“Are you trying to seduce me, sir?” she whispered.
“Absolutely. Is it working?”
Of course it was working. He was devilish good at this sort of thing. “Certainly not.”
His husky chuckle made her heart flip over in her chest. “Then I’ll have to try harder.”
Oh, dear, that might be her undoing. But it was so enticing to have him touch her everywhere, one hand caressing her breast as the other fondled her below. The man had a talent for seduction that was downright diabolical. “You should not . . . We cannot . . .”
“We can, and we will.” He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her neck. “You’re going to marry me, after all. Who cares if we consummate the marriage early?”
She stiffened. “I have
not
agreed to marry you.”
“Yes, you’re being stubborn about that.” He stroked her deeply, making her squirm, making her want more. “That’s why I must resort to such tactics.”
“You just want to gain your fortune,” she accused, though she didn’t really believe that anymore.
He paused. “If that fear is all that keeps you from marrying me, I can solve that problem right now. I’ll give up my fortune. As long as I marry, Gran will be satisfied and not cut off the others. I’ll just tell her to split my portion among my siblings.”
Shocked, she turned on his lap so she could gaze into his face. He would really give up his inheritance for
her
? “You’re joking.”
His expression of solemn sincerity shook her to her toes. “The money means nothing to me.”
“Even if it would enable you to reach your dream?”
“I can reach my dream without it.”
Her heart constricted. “By racing for wagers, you mean.”
Something glinted in his eyes. “Without the inheritance, I’ll need the racing to support us.”
“Then I’d rather you kept the inheritance.”
“Careful, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Or I’ll think you’re marrying me for the money.”
Annoyed, she pushed at his chest. “And what else would I be marrying you for, you troublesome lout?”
A dark smile curved his lips. “For this.”
Then he was kissing her, hot and deep and slow. And all the while he fondled her, rousing her to a fever pitch below. She squirmed, then tore her mouth from his so she could catch her breath. Except that she couldn’t. Bending her back over his arm, he moved his mouth to suck at her breast while his hand deftly caressed her, seeming to know what she needed before
she
knew it.
“I want you, sweetheart,” he growled against her breast. “I want to make love to you. Will you let me?”
A sensible woman would say no. Once she gave herself to him, there was no going back. They’d have to marry. And he still kept much of himself locked behind a door with no knob.
But he’d stopped wearing black for her. He was willing to give up his fortune. It was more than she’d hoped for. And the only other choice—to send him away now and draw out this courtship until she was more sure of him—didn’t appeal to her, either. She couldn’t endure more days of Poppy’s hovering, with Gabriel so near, yet so inaccessible.
She was tired of giving everyone else what they wanted and never taking something for herself. She was tired of endlessly yearning for her own home and family, for a husband of her own. What Gabriel proposed wasn’t perfect, but what was?
And part of her was sure that one day he would let her in. He’d already let her in further than she’d hoped.
She gazed into his fathomless eyes. “All right.”
With a fierce growl of satisfaction, he set her on the floor so he could tug off his boots and toss them aside. Then he rose to drag her nightdress off her shoulders. It slithered down her body, leaving her naked as a birch in winter.
His eyes drank her in, dark, searing, and worshipful. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“I know there are a great many beautiful women in your circle,” she whispered, torn between the urge to believe him and her fear that she lacked the physical attributes to hold a rogue like him.
He laughed. “Contrary to popular opinion, my ‘circle’ is mostly horses and the men who race them. I stay out of respectable society as much as possible, and the few women I have met there are either boring, stupid, or both. You are neither.”
“And the women who aren’t in society? You must be used to bedding women who have—” She gazed down at her breasts and swallowed. “Bigger . . . er . . . curves.”
With a scowl, he tugged her close. “Don’t you dare malign your curves. They’re perfect.
You’re
perfect.” He bent his head to kiss each of her breasts. “I lie awake at night thinking of these beauties. And I daresay that once we marry and you’re presented in society, I won’t be the only one doing so. Half the men of the
ton
are going to envy me my wife, and the other half are going to try to seduce her.”
“Don’t be silly.” He was being outrageous, and she loved it.
“I’m serious.” He lifted his hands to smooth her hair over her shoulders. “Thank God, you never had a season, or some other fellow would have snapped you up before I could.”
She couldn’t resist teasing him. “Perhaps one of them still will.”
The possessive light that flared in his face made her throat go raw. “Oh no, you lost your chance at that, vixen. You’re going to belong to me now. Only me.”
Pierce’s accusation that day at the maze came into her mind:
Once you get your hands on your grandmother’s money, you’ll be spending every night in the stews.
Gabriel hadn’t exactly denied it.
“And you?” she asked softly. “Will you belong to me, and only me?”
Pain flashed in his features. “My father’s infidelity destroyed my mother and quite possibly caused their deaths. I promise you that the one thing I will
never
be is unfaithful. I wouldn’t put you through that.”
The words had the feel of a vow. They were as close to words of love as she’d heard from him. Not that she was even sure of her own feelings.
Still, it was nice that he cared so much.
She let out a breath. “So when do I get to see
you
naked?”
He blinked, then released her to swiftly dispense with the rest of his clothes. Then he stood back with that cocky grin of his. “Happy now?”
As his flesh sprang up, thick and long and hairy at the base, she caught her breath. Happy? Fascinated, more like. Who would have guessed that his
thing
would be so long? She’d spent some time thinking about the subject, having seen many a horse’s appendage, but horses and men weren’t as alike as she’d thought.
It seemed to bob beneath her gaze, as if liking the attention.
“Does it hurt when it sticks out like that?” she asked. “No.” His voice sounded strained. “Not when I’m naked, anyway. It’s a bit uncomfortable in clothes.”
“Can I touch it?” she asked.
“God, yes,” he ground out. Seizing her hand, he closed it about his flesh.
That
was interesting. It twitched when she held it, as if her hand agitated it. Smooth and hard, it was rather like the leather-bound handle of a crop. Only bigger. Much bigger.
And growing even bigger, the more she stroked it.
“Doesn’t it give you trouble when you ride?”
“Not usually,” he bit out.
“How large does it get?”
“Large enough,” he growled.
“That’s no kind of ans—”
Next thing she knew she was flat on her back on the bed, and he was on top of her, staring hungrily down into her face. “A man can only bear a certain amount of teasing, Virginia.”
“I was just curious about—”
“I know,” he said, then forced a smile. “But much more of your curiosity, and this would have been over before it started.”
“What do you mean?”
He slid his knee between her legs, parting them so he could kneel between them. “Just trust me when I say I need to be inside you.
Now.
”
Apparently men did have
one
thing in common with horses. Impatience.
She was feeling a bit impatient herself. As he began fondling her again between the legs, the restlessness returned that she’d felt in the stable. Then he was kissing her, roughly, savagely, and it was so delicious that she almost forgot he was naked and she was naked, and he was about to take her innocence.
Until something larger than his finger pressed into her. She really was going to do this. She really was letting him make her his.
She ought to feel panicked. She ought to be afraid. Instead, a glorious excitement swelled through her. Even the thick pressure of him forging up inside her couldn’t quell it.
This
was what she’d been yearning for, this reckless act, this heady joining with a man who made her feel alive for once. Who made her feel like a woman, not just the female who looked after everyone’s needs.
He dragged his mouth from hers to whisper, “I don’t suppose I have to tell you about the pain.”
“No.” She buried her fingers in his hair, careful not to touch his wound. “But it doesn’t feel that bad.”
“Good,” he rasped. “Because it feels amazing to me. Even better than I imagined.”
She gazed shyly into his face. “Did you really lie in bed thinking of my . . . um . . . bosom?”
He inched farther in, sweat beading his brow. “Sweetheart, if you knew just how often, you’d slap the tar out of me.”
The admission pleased her. She figured she owed him an admission of her own. “I . . . thought of you, too.”
Raw heat suffused his face. “Like this?”
“No, silly.” She shifted a little under him, seeking a more comfortable position, and he slid into her more deeply. She caught her breath. “But after I saw you half-naked that day in the stable . . .”
He gave a strained laugh. “I was right. In your soul, you’re a seductress.”
She should be insulted, but she wasn’t. “I do believe . . . I might be.”
“Then hold on. Because you’re about to be a seductress in truth.” And with that, he drove into her.
A gasp escaped her, but it was more in surprise than pain. She’d felt a pinch, nothing more.
“Are you all right?”
“I think so,” she said, too embarrassed to admit that she felt fine. There was a pressure, and a certain awkwardness about having him thrust up inside her, but nothing like what she’d expected.
“Ready for more, my wife-to-be?” he asked in a husky voice. One hand fondled her breast as he held himself off her with his other.
Lord, but he was strong. “Oh, yes.”
“Thank God,” he growled.
He began to slide out of her and back in, in slow easy strokes. At first it felt quite peculiar. But when he bent to kiss her, thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, she giggled.
He tore his lips from hers. “And what do you find so amusing?”
“I just realized why you kiss that way. It mimics what we’re doing.”
His eyes gleamed at her. “Not entirely.”
“No,” she said. “Not entirely.” While the kissing was always marvelous, it hardly compared to the strange heat building between her legs as he drove in and pulled out, over and over and over.
Some instinct made her draw her knees up just as he thrust deep, and an intense pleasure pierced her. “Oh!” she cried. “Ohhhh,
Gabriel.
”
He gave a hoarse chuckle. “Like that, do you?” Deliberately he plunged deeply into her, provoking the same sensation as before.
She cried out, then blushed. “Lord help me . . . I suppose I’m . . . some sort of wanton.”
“No.” He nuzzled her cheek. “Just a woman in the throes of desire. Thank God. Because I ache for you every night, and every day.”
“So do I,” she admitted. Feeling more free to explore now that they’d fallen into a steady rhythm, she ran her hands over the taut muscles of his shoulders. “You feel so firm . . .”
He choked back a laugh. “I should hope so. And you feel like silk. Sweet, hot silk . . . ”
She swept her hands over his chest, enjoying the play of muscles beneath her fingers. He was such a fine figure of a man. Was it wrong of her to love that about him?
He tweaked her nipple and sent a tremor through her to join with the others quaking up from below. The tremors were all twisting together now, making her ache and yearn and shake beneath his glorious thrusting.
Sweet Lord, this was beyond desire. This was him and her, locked together, headed for the future. She stared up into his hot gaze and felt her heart breaking open to let him in.
As if he saw her feelings in her eyes, he rasped, “Remember you belong to me . . . Only me . . .”
“And you to me—only me,” she echoed. “Forever.”
His eyes widened but the words seemed to push him over the edge, for he plunged deep one last time, and they erupted together. His body filled hers with his essence as hers shattered so powerfully that she could only hold onto him while the earthquake wracked her body.
And he rode it out with her, his scent and taste and touch filling her as he collapsed atop her with a groan.
That’s when she realized she’d fallen in love with him. Her wild, tempestuous lord was the only man who’d ever seen into her soul.
He was also the only man she had ever let close enough to hurt her.
Now she could only pray to God that he never did.
Chapter Sixteen
G
abe lay beside Virginia in the aftermath of their lovemaking, panic gripping his heart.
Forever
.
How was it that he hadn’t thought of it that way until she’d said it? He’d been so focused on making sure he got what he wanted—making sure he got
her
—that he hadn’t stopped to think what he was getting.
A wife, forever. Someone depending on him, forever. Someone who needed him more than anyone ever had.
Turning onto his side so he could gaze down at her, he saw the blood smearing her thighs. That only increased his panic. He’d taken his future bride, and now he was responsible for her.
Forever.
He’d never considered having a forever, because Death could end forever in one beat of the heart. He’d skated close to Death so many times that
future
and
forever
had meant nothing to him.