Never Deceive a Duke (23 page)

Her hands went to the tie at the neck of her nightgown, loosening it. “Gabriel,” she murmured, her voice now seductively lethargic, “I want you.”

He cupped her breast almost possessively. “Antonia,” he rasped. “I keep telling myself this must stop—for your sake.”

“And for yours,” she answered. “But…but must it stop this very night?”

He knew he should say yes, but the weight of his cock was pressed eagerly against her lush backside. She moved urgently against him again. “You are so good, Gabriel. So good at making me forget.”

Outside, the rain was still hammering down. Inside the dimly lit room, Gareth could have believed that they were the only two people on earth. There was a sense of intimacy and warmth surrounding them which was impossible to deny. Indeed, he had probably come here tonight planning precisely this.

But unwilling to too closely consider his own ignoble motivations, Gareth ran one hand down her leg, then slowly pushed up her nightgown with his thumb as his fingers skimmed up the tender flesh of her thigh. At her hip, he pushed it higher, baring the lovely swells of her derriere. Almost lazily, he reached around and brushed his hand down her belly, feeling her shiver with anticipation. He kissed the side of her neck and kept nuzzling her lightly as his fingers stroked lower, to the soft tangle of curls between her legs. Gently he teased her until she moaned faintly and shifted one leg to open herself to his touch.

“Ahh,” she whispered when his fingers stroked deeper. Lightly he kissed her neck from the back of her jaw down to the elegant curve of her shoulder, pushing the nightgown away as he went. He felt her grow silky and wet to his touch, and he yearned to turn her over and simply plunge himself inside, but that would not do. It was not what she needed. He had found the nub of her desire now, and lightly stroked it with the tip of his finger.

“Gabriel?” Her voice was thready.

“Shh,” he said again, pressing his lips behind her earlobe. “No talking, remember? Just sweet sounds of pleasure.”

He felt her swallow hard. Felt her body roll back against him in a position that was total surrender. He lifted her leg and pulled it back against him. “Imagine,” he whispered, “that this is about nothing but you, and this beautiful sweet place between your legs.”

“Yes?” she whispered.

“And no talking,” he said again. “I want you to think only of your body. Of your satisfaction.”

“But I want you inside me,” she protested. “Please…let me feel…”

Unable to resist, Gareth pushed up the hem of his nightshirt and let his erection spring free. The feel of her bare buttocks against his heated flesh was a torment. He lifted her leg and let himself slide into the smooth wetness between her legs. “Hold your leg like that,” he whispered, “just for a moment.”

He pressed the head of his cock into the silken heat. She was ready; beyond ready. Gently he pushed himself inside, just an inch, to allow her to grow accustomed to the new sensation.

“G-Gabriel?” she whispered again.

Unable to hold back, he pushed deeper. “Good God,” he choked. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Press back against me,” he said. When she did, he thrust more firmly, sliding deep inside her, joining his body to hers. Antonia moaned. Gareth reached around her to touch her again, and she shivered with need. “That’s it,” he encouraged. “Just let me hold myself deep inside you,” he murmured. “Open your legs, and let me stroke you.”

In his embrace, her entire body trembled. He struggled not to move but to let the weight of his cock and the intensity of his touch drive her passion higher, until she started to gasp and to shake almost uncontrollably. Her release, when it came, was powerful and bone deep. Satisfied with his careful restraint, he stilled his hand and felt her tremble until the pleasure had drained through her and she lay still in his arms.

Antonia came back to earth, feeling languid and sated. “Oh, Gareth,” she whispered. “That wasquite remarkable.”

His mouth skimmed along her jaw. “
You
are remarkable,” he whispered, lightly kissing her neck.

Tentatively, she rocked her hips back against his. “Gabrieldid you?—”

“It does not matter,” he whispered, drawing himself from her body. Gently he pulled her over onto her back and came onto his knees, stripping away his nightshirt to reveal his tautly muscled chest and well-sculpted arms. He tossed the shirt into the floor as her eyes fell to his slender waist, and lower still.

“Here, let’s take this off.” His hands grasped the hem of her nightgown, which was already rucked up to her waist. She lifted a few inches and allowed him to pull it off.

Antonia was not entirely sure what had just happened—but she was sure she had enjoyed it. Only now did she begin to realize that the rain was still peppering down beyond the windows, and that thunder still rumbled in the distance.

In the faint candlelight, Gabriel’s hungry eyes swept over her body. Impatiently, she reached for him, pulling his weight down on top of her. “Now you,” she whispered.

“Patience, my dear.” Braced on his knees, Gareth cradled her head in his arms and kissed her deeply. His heat and his unique scent surrounded her. His big body seemed to shelter her. In response, Antonia delved into his mouth, entwining her tongue with his, and felt great satisfaction when a shudder ran through him.

“Umm, like that,” she said when he drew back again. “Do…
that
—not with just your tongue, but with…you know.”

He smiled a little at her insistence. “We needn’t rush, Antonia,” he whispered. “The night is long and the storm is still raging.” He bent his head and suckled her breast, drawing the pink-brown areola fully into his mouth, then flicking his tongue over her taut, aching nipple.

Antonia shifted restlessly beneath him, and reached down to twine her fingers in Gabriel’s luxurious blond locks, but he looked up, his eyes glittering, and brought her hand to his mouth. Almost reverently, he kissed her open palm, and then, surprisingly, the scar across her wrist. Feeling awkward, Antonia tried to draw her hand back to hide the disfigurement, but he held on. “I think you are beautiful,” he murmured, holding her gaze as he dotted kisses down her hand. “Every inch, every scar, every freckle.”

“I—I don’t have freckles,” she murmured, almost mesmerized by the intensity in his eyes. She gasped when his tongue lightly flicked across her palm. Then, still watching her, he drew her index finger into his mouth and gently sucked. Something inside her stomach turned a flip-flop, and she felt that warm ribbon of hunger go twisting through her, pulling at her very core.

Impatient, she lifted one leg to pull him down with it, but he moved his hand and pressed it firmly back down into the softness of the bedcovers. He shifted his mouth to the other breast, laving her, teasing her, and drawing out her need as if it were a fine, taut thread of silk. Her breathing ratcheted up just a notch, and Gareth slipped lower until he was planting kisses between her breasts, down her belly, and lower still.

When he was between her legs, he slid his palms up to push her thighs apart. With one knee, he nudged them still wider. “Antonia, I want to love you like this,” he rasped, looking up at her. “Will you let me?”

Scarcely comprehending what it was she agreed to, she nodded. Watching her with his heavy, hooded eyes, Gabriel skimmed his warm, elegant hands up her inner thighs until she was fully open. Fully exposed. Antonia let her head fall back into the pillow, unable to hold his gaze. Other than his light teasing that afternoon at Knollwood, Antonia had never known such decadence could exist; that one human being could instill in another such a rush of joy and yearning.

Lightly, Gabriel touched her with his tongue, making her whole body jolt and sending a rush of heat across her cheeks. And then he stroked her in earnest, and she almost came off the bed with a cry of pure pleasure. She cried out, her voice weak and thready. “Gabriel?”

He looked up but did not release her. Instead, he bore her hips down into the bed’s softness and held her there. Again his eyes, hot and hungry, swept down her, holding her in thrall.

Her hand fluttered uncertainly. “Please, Gabriel…just—”

“What, love?” he murmured. “Shall I…shall I stop? Is that your wish?”

Antonia felt her throat work up and down. “No,” she rasped. “Don’t stop, Gabriel. Don’t ever stop.”

With a satisfied smile, he lowered his head and drew his tongue deep, making her whimper. And then he touched her with one finger, slipping it inside. She heard herself moan, a soft but desperate sound. Gabriel’s clever fingers and teasing tongue delighted her. Tormented her. Left her aching for more.

Another finger slipped inside, and his tongue began to graze her feminine nub in deliberate, delicate little flicks, leaving her trembling on the precipice. Antonia had never experienced such intense pleasure. For long, exquisite moments, Gabriel loved her with his tongue and with his hands. Antonia’s hands dug into the blankets as if she were fighting to remain earthbound, and then she was arching off the bed like a wanton and begging him for release. Chanting into the darkness, “
Gabriel. Gabriel. Gabriel.”

He stroked deeper, more intently, lingering in that sweet, perfect spot. Again and again, his skill pitched her higher until Antonia imploded with ecstasy, her body seizing with spasms of raw pleasure, her throat working soundlessly as she drowned in it.

She came awake to the present to see Gabriel kneeling between her legs. His gaze was fierce in a way she had never seen before. Possessive. Demanding. And Antonia wanted to be his, at least in this wonderful, exquisite moment. She no longer heard the storm. There was only the here and the now, and the perfect intimacy between them. She reached out and murmured Gabriel’s name.

His hand was on his erection. He drew back his flesh, and planting one strong arm on the pillow near her head, he leaned over her, again urging her legs wide. “I want to be inside you, Antonia,” he said roughly.

Antonia reached out and took his erection into her hands. His eyes squeezed shut, and he made a sound—something between a hiss and a groan. His heated flesh felt as if it were covered in warm velvet. She felt Gabriel’s strength, the power of his virile male body, coursing through him. Gently she guided him to her, lifting her hips, and pleading for him to take her. When it felt as though he hesitated, Antonia stroked him lightly, and a pearl of fluid seeped out onto her hand. He closed his eyes and shuddered, the muscles of his arm and his throat going taut and sinewy.

He was on the edge, she sensed. On the edge of a foolish, noble gesture. “Gabriel,” she whispered, drawing her hand down his length again. “Come to me. Come inside me. Don’t cheat me of the pleasure of pleasuring you.”

Gareth heard her words, and what little hesitation he had managed to dredge up fell away. Antonia stroked his length again, a delicious torment. He shut his eyes and prayed he would not disgrace himself.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered as their bodies met. “Don’t think.”

He could not possibly. There was no stopping the inevitable. He pressed himself into her warm, womanly flesh, and it was as if they melded together. As if he was drawn down into her, becoming one with her, driven by some transcendental force which was beyond him. He thrust deep on his first stroke and cried out, the sound raw and carnal.

Antonia opened fully to him as her hands slid around his buttocks, then up to his waist, stroking him. Murmuring to him. This was not just pleasure. This was not just sex. He was lost to it, drowning in it. Drowning in Antonia. He felt touched in a place so deep and so vulnerable that he marveled she could even reach it.

When he opened his eyes, he could see her—almost into her soul, it seemed. Eyes which had once seemed otherworldly were now startlingly clear, and the depth of emotion contained there was both surprising and gratifying. Gareth thrust inside her, reveling in her feminine softness, and in her ardent, urgent desire to pleasure him. Always, always it had seemed the other way round to Gareth.

Something in him spiraled, and drove higher. He tried to hold back; tried to stretch out the moment of earthly joy, but it was not to be. His release came upon him in a powerful and unexpected rush. He tried to withdraw from her body, but he was an instant too late. The last of his seed spilt across the soft ivory flesh of her thigh as his body spasmed and shook.

His breath still heaving roughly, Gareth dropped his head and waited for the onslaught to stop. It had been beautiful. Magnificent and precious—save for one small mistake. Gareth set his forehead to hers. “Oh, Antonia,” he whispered, bearing his weight onto his elbows. “I tried, love, to be careful.”

“Gabriel, it is all right,” she murmured, stroking the hair back from his high, elegant forehead. “It will be all right.”

“Let us hope so,” he said a little grimly.

He reached across the bed to snare his nightshirt, then made swift work of the evidence. After tossing it to the floor, he rolled to one side and propped himself on his elbow. His eyes drifted over her face, wondering what she was thinking. Probably what he was thinking—that he’d taken another grave risk with her body, and with her precious, hard-won freedom.

If, God forbid, his seed took root, Antonia would be stuck with him. There would be another marriage she would not have chosen. Another brick wall, narrowing down her life and her choices. Good God.

Somehow, he managed to smile down at her and to pick up a strand of her silken hair to nonchalantly toy with. But there was nothing nonchalant about what they had just done. For him, it had been a life-altering moment. A moment of exquisite passion and extreme apprehension. Oh, he wanted Antonia. He was beginning to think he had done so all along. He knew beyond a doubt he was in love. But he would rather not have her at all than to have her under such regrettable circumstances.

“Gabriel?” Her small, warm hands came up to cradle his face. “Please don’t worry.”

He grinned. “I’m not.”

“And don’t lie to me,” she added. “I am still not entirely sane sometimes, it is true. But I was a fool only once.”