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‘I need you now.’ She wriggled beneath him, loving his weight, his hardness over her softness. He pressed between her thighs and she lifted to meet him, gasped as he touched her intimately, one finger penetrating, his thumb playing fire and sweetness between her folds. She was already wet for him, but she was beyond modesty, pushing against his hand, demanding more.
He shifted, nudged against her and she opened to him, lifting again, gasping at the pressure as he filled her. It had been a long time, but her body wanted him as much as she did. Gray rocked gently, inexorably into her: advance, retreat, slide and press. He filled her, caressed her, claimed her.
Gaby met every thrust, sighed at every withdrawal, tightened her legs around him until all at once he was totally within her.
They both stopped moving. ‘Are you all right, Gabrielle? Have I hurt you?’
‘No,’ she said, confused at the concern in his voice. Then she realised her cheeks were wet, her lashes clogged with moisture. ‘I am crying because I am happy.’
He smiled then, the rare true smile that she trusted as much as his frown. ‘I haven’t done anything to make you happy yet.’
‘Liar.’ She tightened her muscles and he closed his eyes and began to move again, each thrust and withdrawal so slow and sure that she could have believed that he was far less shaken by this than she was, until she felt the tension in his shoulders where her fingers held him, felt the thudding of his heart over hers.
Then her own driving pulse took possession of her and thought and reason took wing, leaving only sensation. Gaby was not certain where her body ended and Gray’s began, only that nothing else existed but this man and the heat of his body, the scent of him, the slide of his skin over hers, the depth of his possession of her.
‘Gabrielle.’
What was he asking? Or perhaps it was just a statement, she thought hazily as the pleasure built and twisted so tightly it was almost pain. She felt his rhythm become uneven, his breath ragged and let herself go, let the pleasure soar. Gray pulled away and, even as she gasped a protest at the loss of him, she felt the hot spill of his passion against her belly. He is taking care, she thought hazily. Then she welcomed his weight as they collapsed together, his head heavy on her shoulder.
Chapter Sixteen
Gray came to himself slowly. Still half-awake, eyes still closed, he felt beneath him softness, sweet-smelling bare skin. Someone was breathing close by his ear. Gabrielle. He knew who it was although his exhaustion-drugged brain could not quite recall where he was or how he had come to be there. He had made love to Gabrielle and the aftershocks of pleasure were still running through him.
‘Gabrielle.’
‘Gray,’ she murmured, her breath tickling his ear. She moved under him, the soft curve of her belly against his rapidly growing arousal.
He shifted and she moved with him, opening to him, welcoming his body back into hers with the sensual generosity that he realised was typical of her. He plunged into the tight, moist, hot velvet of her and she rose to meet him, clenched around him, murmuring, then gasping, encouragement. He should make this slow, something told him, although he could not quite recall why, and his body did not want to go slowly. It wanted to possess, to give and take pleasure, to lose itself in her.
The pleasure built as her legs twined around him, her heels hard on his buttocks, her thighs gripping him. The sensation in the base of his spine twisted, intensified to the point of pain as his climax built and suddenly he remembered where he was, what he was doing. It was almost too late, he was past the point of no return and her legs, her grip as she cried out in the throes of her own passion, was s
trong. Somehow, knowing he might have hurt her, he wrenched back, gasping as much with relief than with release as he spilled on to her thigh.
‘Gabrielle? Did I hurt you?’
She blinked up at him. ‘No. We forgot ourselves, both of us. It is all right, you remembered in time.’ She reached for him, pulling him close again.
‘I fell asleep on top of you.’ He nuzzled into her neck for a self-indulgent moment, then rolled to one side and sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face, over the stubble that must have fretted her skin. ‘You must wonder what sort of selfish lout you’ve taken to your bed.’
‘An exhausted one.’ Gabrielle propped herself up on her elbows and studied his face. ‘I have no complaints at all, but you should rest. When did you last have a full night’s sleep?’
‘I have no idea.’ He wanted to stay there all night, just looking at her as she lay there, relaxed and pleasured and quite unselfconscious. Warm, olive-toned skin, just now flushed pink over her breasts. Long, sleek muscles in those elegant limbs, high, small breasts he wanted to take the time to worship thoroughly. A nest of dark curls hiding delights he could spend hours exploring. ‘I do not feel like sleeping now.’
‘But you should. And I should go home.’ Gabrielle sat up abruptly as the clock on the mantelshelf struck one. ‘Jane will be back by now and wondering where I am. I must not worry her.’
She scrambled from the bed. ‘Will there be water in the dressing room?’
‘It will be cold,’ he warned as he got up and searched for his breeches. He needed to escort her out as though they had spent the past hour in innocuous conversation. ‘But I can hardly ring for more. I must see you to the door.’
Gabrielle was already splashing in his dressing room. ‘It will do,’ she called. ‘Can you see my stockings?’
Gray tucked in his shirt and scooped up her clothes. ‘Here, let me be your lady’s maid.’ His fingers, usually so sure, fumbled over the laces of her stays, the fastenings at the back of her gown, but somehow between them they managed to get her dressed tidily, her hair smoothed into submission, the rent in her gown pinned up invisibly.
‘Gray, your hair is on end and where is your neckcloth? Oh, there, under the bed.’
‘I will come and see you tomorrow,’ he said as he cracked open the door, checked up and down the passageway. Perhaps when he had slept for nine or ten hours he might know what he was going to say to her. In a way it was a mercy that there was no time to talk now.
‘In the afternoon,’ she agreed, walking demurely beside him to the head of the stairs, just as though she had not bitten his shoulder just minutes before. ‘Don’t forget that we’re at Half Moon Street now. And, please, do not be angry with Henry. He was trying to help me.’
