Robin Schone (26 page)

If Victoria looked away from the naked need inside those silver eyes, she would run.

Victoria didn’t look away. “You bought my virginity.”

The air pulsed around them.

“I don’t know what I would do, Victoria, if you touched me.” Gabriel’s voice was taut.

Pain. Pleasure.

They clawed at her chest.

“Then I won’t touch you,” Victoria assured him.

“But you would let me ... touch you. In whatever way I wished.”

Empétarder ...
Would you grant me access there, mademoiselle?

Victoria struggled to breathe. “Yes.”

“You would let me do anything . . .”

You would let me hold you when both of our bodies are dripping with sweat and the scent of our

sex fills our lungs.

“Yes.”

“And you won’t touch me.” Gabriel’s gaze was stark with need. “Regardless of the pain or the pleasure

that I bring you.”

Victoria was suffocating—from Gabriel’s robe, Gabriel’s scent.

Gabriel’s words . ..
pain . . . pleasure. . .

“I won’t touch you,” she promised.

He reached out... and touched her, a butterfly touch, a rasp of callused fingertips across chapped lips.

Erotic sensation bolted through Victoria.

“I’m sorry.” She flinched. “My lips are not. .. soft.”

Whereas his lips looked softer than a rose petal.

Gabriel would not let her turn away from him: his gaze held her; his finger electrified her.

He lightly strummed her bottom lip. “Open your mouth.”

Victoria’s bottom lip quivered.

Silver fire blazed in his eyes; a dark flush edged his cheeks. He rested his finger against the seam of her

lips.

Gabriel trembled.

With fear. With need.

Of her. For her.

Victoria opened her mouth.

“Suck my finger,” he said hoarsely.

Blue eyes locked with silver, Victoria took Gabriel’s forefinger into her mouth, a preliminary penetration.

An invisible finger stabbed up her vagina.

She tasted him, a quick swipe of her tongue.

Gabriel’s head slammed back, as if in pain.
“Dieu.
”

Victoria stared at the corded muscles of his throat. A pulse pounded and throbbed, there above the vent

of his white shirt and the whirls of wiry hair.

His fingertip was callused; it tasted salty.

She suckled him, as if he were a sweet. And felt the laving of her tongue between her thighs, lips wet,

finger hard ...

Gabriel slowly lowered his head.

There was no question of what had dragged out the agonized
Dieu:
it was pleasure. A pleasure so

intense it was pain.

Victoria felt his pleasure, her pleasure; his pain, her pain . . .

One second she was suckling his fingertip, the next second her mouth was empty and his saliva-slickened

finger smoothed the inner edges of her chapped lips.

He kissed her. Silver eyes staring into hers; finger pressing open the corner of her mouth.

Warm breath filled her lungs, searing heat glided the path his finger had traced.

Gabriel soothed Victoria’s chapped lips with his tongue.

Hot. Wet. His tongue. His lips. A taste; a tease. A commingling of breath and saliva.

Of Gabriel and Victoria.

It was Victoria’s first kiss. She wanted more: more breath, more tongue.

More Gabriel.

Victoria curved her fingers to cradle his head and take more.

Gabriel watched the need build inside her eyes .. . and she knew this was what he waited for: he waited

for her to touch him.

But she couldn’t touch him.

Victoria closed her eyes and clenched her fists.

His tongue instantly filled her: deeper than his finger. Hotter. Wetter.

The second penetration.

Vaguely she was aware of his saliva-slickened finger that trailed up her cheek, joined by more fingers.

He lightly cupped her face while his tongue stroked and stroked ... the top of her tongue ... underneath her

tongue ... the roof of her mouth.

Oh ... dear. . .
God.

Victoria sucked in cool air.

Her eyelids snapped open.

Gabriel’s tongue and fingers and breath were no longer a part of her. He stood back, watching her,

waiting for her to reach for him.

Victoria did not reach for him.

But she wanted to.
Please
don’t let him turn away from her.. .

She needed him.

She needed to be loved.

For the first time in her life she would not deny her need.

Gabriel’s gaze glanced past her shoulder—fleetingly calling to Victoria’s mind the man and woman

behind the mirror—and returned to her face. “I’ve trusted one person in my life.”

Michael.

And Gabriel had been hurt.

“I won’t touch you, Gabriel,” Victoria said unevenly.

“God help you if you do, Victoria.” Finality weighted Gabriel’s voice.
“Puisque je ne puis pas.”

Because I cannot.

Gabriel stepped aside for Victoria to precede him down the corridor. She looked neither left nor right,

every sense focused on the man behind her.

The electric chandelier inside the study was blinding; she stumbled.

Gabriel did not catch her.

They must trust one another, he had said.

She must trust that he would give her pleasure.

He must trust that she would not touch him.

The light in Gabriel’s bedroom was only marginally dimmer than the one in his study.

Victoria paused by the bed, fingers worrying the blue silk sash cinched around her waist. “I... am thinner

than I used to be.”

The women behind the transparent mirrors had come in varied sizes; none had possessed ribs that ridged

their sides.

Gabriel’s face hardened. “I won’t turn out the light, Victoria.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “I don’t want you to be ... put off by my appearance.”

Shadow darkened his face. “I have seen you, mademoiselle, and I assure you, I was not put off by your

appearance.”

How ridiculous she was being. Victoria had undressed for him the very first time they met. She had

stood naked in front of him while Madame René had measured her and Victoria asked how to seduce a

man.

How to love a man.

She squared her shoulders. Gabriel’s gaze dropped to her breasts. Victoria did not have to glance down

to know that her nipples stabbed the thin silk.

She notched her chin higher. “I would enjoy seeing you.”

“I’m not an angel, Victoria.”

A smile was surprised out of her. “I assure
you,
sir, I have no expectations of finding wings underneath

your garments.”

Gabriel did not return her smile. “But you expect a miracle.”

Gabriel was God’s messenger,
Victoria had said.

Michael was his chosen,
Gabriel had returned.

For better or for worse, the lives of two boys had been forever altered by a French madame. The cost of

survival.

Victoria had once believed in fairy tales, but. ..

“I have never believed in miracles, Gabriel.”

“I will try not to hurt you.”

Trust.

But Gabriel still did not trust her.

He didn’t trust her to touch him.

He didn’t trust her to see him naked.

But she trusted him.

“I know you will,” Victoria said shakily. She dropped the robe.

Gabriel weighed her breasts with his eyes. And then Gabriel weighed them with his hands.

Victoria stiffened her knees to prevent them from buckling at the lightning sensation that shot through

her.

“You have beautiful breasts, Victoria,” he said hoarsely, calluses rough, the heat of his skin scorching

hot.

She forced air into her lungs to speak. “Thank you.”

He traced her right rib cage, a raspy trail of pleasure, smoothed her waist. “Women wear corsets to

have waists like yours—”

“Thank you—”

His gaze snared hers. “I know what it’s like to go hungry. You have no need to apologize for your

appearance. Not to me.
Jamais.
”

Never.

The heat of his hand and his gaze scorched her skin.

“I don’t have any cream,” she said breathlessly.

“You won’t need it.”

She sucked in air. “But you said—”

“Sit down, Victoria.”

Victoria sat on the edge of the bed.

Her gaze unerringly rested on gray wool trousers. They were tented.

“You are erect.” Victoria’s voice was hushed.

“I have been erect ever since you walked into my study.”

Harsh truth rang inside Gabriel’s voice.

It seemed a lifetime ago when she had walked into his study. But it had only been a day and a night...

She had witnessed death. And in the last few hours, she had witnessed the need that drove every man

and woman.

Victoria had seen other men naked. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands to stop them from

reaching out and unbuttoning Gabriel’s trousers.

She gazed up. “I want you to feel pleasure, too, Gabriel.”

“Then lie down, Victoria, and let me touch you.”

Fully clothed. While she bared her all.

Victoria lay back.

Immediately, hard hands dug underneath her buttocks. She was bodily dragged across the bed.

Victoria clutched the bedcovers.

Her buttocks were poised on the edge of the bed. Her legs fell apart.

Hard hands were instantly there, gently pushing them farther apart.

The cold, invasive air was promptly replaced by the heat of silver eyes.

Gabriel audibly sucked in air.

He touched her.

Victoria audibly sucked in air.

“You’re wet, Victoria.”

Yes.

His finger throbbed, there where no one had ever touched her.

She had not touched herself there until six months earlier.

Victoria stared up at the white enameled ceiling and clung to two fistfuls of velvet.

If he touched her clitoris ...

Hard, callused heat glided up the slippery lips of her sex and pressed her clitoris.

Victoria gasped. And climaxed. While electric light pounded her face and the pressure of his finger

pierced her soul.

“You orgasmed.”

Gabriel’s voice grated in her ears.

She gulped air. Electric tingles continued to surge from his finger into her clitoris. “Yes.”

“What did you see?”

Victoria squirmed to escape his finger. He did not let her escape.

He continued to press her, lightly, pulse throbbing and pounding.

“Light,” she said.

Just when she thought she was going to explode again, that enervating fingertip glided back down the

slippery lips of her sex.

He gently probed.

Her muscles contracted.

Victoria bit her lip. “What do you see when you orgasm?”

“Darkness,” Gabriel gritted.

Darkness. Death.

“What do you see now?” she hurriedly asked.

“I see you, Victoria, your lips red and swollen and glistening. I see my finger, swirling in your desire.

Your
portail
is a darker red. I see my finger sinking into your
portail..
.”

Oh...

It burned.

Victoria jackknifed upward, legs snapping together.

His hand was buried between her thighs.

Victoria jerked her gaze away from the white cuff and shirtsleeve that stuck up above a thatch of dark

pubic hair.

Silver eyes were waiting for hers.

And you won’t touch me... regardless of the pain or pleasure that I bring you,
rang inside her ears.

I
won’t touch you,
she had promised.

Victoria fought the bed to find a grip, arms stiffly holding up her weight.

His hand was buried between her thighs. It felt as if it penetrated her with a burning poker.

Slowly, slowly Victoria unclenched her muscles and accepted his finger.

Relief flickered inside Gabriel’s eyes. Or perhaps it was the overhead light that flickered. Victoria was

not familiar enough with either Gabriel or electric light to judge.

“Open your legs for me,” Gabriel murmured, “and I’ll tell you what I see.”

He had said he had penetrated a woman with his entire hand. Victoria did not know if she could take

another finger.

She licked her lips. “What is ...
portail?”

Gabriel’s finger continued to burn and throb. “Portal. It is a French term for a woman’s vagina.”

Victoria’s body had a will of its own. It bore down, taking more of his finger.

Gabriel’s face hardened.

In desire? Disgust?

“Do you always refer to a woman’s anatomy in French?”

“No.”

“What word do you use?”

“Cunt.”

An English street term.

“But you don’t use that term now.”

“Non.”
There was nothing soft about the French negative.

Her vagina clenched and unclenched about his finger, as if milking it.

She struggled to understand. “Why?”

For a second Victoria did not think Gabriel was going to answer her. “I spoke French before I spoke

English.”

Before he became a whore.

Before the man had taken away the control he had valued so much.

Before Gabriel’s need had been turned against him.

Victoria opened her legs.

Dark eyelashes shielded his eyes.

Victoria followed his gaze. All she could see was her dark pubic hair and the white cuff marking the

hand that was between her thighs.

“I see . .. my finger appearing ... It’s wet and slippery .. .”

Victoria felt Gabriel’s finger easing out of her... slowly. ... In her mind’s eye, she visualized it... long,