still pinned to the door by his pelvis, and he was still intimately lodged within her, though he’d softened. She had the fleeting thought that she would like to stay here, joined with him forever. But all too soon, her limbs began to tremble with strain.
And her mind began to think again. Oh God . . . what had she done? She loosened her thighs’ grip on Gabriel’s hips and lowered her legs to the floor. As he slipped from her, she felt an awful pang of loss that alarmed her further still.
She tried to pull back from his embrace but he wouldn’t allow it, tightening his arms around her to where she had little choice but to tuck her face against his shirt. She couldn’t help but breathe him in, and despite the knowledge that she should never have done any of this, she savored the moment.
“I’m sorry, Pen,” he murmured against her hair.
She lifted her cheek from his chest and looked up at him in genuine confusion.
A muscle ticced in his jaw. “That isn’t how I imagined making love to you for our first time. You deserve better than a rough tumble against a wall.”
“It was a door, actually,” she blurted inanely.
She felt, rather than heard, his grunt.
Her eyes roved his strong brow, his defined cheekbones and tapered jaw, which was clenched tight with concerned regret. He had nothing to feel bad about. Whereas she . . .
Shame filled her. He’d said “first time,” as if he hoped—or even expected—there would be more. And why wouldn’t he? He’d as much as told her he harbored deep feelings for her that first day at Vickering Place, even though he hadn’t known it was really her he was confessing them to. That made her selfish lapse of good sense all the worse. She had no business—none—crossing the lines of intimacy as she had.
Penelope tucked her head back against his chest, unable even to look at him as she said, “No, I’m sorry, Gabriel.”
He huffed beneath her cheek. “Why?”
Why? So many things were wrong with what she’d just done. “I never should have kissed you. Again,” she added, given she’d kissed him in the carriage the other day as well. Goodness. Perhaps Mr. Allen had been right about her after all.
Gabriel laughed softly, the sound a quiet rumble beneath her ear. “I kissed you this time, if you remember.”
She did. Her toes curled with the memory, in fact. “Yes, but I should have pulled away. Don’t you see?” She lifted her head to look up into his face. “In our time together, you have made yourself vulnerable to me, for your treatment’s sake. It is unconscionable that I took advantage of you and—”
His soft rumble turned to true laughter then. “Took advantage of me? Pen . . .” He shook his head and his eyes crinkled as he looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Making love to you is the best thing that has happened to me in—well, perhaps ever.”
Her heart tripped even as a new guilt joined her shame. “You may think that now, but I’ve violated a trust between us. Feelings can easily be confused during the type of treatment we’ve been attempting and—” Her stomach lurched at her next thought. “God,” she croaked. “I will never forgive myself if my mistake undoes any of the progress you’ve made.”
Gabriel’s hands moved up to frame her face. “Shhh,” he said, stroking her gently. “This—what happened between us just now—is not a mistake. Nor are my feelings confused. Madness aside, I know my own mind.”
She shook her head in denial.
He just smiled tenderly at her. “I think I can understand where your worry might be justified if I were just some stranger you’d taken on for treatment. But, Pen . . .” His brow furrowed and his lips twisted, as if he struggled with how to phrase what he wanted to say. Then his face smoothed. “You asked me once why I was able to dance at your wedding and why I was able to attend other balls throughout our acquaintance without you sensing my struggles.” His thumb stroked her cheek. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? It was because of you.
“You kept my darkness at bay. When my anxiety would threaten, you always seemed to sense when I could do with a diversion—be it a witty remark or an irreverent observation. And whenever I would get near a dance floor and my head would swim and my breath would tighten and my heart would pound, all I had to do was look at you and everything would ease. You were my talisman long before you ever agreed to treat me, Pen. You always have been.”
She stopped breathing as her heart squeezed. His talisman?
“What happened between us just now only strengthens that for me, so don’t waste another moment fretting it. Besides . . .” His tender smile turned decidedly wicked, which sent a fresh lick of heat through her middle. “After being in your arms, I feel as if I could take on the world. I think you should kiss me again. Perhaps I will then associate this feeling with your lips so that whenever I need to”—he dipped his head and pressed a quick kiss upon her mouth—“all I have to do is steal a kiss to remember exactly how powerful I feel right now. That will do more to heal me than all of the talk in the world, and I daresay it might be good for you, too.”
And he took her lips again. She let him. Because despite her lingering worries, right now she felt alive. And powerful, too. And hopeful, not only for him but for herself. She didn’t want that feeling to end until it absolutely had to.
She broke from the kiss to turn once again in his arms, her decision made. “Help me out of my stays,” she commanded, her voice gone husky.
He hesitated for a moment, as if not believing she meant to let him touch her again, but then his fingers flew over her lacings, pulling them free of their holes. When he’d finished, she turned ever so slowly, allowing him to peel the stays from her body. When she pulled her chemise over her head, it left her standing only in her stockings and slippers.
Gabriel’s eyes roamed over her hungrily, seeming to singe her skin wherever his gaze lingered. She reached out to untie his cravat, which while decidedly askew, was still knotted. For that matter, his trousers were still puddled around his ankles because the man still wore his boots. Penelope couldn’t stifle a laugh.
Gabriel glanced down at himself, then back at her, the wry half grin she was beginning to adore lifting his lips. “A ridiculous pair we make,” he said. “You in only your stockings and garters and me mostly dressed.”
“I would say we made a perfectly pleasurable pairing,” she teased, enjoying the flash of heat in his eyes. “But I do think, for comparison’s sake, we should both be naked, don’t you?”
With that, she tugged at his cravat again. Together they managed to rid each other of their remaining attire, issuing sma
ll kisses or touches as they went about the pleasurable task. Hovering over each small caress were questions and doubts, almost as if they hung in the air between them: Was she making a terrible mistake becoming Gabriel’s lover? Would she end up harming him? Or was he correct, that strengthening their bond in this way might benefit them both?
She couldn’t know. She only knew that this felt more right than anything she’d done in years.
When they were both completely bare, Penelope stretched up to kiss Gabriel once again. Dear Lord, it was ever so much better to flatten her body against his when nothing lay between them. His body was well developed. Taut skin, covered with a light dusting of hair, stretched over lean muscle. When he moved against her, gooseflesh prickled her skin—not in a cold way, but in warm, pleasurable shivers as his body brushed hers.
He let her take his lips once . . . twice . . . as he sent his hands skimming over her back, stroking lower over her bottom and then back up again. But just as she was about to deepen her kiss, he moved to tuck his face into her neck as his arms tightened around her.
“Wait, Pen,” he said, though at least his breathing was as labored as hers. “Damn me for a fool for saying this, but . . .” He pulled back so that he could see her face. His body vibrated with leashed tension. “Are you certain this is what you want?”
He could be asking so many things with that seemingly innocent question—things about them, things about the future. Whatever he meant, his concern for her feelings filled her heart with warmth. Well, she was certain of only one thing: that she wanted this—him—right now. And that was all that mattered. She framed his face, lightly running her fingers over his austere features as she pulled his face down to whisper, “Yes,” against his lips before she captured his mouth with her own.
Gabriel felt the dizzying rush of desire flood him, Penelope having broken through the floodgates he’d erected with that one breathy word—yes.
Some small distant part of him was still slightly troubled, but it was drowned by the sea of undiluted pleasure coursing through him. Whatever providence had conspired to make Penelope his, if even for a moment, he would not tempt it with worries.