by Ann Vremont
There, so near at last, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. It was not as I expected, his scent. Strong and earthy, it made me hungry—for what I still couldn’t guess. Certainly I did not intend so early to take things so very far?
Feeling his hand on my bare shoulder, I opened my eyes.
“About our eventual marriage,” he answered.
A second time that night I thought I would die on the spot! I couldn’t respond, only tremble beneath his touch. Such heights in a few short weeks, it seemed impossible.
“Is that not what you are here to discuss, Gabrielle?” he asked and withdrew his hand.
“It is, Sebastian,” I assured him and reached out to touch his sleeve. “I just dared not hope to hear those words from your lips tonight.”
Grabbing both of my shoulders, he pulled me closer, my breasts a mere inch from the frills of his coat. I longed to push forward, to press against his chest, but fear that he would find me brazen stopped me.
“What is it?” I asked, the words sounding with a quiver as I fought to contain the heat building in me.
“I would kiss you, Gabrielle, if that is not too bold of me?”
I relaxed beneath his touch and closed my eyes, ready for his kiss. What did I expect? Not those light pecks that clumsy admirers sometimes sought to bestow upon me. But neither did I expect a deep probing of my mouth that would leave me damp and on fire (in so many places)!
He started slow, his lips whispering across mine, leaving me sighing. Then his tongue flicked at the corner of my mouth and, like a child drawn to a nipple, I followed the motion, opening my mouth to his. His tongue penetrated me, sliding over and against mine, swiping at my palate with sensuous thrusts that had me cresting against his broad chest.
He cupped my breast as he kissed me, the looser fitting gown he had equipped me with for the night allowing him to manipulate my flesh with his strong hands. I leaned into him, returning the thrust of his tongue, and his other hand traveled down to my calf. He rubbed at my leg through the fabric, effortlessly coaxing me into a reclining position.
Sebastian uncurled his body along mine and I felt the just of his hips and hard press of his manhood through the cloth of my gown. I sighed, arching my back, wanting nothing more than to have him take me but not knowing how to, or whether I should, ask for such a thing.
“My love.” His voice was filled with the same warm spice that scented his body and I moaned against his shoulder as his hand traveled the curve of my hip. “I would worship your body if you would but consent, Gabrielle?”
Dark, husky, the request sent thrills racing over my skin followed by a warm blanket of heat. Nevertheless, I tightened with dread.
“You would think me wanton,” I protested at the same time my tone pleaded for him to convince me otherwise.
“I would think you my mate, love, bound to me forever,” he answered. He lifted the skirt of my gown and undergarments, the leather of his glove smooth against my thigh. He gripped my hip, his thumb caressing the skin of my lower stomach.
How could I deny such a touch! I arched and moaned, my legs spreading even though I did not order them to do so. He stroked the small button between the folds of my womanhood, the touch of the leather on the sensitive skin maddening.
“Sebastian…I have never…” I stopped, the confession almost embarrassing. I knew how far other young women in my position had ventured. Veronique had teased me with half-confessions of her more sensual escapades. Would Sebastian expect me to be a virgin or find me a silly unschooled child?
“No?” he asked, his voice seeming to disbelieve his good fortune. “All the more precious, love, this gift you offer.”
I almost began sobbing against his chest at that point. The silken caresses, his calling me “love.” It was all too much…all that I had ever hoped for and I still could not believe it true. “You will not think me wanton?” I persisted.
He pulled back and, thinking I had lost him, my heart broke. How great my joy to see that he was only removing his signet ring and one glove.
“We will be married before a month passes,” he promised. “I will go to your father this week and arrange it.” Tossing the glove on the floor, he offered the ring to me. “Take this ring and know that I tell you the truth, that I tell you what is in my heart, dear Gabrielle.”
I fastened the ring to a long chain I wore hidden beneath my gown. Stretching my arms out, I unconditionally offered my body to him. “Come to me, my love.”
He moved cautiously, his obvious concern for my pleasure making me burn hotter with each caress. His ungloved hand parted my lower lips, the pad of his fingertips exploring the entrance to my very center. I had imagined his hands to be very smooth, more so than the glove, but they were rough. The surprise left me panting as he pulled and teased the small button and thick lips before sticking a finger full inside me.
I could feel him testing my virtue and he groaned as his finger brushed against the covering of my virginity.
“Sweet, sweet, Gabrielle.” His breathing was harsh as his lust obscured his voice. He stroked the inside of my center with his fingers as he leaned back and watched passion whip through my body. “To think that this should be mine. Only mine.”
“Only yours,” I assured him. Begging him to enter me, I extended my arms. “But take it now, my love. Take it as my pledge of love for you, as you have given me your ring as pledge.”
He stood for a moment, removing the other glove and tossing it next to its mate on the floor. He lowered his pants until I could see the full thrust of his manhood silhouetted in the moonlight. Something half gasp, half groan escaped me at the sight of it. Like a true wanton, I reached out, sighing when my fingers could not close around the shaft.
“Will it hurt?” I asked, some part of me hoping that it would. I wanted to walk around in the morning sore from Sebastian’s love of me.
He did not answer me immediately, choosing instead to kneel in front of my wide-spread legs. My lower lips were covered with a rich moisture that had built while he kissed and touched me. He ran the tips of his fingers through it before inserting them once again inside of my center. As his fingers moved within me, his thumb ran over that distended bump of flesh that so thrilled at his ministrations. So pleasured was I by his attentions I had to bring my forearm across my face and bite at the soft flesh lest I cry out and reveal our lovemaking.
As he brought my desire to a high pitch that had me thrashing on the couch, I felt the tear of my maidenly shield and then the full thrust of his fingers inside me while my body broke against a wave of ecstasy. When the waves subsided, he withdrew halfway, his fingers wedging open the swollen gate of my sex as he positioned his manhood at the threshold.
I could feel myself expanding as he pushed in. So greedy my body for his rod, the muscles snapped shut around him and he moaned my name. His hands found my thighs and he began pumping inside of me. Already, my body was quivering against his and I heatedly demanded more, more of his thick shaft, more of the sensuous flesh he offered up to appease my hunger. Fragile in our lust, we trembled against one another as he pumped my body.
I marveled at his strength, at the virility of his thrusts, more enthralled with him than I had ever been. Having loved him at such a distance, I had never noticed these unexpected charms. Where I had imagined him slighter to the touch, he was solid and thick. Where I had imagined every inch of his skin to be petal soft, he was rough in all the right places.
“Gabrielle, I die happy now,” he softly cried out, his voice breaking as he spoke my name.
I clutched him to me as I, too, rushed to meet my death. Oh, happy death that spread through my limbs with a molten silence, melting each muscle so that it first quivered and then quieted with fatigue.
Both our bodies exhausted, he pressed gently against me, his arms propped such that he did not ask me to bear his weight, though I gladly would have if only to keep his shaft, still throbbing in its pleasure, inside me.
“Gabrielle
?” The question was breathless and low, as all our talk had been this evening.
“Yes, my love?”
“You must not inquire with your father as to whether I have asked after you,” he said.
I did not understand his order, however gently delivered, and I told him as much.
“Do not doubt that I will seek his consent to our union,” he explained. “I just would not have your inquiries cause some suspicion on our…” He paused, searching the darkened room for some word that would pass among the decent folk still enjoying the masquerade. “Our current acquaintance,” he finished. “Do you not think, my love, that this is the wiser course?”
If I did not doubt his love, it was, indeed, the wiser course. And how could I doubt it, offered so sincerely and with his attention to my pleasure. “I will do as you ask in all things, dearest,” I answered.
I felt him swell against me in satisfaction and had to keep from wrapping my legs around him and begging him to ask me to do all sorts of wicked things!
“And will you meet with me again?” he asked.
Such nervousness, such fear trembled through his voice at the thought I would refuse. Joy leaked from my eyes.
“Tell me but when and how,” I answered, wrapping my arms around him.
Gently, he unwound himself from my embrace. “Follow Veronique’s instructions,” he answered, the smile evident in his voice. “She can be trusted in this matter, although she can only guess the nature of our…words…with one another.”
With tender devotion, he pulled the skirt of my gown back down and rearranged its folds before restoring his own clothing. Offering me his hand, he helped me up from the couch and walked me to the door. “We will not see each other until I send for you, and perhaps, even then, only once before I claim you publicly.”
He kissed me then, with the same heated intensity as the night’s first kiss, and released me into the hall. Veronique met me halfway back to the masquerade and ushered me into another room to make sure my appearance was fully aright. I protested, of course, that nothing should have caused it to go amiss, but she did not believe me, even if she would not confess openly to thinking me a liar. What did it matter? A month from now and I will be the wife of Sebastian L’Aigle.
April 17, 1787
So hard it has been to do as Sebastian ordered and not inquire with Papa as to Sebastian asking for my hand in marriage. But he did not say that I could make no inquiries as to potential suitors!
And Sebastian must have visited with Papa, who is acting so strange at the hints I drop. At tea today, even though it has been only three days since the masquerade, I aired a concern that I would never find a suitable marriage. Papa dropped his biscuit into his tea! And when I mentioned a most unsuitable young man as Papa was reaching for the sugar, he knocked the bowl over! Papa is not so clumsy in a single year, let alone one afternoon at tea.
But that is not all that I base my hope on. Sebastian has called for me—in the form of an invitation from Veronique to spend the weekend at her parent’s estate. The invitation did not arrive alone, the courier having a second envelope for Papa.
April 19, 1787
It is true, it cannot be otherwise. Papa announced at breakfast this morning that my return to the Sacred Heart will be postponed. He claims that Mama is saddened by my absence and would not lose me so soon. I am almost convinced, as I found her crying in her room this morning, saying how much she would miss me. But I can only hope that he is keeping me here so that Sebastian may propose!
April 21, 1787
How the days dragged after I received Veronique’s invitation, even though my heart was in a constant state of flutter. I am exhausted and happy that Veronique is playing the indifferent hostess, leaving me to rest in my room.
There was a gift on my bed when I arrived. A small white box with a heavy gold chain inside to bear the weight of the ring, so his note said, until I bear it on my finger as his wife. The note also promised that he would be with me tonight, although his arrival and departure will be secret.
How much I would have protested the thought of such a meeting even a week ago. But I did not have his avowal of love and devotion then. Now, the secrecy of it only heightens my arousal.
April 22, 1787
How can the body know this much joy and pleasure and not burst into flames?
Again, our appointment was late, long after the family had gone to bed. Worn out from a day’s anticipation of the night, I fell asleep almost immediately after returning to my room and changing into no more than the robe that should have covered my modest sleeping gown. It was only upon hearing the creak of the bedroom door as it slowly opened inward that I awoke.
Footsteps sounded across the floorboards only to be muffled as he reached the bed’s carpeted perimeter. The curtains to the room were drawn and no candles had been lit in the hall. I had only my sense of smell and the muffled sound of his voice to know that it was Sebastian.
“Gabrielle…”
So quiet, so tentative. Did he doubt that I would come? “Here, my love.” I reached out to find and clasp his hand.
He slid onto the mattress, the muted drop of his boots and clothing on the carpet assuring me he did not intend to leave anytime soon. His hands found the edge of the robe and I heard his surprised intake of breath when he discovered that the robe was all that covered me.
“Do you not approve?” I grabbed his hand and placed it over my ripe breast, moaning my own approval when he gave it a rough squeeze.
His lips found my ear and nuzzled my neck as he whispered to me, “Vixen!”
“Ah, love, I wish to hear your voice, not these whispers.” I let my body plead with him, moving beneath his roaming hand as it played me.
“Shhh…” The admonishment came with caresses as he rubbed at the sensitive button until I forgot myself and gave an urgent moan that he might touch me more deeply.
“Then open the curtains that I might see you,” I said even as I pulled one knee up high to ease the entrance of his fingers into my wet slit.
He moved down the bed, stopping halfway. “I want nothing more than to make love to you by moonlight, Gabrielle.” He kissed my thighs further apart. “And by sunlight…by any light. But I would not risk compromising your name…having anyone think that I married you for anything other than love.”
“You are right,” I relented. “It is just that I so miss the sight of you, I cannot help but argue a little.”
“When we are married, we will make love in the day and by candlelight at night.” His lips brushed across the hair covering my sex as he made his promise. “Your passion-filled screams will wake the servants. They will think the devil has invaded the house!”
“You forget your father,” I moaned, barely able to form the words as his tongue punctuated his claim with a long swipe against my lower lips. “What would he think of such a daughter-in-law?”
Sebastian stilled. “Do not worry about that,” he said, his words low and clipped.
I sat up, my fingers curling in the blond locks I could not see. “But I do worry, my love. What if he objects?”
I could feel the day’s whiskers on his cheek and chin brush against the sensitive skin of my thighs as he shook his head. I collapsed back against the mattress, waiting for him to either answer or to kiss and lick the question away.
“The only impediment to our marriage will be your feelings for me…if you cannot promise that you will love me and no other.”
I sat up again, drawing his face to mine. “Never think there can be such an impediment!”
I kissed him, thrusting my tongue into his mouth, tasting my own juices. I broke from him breathless and flung myself back onto the bed, opening myself entirely to his desires. “There will be no other, my love. Claim me now, thoroughly, until you can name me wife!”
He fell on me then, ravishing my body. His mouth covered my breasts, sucking at them, kneading their fullness as the head of his rod massaged my wet entrance. I brought m
y knees up along his hips, urging him to enter, but he would have none of my impatience. He flicked his tongue across my nipples, bringing them to hard points while his fingers teased the moist interiors of my sex. Licking his way down to my navel, he tongued the small hole there, too. The sensation was maddening…the thrust of his fingers, the tickle of his hair on my abdomen. Nearly crying for his rod, I tucked my knees up to my chest.
“Not until I have tasted your sweet nectar properly,” he growled, his tongue moving lower as he added another two fingers. All but his thumb was inside me. That he used to push one of my lower lips to the side so that he could nibble at the plumped bud of flesh. He took it firmly between his lips, rolling it from side to side as he tongued at the small sheath and the kernel of pleasure it hid.
I threaded my hands through his hair once again, cresting against his mouth. Ecstasy forced my eyes shut so tightly I saw lights dancing across the inside of my eyelids.
“Take me,” I urged, matching the thrust of his fingers inside me. “Fill me with your manhood, my love!”
My demands undid him and he was quickly poised over my center, hesitating only a second before ramming his shaft into me. I felt the swollen sacs below his member slap against my bottom, battering that other hole. This was passion, abandon, and I could not think of what I had done to deserve it…to deserve him!
His strokes lengthened even as his breathing came more rapidly. Bracing himself against one of my thighs, he reached between my legs with his other hand and rubbed the top of my sex as his gyrating hips buried his shaft deeper inside me.
“This pleasures you, Gabrielle?”
“Pleasure pales, my love.” My words came too fast. Gone was every pretense of being an elegant woman of rank. “You take my breath away… my very soul would fly…could I not cling to you.”