Forever His (26 page)

“Luck?” she exclaimed on a strangled breath. How could he
be
so calculating? His choice of words shredded any illusions she had about him ever having the ability to feel something for her. “Is that all it
is
to you? Luck and strategy?”
Like this?
she wanted to shout.
Like what you are doing to me now?

“Aye, especially when played with more than one, in teams.”

All the air left her body in a single shocked exhalation. “Let me go!” She tried to wrench her arms free, glaring down at him in fury. “I am
not
going to listen to another word about how you amuse yourself by having orgies with groups of women! Let ... me ...
go
.” She said each word distinctly, through clenched teeth.

Her outburst earned her a look of stunned surprise. He straightened, staring down at her. Then after a moment an odd gleam came into his eyes. “Christiane,” he said lightly, “precisely what sort of game do you think it is, ‘playing tables’?”

“The sort that you’re good at. The sort you like to play with tavern wenches. The sort you’re playing with me right now!”

For some reason, that made him laugh. “Indeed.” Keeping her captive, he bent his head to kiss her cheek, then continued his tingling exploration of her bare skin, still chuckling at his private joke. “You are very quick to believe the worst of me, wife.”

“You make it easy enough!”

“Aye,” he admitted, “it would seem that I do.”

“You’re just as quick to believe the worst of me!”

He lifted his head, and his smile faded. He didn’t say anything for a very long time. His eyes searched her face, those brown depths hot with desire, potent with longing—and swirling with a new look she had not seen before.

When he finally spoke, his voice had dropped to a lower, gentler tone. “In truth, I am not certain what to believe about you anymore, my lady wife.” He released her wrists. “But mayhap we have both been too quick in our judgments.”

He wasn’t holding on to her anymore. He levered his weight off her and braced his arms against the wall, looming over her without keeping her captive. She could have moved away, walked out. But that deep, tender tone of his voice held her prisoner more than his hands ever could. And her heart was beating strangely.

When she made no move to leave, he lowered his head until his lips were a scant breath from hers. A lock of his hair fell forward, tickling her. He grinned. “Mayhap, milady, we should begin over again.”

“B-begin over again?” she whispered, her lashes already fluttering downward in anticipation of his kiss.

“Aye,” he murmured. “I am Sir Gaston de Varennes, lord of this chateau. And you,
chérie?
”

“Celine.” She lifted her mouth to his. “Celine Fontaine.”

“Celine.”

He wasn’t questioning or scoffing this time, merely accepting her name before he sealed his lips over hers and accepted her kiss.

Her heart filled with hope and longing and so many feelings she couldn’t begin to sort them out, couldn’t do anything in that moment but moan softly when his arms closed around her. He kissed her, held her, enfolded her in his heat, his strength, his life, until she could only slide her hands across the broad muscles of his chest, along the corded sinews of his neck, until she was twining her fingers through the dark curls at his nape.

At her light caress, his arms tightened. They held each other, tighter, closer, kissing until Celine knew she would faint and didn’t care, until time spun out beyond counting.

Time.

When he finally lifted his mouth from hers and allowed them both a breath, she lay her head against his chest, closing her eyes, asking the question she couldn’t bear to ask. “Do you believe me, Gaston?”

His breathing was fast and shallow and she could hear his heart pounding. “I believe you are not who I thought you were. I believe you are not a woman who would give unwavering loyalty to a knave such as Tourelle. And you are too intelligent to be taken in by any lies he might tell you.” His voice took on a rough, unsteady edge she had heard only once before, when he had rescued her from the river. “And I believe more than aught else that I want you to stay with me.”

She glanced up to find him gazing down at her with that look of unfamiliar darkness swirling in his eyes again, and her own eyes burned with sudden tears at the bittersweet impossibility of what he asked. “And what about the game you like so much?” she asked with a pained smile, though she knew the answer made no difference. “What about playing tables with all those different, pretty opponents?”

He grinned down at her. “Does it vex you so, little wife? Do you care so much?”

She thought of keeping her secret, but didn’t.
“Yes.”

His expression softened. His eyes, his voice, his very touch softened. He cupped her face in his broad, callused palms. “Then for you,
chérie
, I shall give it up. I vow to you that I shall never play another game of tables.”

She closed her eyes, too late to stop a tear that slipped from beneath her lashes. “You would give it up ... for me?”

He kissed the drop of moisture away. “Aye.” His fingers wove into her hair. “I want you, Celine. And you are worth that price. Or any other.”

His kiss stole her breath before she could reply or ask any more questions.

Then hunger took control of them both.

All the fire and suppressed longings they had been battling for three weeks spilled over and swept them away in one swift cascade. He walked her backward, a single step. She came up against the wall but barely felt the impact, pressing herself into the heat of his body. He didn’t bother with sweet preliminaries this time. She didn’t want them. His tongue demanded entry and took it, thrusting against hers. She kissed him back, long and hard and deep, her hands sliding into his hair as he lifted her, until the soft juncture of her thighs cradled the hard arousal barely concealed by his tight leggings.

She inhaled sharply at the contact, but never gave a thought to stopping him, felt herself soaring and falling all at once, drugged by his kiss as she always was. He held her tight with one arm across her back and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He slid his other hand between their bodies and she shuddered, not with fear but with anticipation.

She didn’t want to think of the future or the past or any time at all but this moment. This sweet
now
. She was trapped in this place, this time, this marriage, these feelings she did not want to fight ... and all of it urged her to give in to what they both wanted. She didn’t care anymore what he called it, or what she called it. All she knew was that she could not feel so much for him and be so wrong about what he felt for her.

And this might be all she ever had of him, all that God would grant her, before she returned to her own time or ...

She gasped when she felt his hand moving against her soft mound. He fumbled with the snaps he encountered on her teddy, then pushed the fabric aside impatiently. His fingers brushed against her, gently; then when he felt her dampness, more powerfully.

She cried out when he began to stroke her, his fingers delving into her, teasing, seeking, demanding. The sensations began to build, so quickly, so violently, spinning tight within her belly, the heat and light of a universe full of stars all condensed into one, straining toward the explosion of sheer ecstasy. Then she felt his hand shift away from her to himself. And then ...

Then came the unfamiliar feel of smooth, hard, velvet-steel flesh pressing against her thigh.

***

Gaston almost lost control as he felt her soft, bare thigh against his rigid arousal. This was torture. A mistake. Sweet Christ, the worst mistake he had ever made in his life. The feelings he had for this woman were
weakness
. Letting himself feel passion for one female above all others was
madness
.

But in that moment he wanted to be weak, welcomed madness.

He began to thrust against her skin and the silk of her garment, keeping her firmly in place, not daring to let her move. Groaning, he rubbed his length along her hip and thigh, relentlessly torturing and pleasuring himself at the feel of what was almost real.

With a whimper, she tried to shift closer, but he held her pinned and kept moving his hips, faster, harder, his breath a harsh storm against her neck. Bracing her against the wall, he reached down and began to caress her intimately again.

She threw her head back against the stone, shivering and writhing against him, the spasms of pleasure making her tighten around his fingers. He choked out a groan of frustration and need but kept moving, pleasing her and himself, teasing the swollen bud of her desire until she was breathless with wanting release, and then he gave it to her and she took it so easily, crying out his name in a sweet song.

By some miracle he kept himself from making the small thrust of his hips that would have let him plunge his full length home, into her, deeply. His every muscle taut, he pressed his head against her shoulder, undulating with her against the wall in a shameless mockery of the passionate act. And then the fever seized him, pleasure coiling, spinning tighter upon itself until it ripped loose and tore free. With a muffled shout of release, he felt himself flowing, his seed spilling over her bare hip.

They were both trembling. Spent and yet wanting. Fulfilled and yet frustrated. The mingled, hot chorus of their breathing filled the chamber.

“Merciful God,” he swore softly, appalled at the risk he had taken, knowing he would do it again in a heartbeat. He let her go. Let her unwrap her legs from around his waist, let her slide down the wall until her small, bare feet touched the floor.

He stood there, unable to move, wanting to say something. But he could find no words to apologize or explain or express what he was ...
feeling
.

He abruptly turned away.

“Gaston?” she asked in a voice soft with hurt.

He spun back toward her, capturing her in a fierce gaze. “I
will
have you,” he vowed. “Not tonight, nor on the morrow, but as soon as the annulment is complete and Lady Rosalind agrees to wed me. I will have you and I will not let you go.
I will never let you go.
”

She gazed up at him blankly, the languor of their intimacy quickly disappearing from her eyes. “Lady Rosalind?” she whispered. “But I thought ... you said ...”

Gaston cursed under his breath. He had come here to persuade her to accept the idea of staying with him, and instead he had half ravished her and now was making her feel like a possession, a chattel. He was not handling this well at all.

He tried to remind himself of the reasons he had thought of earlier, when it all had seemed so clear and logical. “You will be safe with me, can you not understand that? Tourelle cannot harm you as long as you are in my keeping. And you have naught to return to after our marriage is finished—you cannot want the cloister, and you have no family, no land, not a blade of grass or a single coin to your name. Do you not see that it would be better to stay?”

“Better ...?” she mumbled. “As your mistress? Is that really all you want ... all you feel for me?”

“Celine, we have—”

“No, don’t.” Her eyes swirled with a sudden blue-gray storm of anger and hurt. “Don’t bother reminding me that we’ve already had this discussion. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Haven’t you been listening? I’m from the future. I have to go
home
or I’m going to die. That’s why I came to this room in the first place. You can see the eclipse for yourself—a dark of the moon. Just look out the window.”

He was not certain how the conversation had gotten diverted from the very pleasant subject of her becoming his mistress to the unpleasant annoyance of her incredible tales, but he flicked a glance out the window to placate her.

Then he turned toward it more fully, staring into the light with an uncomfortable clench of his heart.

There was indeed a dark of the moon as she had said, a small slice of black obscuring the silver disk. His gaze narrowed.

Even as all reason denied what she had said, he found himself glancing back at her, studying her strange garment ... looking down at the crumpled note of farewell he had dropped on the floor.

“It’s true,” she told him again with quiet insistence. “I’m from 1993.”

He shook his head, fighting it, but at the same time a trace of uncertainty began to take hold. He thought of all he had witnessed: the way she had appeared so suddenly in his bed; the fact that Royce and his men could find no trace of how she had entered the castle; her short hair when she was so obviously not a novice nun; her strange ways and knowledge; the devices she had invented; her meeting with the mystic woman in the forest; her presence here tonight in this chamber; the fact that she did not know of a game so common as tables ...

None of it made sense.

Unless she was telling the truth.

The facts added up to an utterly impossible conclusion. If he were to depend on his powers of logic and reason, as he had all his life ...

I have to go home or I’m going to die.

Nay, it could not be true!

“You’ve got to believe me,” she said stubbornly. “I came here tonight to go home. I put on this outfit because I have to go back the same way I came in. I can’t take anything from your time with me. Brynna—the mystic woman—explained it to me. And ... and look at that.”

She pointed to the trunk she had pushed from beneath the window. A gold ring gleamed on top of it.

“I even took off the wedding band you gave me because I couldn’t take it with me.”

He stared down at the band of gold, then lifted his gaze to hers, slowly, still not willing to believe it.

Not wanting to believe it.

He opened his mouth, but before be could say a word, a cry of alarm out in the corridor cut him short: the sound of someone calling his name.

“Conceal yourself,” Gaston said curtly as he went to the door. When she was hidden in the shadows, he stuck his head out into the hall. “You there! Hold!”

Etienne, who was halfway down the hall and heading for the spiral stairs, turned around with a jerk. “Milord! I was sent to find you, but you were not in your chamber,” he said breathlessly. “Captain Royce and his men have returned, sir—and they have the Duc de la Tourelle and his traveling party with them.”