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Was this what a real mistress would do? Imagining Lord Appleby in the place of this man made her go cold. But then a real mistress would have to be a good actress because she’d be playing a part and concealing her true feelings. Antoinette knew, as she caressed and sucked at him, that she couldn’t do that.
Gently he lifted her head and kissed her deeply. He lowered her backward onto the bed, his body following hers down, and entered her with a single deep thrust. Her body spasmed, clenching around him, and he stilled, letting her settle, before he moved again. He was drawing out the pleasure, building the sensations, making her wait.
She could feel his naked body sliding against hers, hard where she was soft, rough where she was smooth. Her breasts ached, her nipples incredibly sensitive, and when he clasped the globes of her bottom and tilted her slightly, so that he could go deeper still inside her, she knew she would never feel this for another man.
Highwayman, stranger, servant, gentleman…it didn’t matter what he was. Something old and primeval inside her recognized him and claimed him as her own.
“Tell me,” he whispered in her ear.
Was he able to read her mind now? Antoinette gasped, fingers clenching on his back, not caring if her nails cut his skin.
“Tell me,” he insisted, and thrust harder, deeper, pushing her toward a place she had never been before.
“There’s never been anyone like you.”
The clenching spasms took her then, the pleasure so great she lost awareness of everything but her own body and his. She felt him thrust once, twice, and then arch above her, his head thrown back, his mouth open as he cried out.
After a moment he rolled over on his side and took her with him, still inside her, his arms holding her close, his lips soft against her hair. Limp, replete, Antoinette closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Gabriel listened to the sound of her breathing. Something had happened between them, but he didn’t want to think about it. The truth was he knew he’d never felt like this before. He’d forced Antoinette to say something of the sort, although she probably would have said anything to get him to give her release, but it was Gabriel who was changed.
And now he was trapped and it was his own fault.
There had been women before, plenty of them. He was a healthy young man, and women enjoyed his company, and certain types of women were willing to share his bed, some for payment but others simply for the pleasure it gave them. He’d never fallen in love with any of them, not even a little bit. Physical pleasure was one thing, emotional attachment another, and the two sides of the coin were just that—separate. Until now.
Antoinette Dupre was different. He found her attractive, surprisingly so. Not because she wasn’t a lovely woman but because she was different. True, she was a pocket Venus, but her hair was glossy brown rather than the fair he favored, and her eyes were brown not blue, and she wore spectacles and gazed at him in a steady, fearless manner rather than simpering and flirting. And yet he found everything about her made hi
m want her more.
He was like a climber in the Swiss Alps, standing beneath an avalanche and watching it rumbling toward him and yet unable to run. In a moment he’d been overtaken, overcome, swallowed up. And he couldn’t wait.
Gabriel groaned softly and stared up at the canopy of the bed above him. King Charles’s bed had a lot to answer for. He remembered his grandfather telling him that it was here he’d begun his married life with Gabriel’s grandmother, and afterward he never looked at another woman. Perhaps he should blame the furniture for his predicament?
No, there was no one to blame but himself. He’d set out to seduce Antoinette to recover his mother’s letter, and now he was the one seduced.
Antoinette woke sometime later, replete, and found him still naked beside her, deeply asleep, lying on his back with his masked face turned to hers and his arm outflung.
Antoinette half sat up, watching him, and enjoying being able to do so without his being aware of it. He was well made, and she didn’t think it was her lack of experience that made her think so. Even when he was clothed, he put her other male acquaintances in the shade. Although, to be fair, she hadn’t seen his face properly, not without the black mask. For all she knew he might be hideously scarred…
The urge came to her. She hesitated, excited and yet oddly reluctant. What if he was hideously scarred? What if he awoke and caught her?
Just then he let out a little snore, and she made up her mind. Antoinette leaned over him and felt at the back of the mask. There were fastenings, thin leather ties, that were used to secure it around his head. With great care she began to undo them, expecting him any moment to wake and demand to know what she was doing.
But he didn’t.
Suddenly the mask loosened, and carefully, holding her breath, she eased it from his face and laid it on the pillow.
The bedchamber was too dark. She slipped from the bed and went to the window, drawing the curtains apart. The moonlight was still bright, and when she turned back to the bed, her heart thudding, she could see him almost as well as in daylight.
Young, of course. No scars, no villainous sneer. His face was handsome, a straight nose with thin nostrils, high cheekbones, dark eyebrows in contrast to his fair hair, and his lashes were also dark. His chin was stronger without the mask, a stubborn chin, giving his handsome face character and strength, while his lips were sensual.
Despite his obvious masculinity, he looked vulnerable in his sleep. Antoinette lifted her hand, her fingers hovering, but she did not touch him. She did not dare. But she could see on his cheek the beginnings of a beard. She wanted to kiss him, to take him in her arms and ask him what was happening to them.
Swiftly, lightly, she pressed her lips to his brow.
He moved, his eyelids flickering, and murmured, “Marietta…?”
The name startled her and she drew back. Marietta? Another woman? Well, of course he would have a woman somewhere, a man like this. Did she really think she was the only one? She was being very naïve. She was a distraction; he thought her Appleby’s mistress and perhaps there was a frisson of excitement in being with her, especially if he envied his employer, but any deeper emotion was out of the question.
