Ours Is Just a Little Sorrow (12 page)

Gideon didn't waste a second on surprise, but returned the press of my lips with his own ardor, ardor built up the long weeks we'd been denying this night.
Our tongues met in a sweet duel from which we would both perish and then be transformed. I needed him closer, needed to feel the rush of his skin beneath
my hands. I was too far gone to be shocked at my desire as I yanked his shirt from his trousers to get at the hot flesh beneath it. He sensed my urgency,
pushing my greedy hands away to pull the shirt over his head.

Suddenly unsure, a moment of shyness made me pause with my hand a scant inch from his chest. I looked to Gideon for encouragement. He brought my hand to
his lips and kissed it before placing in over his heart. I flattened my palm against him, the dark curls crinkling under my palm, and closed my eyes,
letting the host of new sensations have their way as I was hopeless to do naught but allow them their due.

"Sprite, you undo me." He pulled me into an embrace, an embrace that felt more intimate than all the open mouthed kisses we'd shared. He surrounded me, his
arms, his scent, his heartbeat.

I tasted the skin of his neck, his groan signifying a tender spot behind his ear, so I spent more time on it until he shivered and began gathering my
nightgown in tight fistfuls.
Fascinating
. That I had so much control over him with my untried passion was very empowering, so I kissed his mouth
again, taking the whisper of my name from his lips to my own. We maneuvered together in an unpracticed waltz to unfurl the gown from my limbs without
breaking our kiss. And then, he pulled it over my head.

Though I was naked, Gideon's eyes didn't roam but stayed firmly locked with mine. The intensity of his stare was more effective than the peeling of my
clothes. He stripped me bare of all the things I thought I needed to cling to. It wasn't my skin he exposed, but the woman inside of it.

He began with a soft kiss on my temple. Moving slowly, he pressed another towards my jaw, stopping for a quick nibble on my earlobe. I shivered mindlessly
when he suckled my neck.

I didn't know there were so many places on my body directly connected to the place where my womanhood clenched, but Gideon knew. He mapped each nerve
ending with his tongue and his lips and an occasional light scrape of teeth. His busy fingers traced soft whorls onto the sensitive skin of my torso as his
kisses marauded south. He spent eons of time kissing me until I was a slave to need.

"Please," I begged.

"Please what, Vi?" He nipped at my earlobe, and I cried out, so he took my mouth in an intimate kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. I met him push
for push, sliding my hips in a primal rhythm that matched our kisses.

And then he went back to my neck.

He was going to kill me with painful, painful pleasure.

"Please what?" he repeated. His hand finally cupped me below and I shamelessly rocked against him. "Tell me what you want."

Though he was happy to take my virginity, he didn't want a passive lamb led to slaughter. But how could I tell him what I wanted when I wasn't sure myself?
"I don't know."

"You know."

Bastard. "For God's sake, Gideon. Take off your pants."

He chuckled and rolled away to sit at the edge of the bed and remove his boots. He was too far away, so I crawled across the bedcovers and allowed myself
the bold pleasure of kissing his back.

His skin was hot and I let my hands roam, enjoying the hot planes of his muscles and the way he shivered under my administrations. I craved to know
everything about his body. Gideon was perfectly formed for my pleasure. He was seducing me by sitting still, of all things.

Overwhelmed, suddenly, by the intensity of all that I was feeling for him, I wrapped my arms around him and laid my chin against his shoulder. We were skin
on skin, my chest pressed against his back. For a moment, I thought he might end the embrace, but he dropped his head back so we were cheek to cheek and
held my arms tightly to him.

In that moment, I was closer to Gideon than I'd ever been to another person my entire life. Not just physically. A bond had formed whether I wanted it or
not. I had thought maybe I could give him my body and nothing else, but I was wrong. So wrong.

The prim governess and the reckless playboy. Who'd have guessed they would understand the other so perfectly, if only for one night?

Even as I knew better, I allowed the moment to proceed. I breathed him in, let him settle into my soul as if he belonged there.

It was going to hurt when this affair had run its course. It was going to hurt badly.

Gideon sighed. "You feel entirely too good."

"I was just thinking the same."

"I'm going to do the most wonderful, terrible things to you very soon. I'm going to make you so hot you'll burn out the sun. In just a few moments, that
is." And he tightened his grip.

"So far, I am enjoying being debauched."

We remained silently holding each other for a few minutes more. And it wasn't until my hand began caressing the firm muscles of his abdomen that he reached
around and pulled me into his lap. His hands grasped my hips, grinding me into him while he kissed me like I was the last drink of water on a planet gone
to desert.

I felt no shame in my nakedness, despite the fact that Gideon still wore his damned pants. I felt as if I'd been set free. I didn't have to be Miss
Merriweather with Gideon. I was all the things he'd told me he seen in me from the start. I was in control of my body, my pleasure, and it felt delicious.

I broke away from the kiss, ignoring his protest. "Take off your pants or I swear I'll kick you out of this room."

He lifted one corner of his mouth in the grin that always undid me, and in one move flipped me onto my back. I rose to my elbows to watch as he stood and
shucked off the last thing between us, and my bravado tempered at the sight.

"Gideon…"

"Relax, Violet."

I pulled my legs beneath me and scooted up to the pillows. "Perhaps we can go back to embracing for a bit."

He crawled over me to the other side of the bed. "I promise it will be fine."

"It won't fit. It can't possibly."

"Oh Violet, you've just increased my ego to ungodly proportions."

"It's not your ego I'm worried about."

He traced whorls over my skin with one finger again. "We were made to fit. You'll see."

I wouldn't have believed him, but he began raining hot kisses over every inch of me until I was hot enough to put out the sun, just as he'd said. I was
back to begging for him to fill the ache he'd put in me from that very first day.

"What are you doing, Gideon?" I asked as he nuzzled the seam where my legs met my body. "Surely you don't mean to…"

"Oh, I mean to. I definitely mean to." He presented me with an open mouth kiss and I nearly bucked us both off the bed. "Relax, sprite."

"Relax, he says."

He chuckled.

No part of me was safe from his clever tongue. Not my breasts as they filled his mouth. Not the backs of my knees as he spelled my name by tracing each
letter into my skin. And not the place where a woman hides all her secrets.

He brought me to the edge of the world more than once. Setting me free to tumble in the stars over and again. When I no longer knew if I'd ever come back
down, he entered me slowly though his body was wracked with uncontrollable shivers and it was clear that his patience was costing him dearly.

He paused after breaching my maidenhead, waiting until my body became accustomed to him. "The moment I saw you, I knew you'd own me, Violet."

But I never could. We'd have this night, but that was all. Our paths should never have crossed.

He'd go on someday to marry a fine young virgin his father chose, and I'd drift away to another position in another house.

Neither of us wanted to find love, not with each other, not with anyone else. I would never trust that love could last, and Gideon would sabotage anything
good that came his way.

But really, amidst all the tragedies of a dying planet and one struggling to regain its humanity, ours was just a little sorrow.

Chapter 10

I
NSTEAD OF disappearing into his world of shadows after our night of intimacy, as I'd expected he would, Gideon surprised me by spending even more time at
Thornfield. I didn't know what to make of his decision, but his constant presence kept me in perpetual arousal, despite that he never returned to my
chambers.

He'd always been too intimate with me, but his teasing had new meaning now. When he stood too close, I ached for his arms. When he stared at my lips, I
longed for another kiss. When he slipped a double entendre into dinner conversation, a visceral memory of his naked body against mine would paint a blush
over my cheeks.

And, so, in the interest of making him as miserable, I began devising Gideon's torment.

One morning, as he joined us for breakfast, I toed my slipper off and ran my foot up and down his leg. He sputtered into his coffee and raised a brow. I
returned with an arch of my own and stared at his lips. A far away gazed overtook him, as if he were reliving a pleasant memory. To taunt him further, my
tongue peeked out for a quick slide over my lips, wetting them.

A small groan escaped him.

"Are you alright, Gid?" John asked.

"A bit of a headache is all," he replied as his breakfast plate suddenly became so interesting he dare not raise his eyes from it.

"That's what you deserved for drinking as much as you do," the Colonel said, not looking up from his PEAD.

Gideon's face fell. He'd been home for several nights in a row now, dining with the family, playing cards with John and Oliver before retiring at an
appropriate time. His father barely noticed his presence and yet damned him for his past behavior even when he was not out carousing.

My heart ached for him, for his emotional angst played over his face before he replaced it with his usual sardonic mask. He desperately wanted his father's
approval, though he'd never admit such a thing and would never dare court the approval with action.

John, sensing the downturned mood, began a conversation about the weather, but Gideon excused himself anyway.

The Colonel slammed his hand on the table after a few more minutes of reading from his PEAD.

"The rabble rousers again, Colonel?" I asked, in an effort to be polite.

"Miss Merriweather, if I wished to discuss politics with the governess, I would have hired a man," he shot back at me with a somewhat surprising amount of
venom.

"Yes, sir." I stared at my plate while the heat of humiliation scored me within. As it was customary for me to take solitary walks after breakfast, I was
able to exit a few moments after without causing suspicion.

I found Gideon in the stables. Despite the winter chill, the stable was warm. Gideon had removed his jacket and undone the top fasteners of his shirt.
Instead of announcing my presence, I watched him work for a few moments, reveling in the grace and economy of his unhurried, fluid movements as he groomed
his horse.

"You're being curiously quiet, sprite," he said, though his back was to me.

I should have known there was no sneaking up on the hunter. I stepped further into the barn. "I didn't want to disturb you."

He turned to look at me then, and my pulse raced at the sight of his exposed neck, somehow tan against the white of his lawn shirt despite the vampire
hours he usually kept. I wanted to kiss his skin, the spot where I knew I could make him tremble.

"You seemed very much set on disturbing me earlier. You were very close to becoming my personal buffet at the breakfast table, propriety be damned."

I strolled in, conscious of his wary stare. He joked, but he was hurting. Like so many women, I guess I wasn't immune to the siren call of a man in pain.
It summoned me in its gravitational pull, entreating me to balm his wounds and nurse his heart.

"You haven't been back to my room. I thought maybe my charms were lost on you."

He huffed, not a real laugh, but closer. "It's been killing me to stay away."

I stood very close to him, close enough to touch him, and yet I did not. "I would welcome you." It was a simple statement, and yet, it felt as if the words
contained every hope and fear I owned.

He set the brush on the rail and devoted his full attention to me. He then hesitated until my hands found their way to my hips, and I was about to reach
for a very unladylike tirade. Putting his hand over my lips, he started, "I was very careless with you, sprite. I went to your chambers to seduce you, yet
did nothing to prevent a babe from being conceived."

I jerked my head back. "You needn't worry. I'm sterile."

A small gasp escaped his lips before he recovered. "I'm sorry. Was it…because of Earth?"

"All academy girls are sterilized at age twelve." I shrugged, believing it to be common knowledge.

"What?" Gideon practically exploded. "They force barrenness on children? And this is okay with you?"