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“And we are quite alone…if you wanted to take advantage of me.” He rolled off her and lay on his back, on the edge of the blankets. “I wouldn’t object.”
Gabrielle laughed. She liked the look of him lying there. In the lamplight, she could see his sleek muscles and the light sheen of perspiration on his chest from his earlier exertions. He waggled his brows at her suggestively, and she burst into more laughter. She had not known lovemaking could be like this.
“I’m growing cold,” Ramsey said. “If only there was someone nearby to share body heat.”
“You poor thing.” She rose and bent over him. She missed contact with him almost as soon as he’d moved aside. She needed to touch him, felt a keen sense of withdrawal when they were separated.
She kissed him, slowly but deeply. He responded, matching her pace and her intensity. She rubbed her breasts against his chest, searching for warmth and the feel of his flesh on hers.
“You’re driving me mad,” he murmured. “I want you.”
She reached down and stroked him. “I feel that.”
And quite suddenly she wanted him as well. Desperately. In a wanton move she could blame on Paris, she straddled him. He immediately grasped her hips, sliding his hands to her waist and all but spanning it. His hands trailed upward, cupping her breasts and then teasing her nipples into hard peaks.
She arched her head back and positioned herself over his erection.
“Beautiful,” he whispered as she lowered herself onto him.
Gabrielle could not speak. The sensation was too much. He filled her completely, and though she had been fully sated mere moments before, she felt as though she couldn’t get enough.
She rose and lowered, sliding over him, moving slowly and building speed. His hands held on to her hips, directing her, though she needed very little guidance. Instinct and pleasure were her guides. And as she felt the pleasure building again, her eyes widened in surprise as she raced to meet it.
She climaxed again, and quite inexplicably, she still wanted him.
He rolled her over as the waves of pleasure crested, and thrust hard into her. There was no gentleness in him now. No tenderness. She didn’t want it, because he was pushing her over the edge, pushing her to the edges of ecstasy. She was crying out again, arching her hips for him, and he met her there at the peak.
And then just as she slumped down into a puddle of languidness, he pulled out and spilled his seed onto the blanket.
She blinked, having not expected this of him. But this was yet another example of how he protected her. He didn’t want her to become with child, knew the scandal it could create.
But in some small way it made her sad. She wished they did not have to take these precautions…
She shook her head. She really had lost her mind. Was she thinking of marrying Sedgwick? He’d had his chance, and he didn’t want her…not in that way.
Now he pulled her into his arms, holding her as they both lay and stared at the flickering light on the ceiling.
With his arms about her, she did not feel cold. She liked this intimacy, false as it may be. She closed her eyes, wishing the world above them would go away, wishing George’s creditors in London would go away, Robespierre would disappear, the comtesse de Tonnerre would be set free.
“Do you want to sleep for a little while?” Ramsey asked her.
But the world wasn’t going away, and she had unfulfilled promises. “No. We should find a way out.”
“Yes. It might take us several hours.”
“I want to go to La Force as soon as we’re able.” She was sitting now, pulling on the boys’ breeches and sorting through the discarded clothing for the linen to bind her breasts. “I’ll need to change first, and then we bring the bracelet straight to Toulan.”
Ramsey was sorting his own clothing. Several of the papers he had taken from Robespierre’s drawer were lying about, having fallen out of his coat. He squinted at them in the light.
“What are those?” she asked.
“Some pertain to the military—supplies needed. But this one”—he held the page closer to the lamp—“this is a list of those to be executed in two days.” He lifted his pocket watch. “Or rather, tomorrow, as it’s already after midnight. Your comtesse is on the list.”
“Then we have no time to lose. They’ll call her name and move her to the Conciergerie today.” Gabrielle’s hands shook as she attempted to dress herself. Why had she been wasting time making love in the catacombs when a woman was about to die?
“Here, let me.” Ramsey fastened the last of the buttons on her shirt and tied her cravat with practiced efficiency. Then he handed her the coat. “We’re working as fast as we can,” he told her as she shrugged into it.
“It may not be fast enough.”
