Robin Schone (27 page)

pale, slippery wet...

Contrarily, her body clenched to keep it inside her.

“Calme-toi,”
he murmured huskily.

Relax.

“I remember the first time I saw a woman like this.”

Gabriel’s gaze was intent on Victoria.

“How old were you?”

“I was thirteen.”

The same age he had been when the madame had sold his services.

Gabriel’s finger reversed its journey, slowly ... slowly . . . sinking inside her until it filled her.

“What did you think, when you saw her. .. like this?” Victoria managed.

“I thought that if a man had a soul, it existed inside a woman.”

Victoria’s chest constricted; then her vagina constricted.

One finger became two.

Stretching her. Opening her.

She sharply inhaled. “Gabriel...”

His dark lashes slowly lifted. “I like the way you say my name.”

Slowly his two fingers slid out of her while he watched her face for signs of pain .. . pleasure.

“How is that?” she asked, voice catching.

“As if you believe I have a soul.”

He curved his fingers, as if they were a hook, and gently raked the inner wall of her vagina. “Come for

me, Victoria. You said you’d share your pleasure with me. Share it.”

He held her gaze, hooked fingers sliding, twisting, searching . . . Electricity shot through her body.

It felt as if she had a second clitoris inside her vagina, or as if her clitoris were accessible from within.

Gabriel stroked. Fingers hooked. Holding her gaze.

Fire raced through Victoria’s veins, shimmied down her spine.

There was no fire inside his eyes, just calculated intent.

She wanted more than his expertise.

“I can’t,” she choked.

A smile flitted across his face. “You can. You will.. . You are.”

Victoria’s body bore down. She exploded. Voice crying out.

When her gaze focused, Gabriel waited for her. “What did you see?”

“Light,” she panted.

Shaking. Inside. Outside.

Two fingers became three.

Her body was wide open; she could not squeeze him out. Victoria’s orgasm fluttered around him—
three

fingers.

“I feel it,” she gasped. “I feel myself... fluttering around your fingers ...”

“Yes.” A curious expression crossed his face. “I feel it.”

Victoria couldn’t draw in enough oxygen. “I said I wouldn’t touch you.”

His gaze sharpened. “Yes.”

“But I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you what I want.”

“What do you want, Victoria?” Gabriel asked, sudden remoteness coming into his eyes.

How many had told him what they wanted . .. and never asked him what he wanted?

“I want you to taste me. I want you to remember my taste.”

Not a rape of the senses . ..

“And then I want you to do what you want. Anything. Everything.”

His dark lashes blocked her gaze.

She could feel moisture oozing out from her vagina. Did he see it?

Perhaps he did not like the taste of sex ...

Gabriel sank down between her thighs. Three fingers sliding ... out... in ... out... in. Deep. Hard.

Riding out one orgasm. Creating the need for another.

Silvery-blond hair merged with dark pubic hair.

When Gabriel’s breath whispered across her vulva, Victoria thought she would die. When Gabriel’s lips

closed around her, she knew she would die.

When Gabriel’s tongue touched the hard tip of her clitoris, Victoria did die.

There is always pain in pleasure,
Gabriel had said.

Darkness glittered inside the light, but still, only, light.

Victoria opened her eyes. And stared up at white enamel.

She did not remember closing her eyes; she did not remember lying down.

All she could feel was the emptiness inside her body and the tiny aftershocks that continued to dance on

her clitoris.

The dull clang of metal impacting wood penetrated her consciousness.

“What did you see, Victoria?”

Victoria had seen . . . “Light.”

She sluggishly turned her head toward Gabriel and the dull clang.

Gabriel reached into an open tin. His mouth was wet and shiny.

From her.

“What I wanted, Victoria,” he grated tautly.

It took Victoria several seconds to remember what was inside the tin ... It took her several more

seconds to realize what Gabriel was doing.

A silver drop of moisture glimmered on the tip of the large, plum-shaped crown . . .
bite,
Madame René

had called it. Pinstriped wool framed a bush of dark blond pubic hair. Smearing the silver drop of moisture

over the purple-hued head, he expertly smoothed up a rubber sheath, one inch, three inches, five inches,

seven inches, nine inches...

Her stomach convulsively tightened.

Victoria’s gaze jerked up to Gabriel’s face.

She did not recognize it. His lips were drawn, skin darkly flushed, eyes silver shards of light.

“You said anything and everything I wanted.”

Yes.

“This is what I want,” he rasped. “I want to bury myself inside you, and then I want you to come until

you make me come.”

Gabriel looked as though he expected her to object.

Victoria fought for air. For one paralyzing second she did want to object.

“That sounds”—terrifying, exhilarating—“heavenly.”

His sheathed manhood jutted out from the pinstriped wool trousers. “There is no heaven, Victoria, but I

can show you hell.”

Victoria did not doubt it.

Gabriel knelt on the floor. He bowed his head, silver hair sweeping his forehead.

Wool scratched her inner thighs. Rubber prodded ungiving flesh.

Victoria edged back on the bed.

The rubber was far, far thicker than had been his fingers.

A finger lightly pressed her clitoris.

Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. She was riveted by silver eyes.

“Take me, Victoria,” he said rawly. “I took your hymen with my fingers. Now take me ...”

“You’re larger than your fingers ...”

But smaller than his hand . ..

Gabriel circled her clitoris, lightly, beguilingly.
Her choice...

Victoria’s muscles unclenched.

A fist...

It felt like a fist prodded her, impossibly large ... and then it was impossibly lodged inside her.

He circled her clitoris, light, hard, slow, sure ... Pain.
Pleasure...

Victoria’s body opened, impossibly, for more. More pain. More pleasure . . .

The pain stilled; the pleasure did not.

A heartbeat throbbed inside her.

Harsh breath filled the room. “Come for me, Victoria, and I’ll give you another inch.”

The fist lodged inside her portal remained steadfast; the finger circling her did not. It slipped down . ..

tested the tightness of the thin ring of flesh circling him, glided back up, slippery wet. . . circling round, and

round, and round, lacking depth; she needed him deeper...

Victoria cried out. And convulsed. “God!”

The large fist-shaped crown that stretched her beyond bearing sank inside . .. two inches deep.

“What did you see?” he grated.

Light. Darkness.

Silver. Gray.

“Light. . .”

Circling. Circling.

“Gabriel...”

Victoria’s body yawned independently. Jagged sensation ripped through her.

He sank inside her another inch .. . three inches deep.

Victoria panted for air.

One inch per orgasm ... Six more to go ...

“What did you see, Victoria?”

She throbbed. He throbbed.

The bedcovers clenched inside her fists throbbed.

“What did you see, Victoria?” he repeated tensely.

“Light,” she said stubbornly. There was no darkness in pleasure ...
No sin in loving
... “Oh, God”—the

sound ripped out of her throat— “Gabriel... I can’t... Gabriel...”

“What, Victoria?” Sweat dripped like tears down Gabriel’s face. “What can’t you do?”

Or not do ...

He wanted her to stop him.

Victoria did not stop him.

“I need . . .” she gasped, the light of pending orgasm circling before her eyes, his finger circling her

clitoris.

“What do you need?” Gabriel crooned. Holding himself back from the pleasure.

Anger tore through Victoria.

He must feel it. How could he not feel her flesh caressing him, milking him?

Gulping him?

“I need to have another orgasm.”

Gabriel gave her another orgasm. And then he gave her another inch.

She couldn’t breathe past the fist that lodged inside her vagina.

“What do you see, Victoria?”

“Light.”

Another orgasm. Another inch.

Five inches...

“What do you see?” he repeated. Wanting her to see the darkness that he saw.

“Light,” she gasped. Silver strands of hair haloed his head. “I see light.”

Victoria could no longer differentiate between pain and pleasure. She pushed up for another orgasm,

another inch of Gabriel.

Six inches .. . seven inches . . . eight inches. . . .

“What do you see, Victoria?” Agony laced Gabriel’s voice.

His white linen shirt clung to his chest. The sweat-soaked linen revealed his every inhalation, his every

exhalation. His breath timed to the pulse that drummed inside her vagina and against her clitoris.

Victoria with difficulty focused on him and not the fading orgasm that fluttered into the need for another.

There was no room inside her body for breath, thought.

The fist inside her plugged her every sense.

Gabriel’s body. Gabriel’s need.

She would die if he did not stop; she would die if he did.

An angel’s pleasure ...

Gabriel’s circling finger would not give Victoria respite.

What did she see .. . ?

“I see you, Gabriel,” Victoria gasped. “When I come, I see you.”

Pain.

The pain on his glistening face sealed the air inside her lungs. The impact of his body knocked it out.

Gabriel slammed into her, against her, flesh, hair, wool trousers, past, present. At the same time another

orgasm slammed through her body.

A voice cried out. Victoria did not know who it belonged to, her or Gabriel. His heartbeat was hers, her

flesh was his, the orgasm that ripped through them was theirs.

Victoria knew that Gabriel had felt her pleasure. She knew it because he left her. Body. Soul.

Her fists clenched in the mangled covers.

She had not touched his body, but she had touched an angel.

Victoria did not know if Gabriel would forgive her.

She squeezed her eyelids shut and stared at darkness, listening to the soft click of his boots, crossing the

bedroom floor, entering the bathroom...

Her body counted the passing minutes. She felt hollow inside, as if he had created a tunnel inside her.

The faint sound of plumbing vibrated in the air: Gabriel had flushed the toilet. A soft click penetrated the

stillness, a door opening.

She could feel his stare; it was as palpable as the throb deep inside her womb.

“Mary Thornton cooperated,” he said flatly. Tension throbbed inside his voice. “The man who wrote the

letters is Mitchell Delaney.”

She would not cry.

The darkness behind her eyelids writhed. “I do not know a Mitchell Delaney.”

“He knows you, mademoiselle.”

“My name is Victoria,” Victoria said. And she enjoyed the way Gabriel said it, the “V” a soft caress.

Yes, the man who wrote the letters knew that she wore silk drawers instead of wool. He knew that

women had the same sexual needs as did men.

He did not know the woman who was Victoria Childers. But Gabriel knew her.

He had touched the very heart of her soul.

Gabriel turned around and walked away.

Gabriel walked the streets, turning, twisting, slipping through an alley, waiting on the other side, breath

misting the yellow fog, heartbeat measuring the silence, silver sword raised in welcome.

No one followed him.

He wished someone had.

Gabriel wanted to kill.

Gabriel wanted to escape the scent and the feel of Victoria.

Gabriel wanted to deny the pleasure she had given him.

I see you, Gabriel. When I come, I see you.

For a second—with the head of his cock pulsing against the mouth of her womb—he had almost

believed that he had a soul.

Forcibly, Gabriel concentrated on the night.

No one had followed him to the Thornton town house, either by day or by night. Yet someone had

watched Madame René enter his house.

Someone had intercepted the boxes of clothing she had sent to Victoria.

A dull clip-clop interrupted Gabriel’s thoughts, the hooves of a solitary horse. Heartbeat accelerating, he

eased back inside the mouth of the alley.

Approaching light materialized into carriage lamps. A hansom cab rattled by.

The driver could be headed to the stables. Or the driver could be following Gabriel.

It disappeared into the fog.

Gabriel maneuvered three more streets. Several more hansom cabs meandered through the early

morning fog. He hailed the third one by stepping out in front of the passing horse and grabbing the leather

halter.

The horse shied; the cabbie cursed.

“Git yer ‘ands off me ‘orse, ye—”

“I will give you two gold sovereigns if you take me up,” Gabriel said softly.

The average cab fare was sixpence per mile; a sovereign was equivalent to two hundred and forty

pence. Gabriel did not have to clearly see the cabbie’s face in order to see the calculation in his eyes: he

would have to travel eighty miles to earn two sovereigns.