Read Strictly Forbidden Online
Authors: Shayla Black
“Dear God.” The moan slipped from his mouth as he gripped one of the bedposts for
support.
She grazed a gentle hand down his length again, then up, fingers exploring the smooth,
damp tip of him.
“Does that feel good?” she whispered in his ear.
He shivered. “Too good. Kira—
”
“Hush,” she insisted softly. “I want to do this for you.”
And she did, again and again, watching the gamut of Gavin’s expressions. In that moment,
he was vulnerable to her in ways he had not been when they had previously made love.
Pleasure and need dominated his expressions, rife with something reckless. His head
snapped back, his breathing harsh. Kira knew she held power in her hand. Even more,
she sensed he did not surrender that power often.
“No more,” he growled, grabbing her wrists to stay her next stroke.
His heavy breathing betrayed his arousal, and Kira smiled, despite her own excitement.
Pleasing him had not only empowered her
,
but
stimulated her as well. The tips of her breasts felt heavy and sensitive, though
Gavin had done nothing more than look at them. Tingles skated in languid circles low
in her belly. Already, she felt the ache of emptiness where Gavin would soon fill
her.
He gave her no time to revel in her victory or linger in her awakening. Instead, he
pulled her hand away from him, climbed up into the bed, and toppled her flat on her
back.
In the next instant, he covered her completely with his sizeable body. The skin-to-skin
contact seared Kira everywhere she was sensitive—her breasts, the flat of her abdomen,
the downy skin inside her thighs. She arched up to him, and he fitted his wide palm
beneath her back, keeping her pressed against him mercilessly.
With his other hand, Gavin grabbed her nape and drilled her with a blazing stare.
“Your turn.”
The words were a vow, and they made Kira shiver.
Then he took her mouth in a hungry kiss, fierce in its ability to storm her senses
and awaken them to his touch. His lips were demanding, seeking. He devoured her like
a man who had been deprived of gratification for years, not days. Kira could not hold
back her moan of pleasure. She felt wanted—and taken.
As his mouth mated with hers in an endless joining, the blood raced through her body.
Her skin felt alive as he shifted the hand beneath her to her buttocks. He dragged
his other hand across her shoulder. His fingers drifted down farther still until they
circled the taut pebble of her nipple. He awakened a new fire inside her, one that
consumed her whole body.
She arched into him again. This time, Gavin was ready. He fastened his mouth over
her swollen breast and sucked greedily, teeth scraping the sensitive tips. Kira clutched
his shoulders, her thighs parting beneath him in blatant invitation.
“Gavin…” she whispered restlessly, wanting the feel of him deep inside her.
“Not yet,” he barked between shallow breaths.
Then he shimmied down her body until his mouth was level with her breasts. He latched
on firmly, leaving his hands free to tease the slick tissues of her vulva and everything
they hid.
The dual torment made her cry out within seconds. Each time the suction of his mouth
pulled at her breast, his fingers passed over the sensitive bud between her legs.
It was heaven and hell, this reeling through sensation, neither knowing time nor weight.
She only knew Gavin—his delicious scent, the hard feel of him against her, the glory
of being in his arms and his bed. Her heart swelled as quickly as the rest of her
body until every part of her ached to receive Gavin’s possession.
The laps of his tongue against her engorged nipple was a sharp, keen pleasure, so
she protested with a cry when he laved the side of her breast and descended further
still. He atoned for the act by stroking her intimately, the delicious friction of
his fingers against her tingling button made her mind reel. The explosion she remembered
and craved
drew ever nearer.
With determined lips, Gavin explored the smooth skin of her stomach. He lapped a circle
around her navel, sending a fresh wave of sensation stabbing south to join the provocation
of his fingers stroking her.
Kira felt taut and coiled with need. She twined her fingers in the unusually overgrown
length of his hair and tried to bring his mouth back to her aching nipples, which
seemed to throb in rhythm with the frantic beat of her heart.
Instead, he continued down, easing his way toward the edge of the bed, and grabbed
her hips. His mouth lay but inches from her—
“Gavin?”
He merely sent her a glittering smile.
Then he bent his head to her. The first touch of his tongue stunned her with the riot
of sensation darting up her belly, down her legs, exploding in her head. It was so
intimate a kiss, and the fact he gave it to her, as if he wanted to love every part
of her, made her heart flutter.
“Gavin…”
He soothed her with a stroke of his hand over her hip while he licked her again, sampling
her slowly. With a mewling cry, Kira arched up. He continued to devour her in rhythmic
laps, and her pulse skittered. Kira saw no end to the ache in sight. The sensations
built, multiplying so fast, she could scarcely catch her breath. She felt intoxicated
by the desire resonating deep inside her, swirling her ever closer to the edge of
satisfaction. Her want and love for this proud, stubborn man made the need ripping
through her even more staggering.
Gavin pushed a pair of his thick fingers inside her and teased her inner walls. She
cried out at the new sensation. Then he compounded it by taking the hard little bud
above in his mouth.
Kira felt herself hurtle over the edge into the rainbow-bright abyss of pleasure.
The peak spiraled out of control, striping her of reason. She released a guttural
cry as a second wave of satisfaction hit her moments after the first, this one longer,
stronger, more devastating.
She gripped Gavin by the hair as feeling after feeling hammered her with blinding
force. She felt exalted by the power of their passion.
And when the bliss dimmed to a sweet throb, Gavin made his way back up her body, plying
a series of evocative kisses along the way.
“Gavin,” she murmured. “Oh, my. I can’t breathe…”
“You don’t need to.”
He planted an open-mouthed kiss on her neck, one that made her shiver. Then he plunged
inside her. Kira gasped as the friction of his hard length slid against her awakened,
swollen flesh. He climbed deeper inside her, filling her completely. She sighed.
Once buried to the hilt, he shuddered. “Why can’t I resist you?”
His hoarse whisper rolled over her. Kira heard the torrent of need, the explosive
desire in his words. A man like Gavin did not give up his self-control easily, and
the fact he did so with her every time they touched told her the depth of his feeling.
With every touch, she felt the love in his heart.
“You’ve no need to,” she whispered.
Then she rocked beneath him in invitation. Without uttering more than a groan, he
accepted.
He
thrust inside
her slowly at first, long, heavy strokes that fanned the fire of the arousal she’d
felt certain he had already sated. But no, it returned
and built as he entered her again, possessing her fully once more. Kira slid her palms
down the slick, taut length of his back and pressed a kiss to his wide mouth. He planted
a hard kiss on her lips, then buried his head in the crook of her neck.
She nipped at his lobe with her teeth. “I love the feel of you inside me, Gavin.”
Her words seemed to break his control. Suddenly, his strokes became ravenous, almost
desperate. He drove into her, one intent thrust after another swept her into the wind
of need once again.
“I…love…being…inside…you,” grunting out a word between each strong stroke.
Her spirits soared, along with her hunger. He was listening to himself, to his heart.
His head would never let the self-controlled Gavin confess such a thing. But a man
lost in love and passion… He would say everything he felt.
Gavin fitted his hands beneath her buttocks and lifted her to him. The position allowed
him to reach tissues inside her he had not before. Soon Kira found herself laboring
to breathe as the pleasure became urgent, jagged. She tensed and swelled. She clawed
at his back, needing relief.
“Come with me,” he urged.
He plunged into her recklessly again
and
again. Kira could not have stopped the peak from bursting within her if she tried.
She pulsed around him, gripping his length inside her. Gavin gritted his teeth, cried
out, then surrendered in a long shudder of helpless desire.
They lay entwined, the silence broken only by their ragged breathing. A glow of fulfillment
wafted through her, golden, perfect. She nearly felt as if she floated, weightless,
without a care. Only the love she felt for Gavin remained.
Chapter Seventeen
Minutes later, Kira lay below him and lifted a graceful hand, slicking a lock of dark
hair away from his forehead. Gavin lifted his gaze, met hers. He tried not to flinch.
She had talked about listening to his heart. But he did not know what was in it. Emotions
barraged him from every direction, nearly deafening. Never had he been so confused.
Did the tangle of his thoughts show in his eyes?
Moonlight spilled through his window, illuminating Kira’s face with a soft silver
glow. What did he feel for her? Hmm. He cared, certainly. He thought of her too often
for sanity.
What he felt now went beyond mere satisfaction. That alone would not urge him to stay
inside her as long as he could. That alone would not make him reluctant to release
her.
Gavin more than wanted her
. H
e knew that. But he also feared the reason he could not resist her.
His damned Daggett blood.
Once he’d seen her naked in his bed, that legacy of lust running through his veins
had ridden him hard, demanding he take her, claim her, wring every ounce of pleasure
from her before finding his own.
Beneath him, Kira’s starry blue eyes glowed with love and hope, damn near blinding
him. And his reckless urges were prodding him to give her anything she wanted so he
could have her anytime, anywhere, be the recipient of her first sleepy smile in the
morning and her last sigh of pleasure at night.
And Gavin knew those tantalizing images should never come to pass, not as long as
he was cursed like his father.
Afraid, uncertain, he rolled away, onto his back. With a frown, he closed his eyes.
Bloody hell, how had he let this happen again? Every time she came near, a haze descended
over his reason. He had no defense against his want. It overtook every rational thought.
How could he be so weak?
Something about Kira incited the Daggett curse, made him lose control over his conscience,
his passions. That quality drew him inexorably to her
,
made him yearn for even her smile.
How terrible that the very quality which made her irresistible comprised one of the
very reasons he could not wed her—though not the only one, of course.
The humid still of the night pressed in, stifling his every breath. How could he live,
knowing he never should—or would—touch her again? He had no answer. Yet how could
he betray his family and his honor and risk provoking his lustful nature over and
over again? Neither did he want to hurt Kira by bringing her in the middle of the
mess that had become his life.
“Gavin?” She frowned, her face a mask of concern. “If you’re worried that you hurt
me, I assure you nothing could be further from the truth.”
No, that wasn’t his worry at all. What they had done together felt far too good to
involve pain—only regret.
“You do remember me telling you that I am no longer engaged to your cousin?” she asked.
Oh, he remembered. The news had stunned him. And damnation, it had elated him as well.
At last Kira was free to be his, even though he could not claim her in any way other
than he had tonight.
He sighed. “I remember, yes. But—
”
“I know you did not want to hurt James, and I vow to you, he is not. I told him that
my feelings dictate that I marry another
,
and he did nothing but wish me well.”
Marry?
One look at her shining face told him she still wanted marriage. And she had every
reason to expect it. Three times now he had taken her to his bed without benefit of
marriage. He had claimed her innocence. Every dictate as a gentleman screamed that
he should offer for her. Something inside him—the lust probably—concurred.
But even if James had not been hurt by her defection, there were many other obstacles.
The scandal, for instance. Though Lord Vance’s evil would be known to the
ton
within days, he had no assurance if the truth would mend her good name. Scandal like
that tended to follow a woman everywhere.
And Kira’s Persian heritage, while an affliction she would bear her whole life, it
was also an impediment to any marriage they might make. He doubted she would be accepted
by the
ton,
worried she would always be subject to the very whispers and gossip that bruised
her soft heart now. To put her through that day after day, year after year… She would
eventually hate him and their lives together.
Then there was his greatest fear: complete loss of self-control.
He’d tried to refuse Kira tonight. God knows he had. He’d even managed to utter the
word no once. But her nearness overpowered him, overcame his senses, his reason, his
very restraint. She washed over him like an aphrodisiac until he knew nothing but
the need to taste her, to have her.
His inability to tether his baser urges with Kira made any possibility of self-discipline
in the future seem bleak. Kira herself was already scandalous enough. But what would
happen if—no, when—this lust caused him to fixate on even more improper subjects someday?
Who knew how slippery the slope to becoming a voluptuary of the first order?
Given that, it was unfair of him to remain near Kira, too tempted to resist when she
came near, yet not wedding her, despite their intimacies. Darius had been right on
that score.
And Gavin did not want to court Kira’s eventual despair and hate any more than he
already had.
She rolled toward him and placed a gentle kiss on his mouth, interrupting the turmoil
of his thoughts. She appeared both confused and afraid. He looked away, feeling like
the lowest kind of heel.
“You… do plan to marry me, don’t you?” she asked.
Every note of her voice held her apprehension and her yearning to be with him. Something
in his chest clenched. He would rather someone flog him than listen to that voice.
It betrayed the fact he had hurt her. And worse, he would do it again before the night
was through.
Gavin rubbed a hand across his tired face and stared at the flat white ceiling. This
was a bloody mess.
Do you recall me telling you that love will drive a man to reckless acts in the name
of claiming his lady?
Gavin remembered Brock’s words. How desperately he wanted to believe that love
,
not a tradition of salaciousness
,
drove his urges to hold Kira. But his father had taught him better. Soon, another
woman would make him need to bed her to the exclusion of reason and decency. Then
another. Eventually, the total would be in the dozens or hundreds, his name—and the
family’s would be in ruin—and the
ton
would gossip that he was his sire’s likeness in most every way. And God, what if
there was a day the desire was no longer confined to that which most men considered
acceptable. Bedding a woman, even a loose woman, was one thing, but a—
No. He would not travel that path. The key to avoiding the journey was to avoid the
first step.
Kira.
How could he do that when he wanted her with every breath he took, yearned to be with
her so much that it ripped his guts in two?
He must—somehow.
“I—I…” Lord, could he even get the words out? He sighed, gazing up into her eyes,
frustration and a pain he could not deny wracking him. “I cannot marry you.”
Mouth agape, Kira sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. “But—but James and I are
no longer… My engagement is ended, and—and I thought after your dealings with Lord
Vance that you meant to clear my name so that we might…”
“No,” he forced himself to say. “I wanted him punished for what he did to you.”
She backed away from him, betrayal twisting her features. “Then—then you never intended
to marry me?”
Gavin forced himself to be honest, though he would have given everything to spare
her the pain. “No.”
“But—but you said in Cornwall that you had something particular you wished to say
about… that night. I—I thought…”
“I meant to apologize and explain that I could not—
”
Lord, he did not want to say this. “That I could not marry you.”
The pain on her face went straight to his heart. She turned to scramble from the bed,
but he grabbed her hand.
She paused, eyes filled with anguish. Lord, what could he say to make her understand,
to ease her pain? Admitting his lack of control around her would be admitting his
greatest weakness. It scared him, shamed him. Voicing it would only make it more real.
“Is it the scandal?” she whispered, drawing her hand back. He noticed then that tears
shimmered in her eyes. “With Lord Vance’s terrible activities exposed, I thought—
”
Wishing the truth would not cause her pain, he whispered, “You may have more sympathy
now, but ruined is ruined, Kira. I’m no longer certain anything can fix that.”
Kira drew her knees up to her chest. “Marriage would dim the scandal.”
“Eventually, but my family has endured its fair share. I cannot, in good conscience,
bring more to our doorstep and put them through difficulty so that I may be happy.”
While that was true, it was hardly the whole truth. But that he could not share with
her—with anyone.
“I suppose my—my mother prevents you from offering for me.”
Gavin didn’t like the dimming note in her voice, the silent tears that quivered in
her lashes.
He caressed her shoulder. She bristled and leaned away, rebuffing him. Though he deserved
her response, he did not like it. Without further comment, he dropped his hand to
his side.
“I cannot deny that such a heritage would make any man of consequence think twice.”
Though personally, he cared
much less
than he once had. Her exotic, whimsical ways were a part of her charm—and his downfall.
“Of course.” She nodded. Tears began to fall.
“Kira, marriage to me would only make you unhappy. As a mere
m
iss, you’re often the subject of unpleasant gossip because of your Persian mother.
As a duchess, you would be talked about more often, likely in ways that only hurt
you further.”
Kira looked stunned by his words. “With you by my side, I could endure—
”
“You say that now. But what happens when someone like Lady Westland or Mrs. Baycliffe
malign you or your mother or both? You cannot confront everyone in the
ton
nor leave each social gathering in tears
.”
“You are unfair!”
“I am right.”
Wiping her damp eyes with the back of her hand, Kira avoided his gaze. She looked
stiff and fragile…and defeated.
In that moment, Gavin resented his father and all his libidinous ancestors. If not
for their legacy of lust, he might risk casting aside convention and marry Kira. He
wanted to so badly. He would even be willing to slay the social dragons of London
if he thought they could be truly happy. But if he did wed her and his affliction
grew into a terrible beast, he would only hurt and humiliate her in the end, as his
father had his mother.
So he must refuse her now. His only contentment was the knowledge that Kira, beneath
her soft exterior, was a strong woman. She would go on to make a new life without
him.
“Clearly, you never cared for me.”
Gavin sat up beside her, drilling his gaze into her. “That is not true. I do feel
more for you than any other,” he confessed, voice hoarse. “I care for you. I wish—
”
No, he could not tell his wishes. They would never come to pass.
He shook his head. “I do care. It is simply not enough.”
Confusion and disillusionment shaped her features as tears ran in silent silver paths
down her face. “What is more important than love?”
Explaining his reasons would be impossible, for she would never understand, even if
he weren’t too ashamed to tell her.
He sighed. “In this case, almost everything.”
Kira reared back, sitting up so stiffly Gavin thought her spine might shatter. “Well,
that sums up everything, I suppose.”
She extracted a blanket from his bed and retrieved her nightdress, turning away to
don it. Gavin saw only the smooth expanse of her bare, golden back and a hint of her
buttocks. He didn’t need to see more to want her again, though. Damnation!
“I shall leave as soon as my brother returns.”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “I hope it eases you to know that I wish things could be different.”
In silence, she wound her hair atop her head in a knot. “It tells me you’re not the
man I thought you were if you cannot heed your heart, and I am better off without
you.”
Before he could protest—though how he could defend himself, Gavin did not know—Kira
tossed the blanket back to his bed and exited the room.
He wanted to call her back, wanted to promise her anything to stay.
Anything except marriage.