Robin Schone (36 page)

instead of a tiny fissure. It easily accepted his finger.

Gabriel was instantly gripped by molten silk-Victoria drew in a deep breath; at the same time her fingers

tightened around his penis.

He hurt her. The ache of his penetration dully throbbed inside Gabriel’s chest.

She parted her legs to give him better access. So that she could take away
his
hurt.

Gabriel wanted to reach inside Victoria and feel her womb convulse around his hand; instead, he

withdrew his finger. It was coated with slick heat.

The essence of Victoria Childers. A woman who feared passion, only to embrace it.

Just as she would embrace an angel.

Gabriel smeared her essence onto her lips.

Victoria jerked back, “What—”

Gabriel took her lips, her words, her breath, her essence.

He had told Victoria that sharing his pain and his pleasure inside the shower hadn’t changed anything.

He had lied.

It had changed everything.

The second man had given him Victoria, knowing that Gabriel would want more than an hour or a day or

a week with her. He had known Gabriel would die to get more of her.

Victoria tasted of salty-sweet satisfaction.

Using his tongue and his teeth, Gabriel took more from her—a tiny nip of pain, soothing licks of pleasure.

He used every ounce of his expertise to take Victoria’s soul with his kiss, because that was what he had

been trained to do.

Not enough.

Gabriel lifted his head up, lips teasing instead of devouring, and whispered, “Taste yourself, Victoria.”

Gabriel did not give her time to agree or to disagree; he licked inside her mouth and transferred her

essence onto her tongue.

She held still, unresponsive.

Gabriel made her respond. He licked the roof of her mouth.

Victoria sucked in his breath.

He wanted more.

He had the ability to make her give him more.

Taking her nipple between his fingers, he gently pinched and pulled, knowing that with each pinch, each

tug, her womb contracted.

Her fingers that gripped him squeezed and pulled his penis in time to his fingers that squeezed and pulled

her nipple. Victoria’s tongue gently licked at his tongue, underneath his tongue. Giving as well as taking.

Gabriel squeezed his eyelids shut and concentrated on the feel and the taste of Victoria instead of the

rhythmic squeezing and pulling that squeezed and pulled his very testicles.

A soft, short knock interrupted the pounding of his heart.

Gaston had arrived.

Gabriel did not stop pinching and tugging Victoria’s nipple. He did not stop licking her.

He did not stop wanting what he could not have.

A home.

A woman.

A soft preorgasmic moan vibrated his tongue.

A sharp preorgasmic tingle shot up his urethra.

The outer door to
his suite opened.

It could be Gaston.

Or it could be the second man.

Gabriel imagined Victoria’s womb contracting about his hand while he mentally followed the man inside

the suite.

A soft thud sounded, leather impacting marble.

Victoria agitatedly moved her head from side to side. Gabriel grasped the nape of her neck with his right

hand and ruthlessly followed her, mouth glued to hers, tongue licking, fingers pinching and tugging.

She was almost there.

Victoria squeezed Gabriel harder, taking him with her.

A soft swish erupted through the open bedroom door; the man inside his study had sat down in the

leather chair facing Gabriel’s desk. At the same time Victoria’s body bowed; fingers knotted in Gabriel’s

hair.

Pain. Pleasure.

Hungry blue and violet exploded the
blackness behind Gabriel’s eyelids. Victoria’s convulsing womb

briefly fluttered around his fingers and then he came inside Victoria’s hand and the feel of her orgasm was

gone, replaced by the presence of the man inside his study and the awareness of the information he

possessed.

Slowly Gabriel eased the pinching, tugging rhythm that had for one brief moment become his orgasm.

The apparatus that was his cock spurted three times, four times, five times .. .

Victoria collapsed, sobbing for air that he finally allowed her. His erection subsided; his need did not.

Her fingers clutching his hair was an intimacy he had not allowed in almost fifteen years.

Gabriel wanted more Victoria, more intimacy.

Gently he released Victoria’s nipple and caressed her cheek, reaching too high. Her eyelids fluttered

against his fingertips like the tantalizing flutter of an orgasm.

Cocooning Victoria, Gabriel kissed her eyelid. It fluttered against his lips.

The knot inside his groin spread to his chest.

“You . . .” Victoria gulped air. “My breast... it was . . .”

“Shh ...” Gabriel pressed his lips against hers: he did not want Gaston to overhear how vulnerable

Victoria was in her passion. “Go back to sleep, Victoria. I have to go. I’ll be back later.”

He sat up.

The fingers fisted inside his hair tightened; at the same time Victoria released his quiescent flesh.

Gabriel did not see the hand that reached up until it touched his chin. It was cold and sticky.

Before he could react, warm fingers smeared cold, sticky fluid onto his mouth—his sperm.

Victoria smeared his sperm onto his lips. And then she licked his sperm off his lips.

And then she licked the seam between his lips.

Gabriel didn’t want to taste himself. He wanted nothing to do with his body that had betrayed him.

He opened his mouth for Victoria. And did not know why he did so.

Gabriel allowed Victoria to share with him the taste of his seed. And did not know why the mechanical

release of a male whore tasted like hope.

The butterfly flutter of Victoria’s satisfaction resonated inside his chest.

And Gabriel knew ...

Slipping out of Victoria’s kiss and the fingers that held his hair, Gabriel stood up and flipped the covers

up over her naked body, darkly silhouetted against pale sheets. Blindly he grabbed a coat, trousers and a

pair of boots from the armoire; he took socks, a shirt and a handkerchief from the chest. From the floor by

the bed, he scooped up the used condom.

... Gabriel knew that the second man had won. He just did not know at what.

Victoria listened to familiar sounds, an opening drawer, a drawer closing ... Gabriel rifling through the

armoire.

Silver glinted; Gabriel approached the bed.

Her calming heartbeat accelerated.

Gabriel reached down, quickly straightened, an elongated rubber sheath in his left hand, his clothes

bundled up underneath his right arm. He stepped into black shadow. The bathroom door quietly closed

behind him.

Victoria’s fingers were sticky. Her lips and tongue burned.

She had tasted herself; it had been surprising, certainly, but it had not been revolting. Then she had felt

Gabriel’s orgasm swell inside her hand as her orgasm had swelled between his fingers.

Faint sounds penetrated the bathroom door—the splatter of water on water, the decided flush of the

toilet, water splattering marble, a quick, sharp tap—an ivory toothbrush impacting the edge of the marble

basin?

Her chest tightened.

It was endearingly intimate, listening to Gabriel perform his morning toilet.

Victoria reached underneath the covers and touched her left nipple.

It was hard and swollen. As Gabriel’s manhood had been hard and swollen.

She had not known that a woman could orgasm by having her nipple squeezed. She had not known how

sticky a man’s ejaculation would be or how quickly the thick, viscous fluid chilled or how salty it tasted.

She had not known that a woman’s body could ache yet be replete with satisfaction.

A soft swish interrupted her thoughts. Gabriel exited the bathroom, silently padded out of the

bedchamber.

She bit her lip to keep from calling him back.

He would be back, he had said.

Victoria believed him.

The man who had written the letters, she thought on a note of contempt, was a poor excuse for a man.

Muted voices penetrated the bedroom door. Gabriel had a visitor.

He had told her to go back to sleep. But Victoria didn’t want to sleep.

She wanted more of Gabriel.

Victoria threw back the bedcovers. The sheets smelled of Gabriel, of her, of their combined sweat.

The hard wooden floor was an icy awakening.

Gabriel could die.

She
could die.

Victoria stepped into the bathroom. And remembered the sight of Gabriel’s erection piercing the steam.

Victoria stepped into the copper tub. And remembered how Gabriel had utilized the Liver Spray.

A grin hitched up her lips. Every household should possess a combination shower and bath.

Immediately her thoughts returned to Gabriel.

Was he eating breakfast?

Deftly she twisted off the shower cock. There was no resemblance whatsoever between it and Gabriel.

Gabriel, unlike the brass apparatus, felt both pain and pleasure.

He could reject touch, but he had not rejected her touch when she grabbed his hair to pull him closer. He

had not rejected her touch when she smeared his sperm onto his lips—petal-soft lips— and tasted him.

He had let her share the taste of his pleasure with him.

Gabriel had hung up the damp towel. Victoria patted herself dry with it.

He had rinsed out the washcloth he had cleansed her with the night before and hung it up to dry beside

her worn silk drawers.

There’s no sex act I haven’t done, no sex act I wouldn’t do to please you.

She hadn’t told Gabriel that she didn’t want another man.

She hadn’t told Gabriel... so many things.

The comb—it was still in the bedroom. Victoria hurriedly brushed her teeth.

The flip of a wooden switch turned blackness into a lit bedchamber.

There were the brass rails that Gabriel had laced her fingers around. He had clamped his fingers over

hers and held on to her while the bed beneath them shook and quaked.

The logs Gabriel had stacked the fireplace with the night before were a pile of black-and-gray ashes.

Time was slipping away.

Rummaging inside the boxes neatly stacked beside Gabriel’s chest, Victoria retrieved silk drawers. A

pair of buckled kid slippers. The corset—it had garters sewn into the front and back panels—silk stockings,

petticoats, chemise—no, the corset had no whalebones that required protective covering. Putting back the

chemise, she lifted up the golden brown dress out of its rose-petal printed coffin.

All the while she strained to hear Gabriel: she did not. Victoria did not have to open the bedchamber door

to know that he was not inside his study.

The front of the corded silk dress fastened with tiny eyelets. Victoria’s wool gowns had been simple

shirtwaists with front buttons. Her fingers were painstakingly slow with the unfamiliar closure. Ruthlessly

she combed her hair.

Stockings ... Stockings . .. What had she done with the stockings?

Brown silk gleamed on the back of the satinwood valet chair.

Securing the stockings to the bottom of the corset took considerably more time than it had to locate

them. The elastic clasps weren’t as elastic as they should be; or perhaps the stockings were not as long as

they should be.

Victoria thought of Gabriel choosing the corset, the stockings, the dimity bustle .. . The garter clasps

snapped over the top of the stockings.

The kid slippers, dyed to match the wine-colored garniture on her gown, fit her feet like a glove. Forcibly

she thrust aside the cost of such luxury.

Globular stains darkened the edge of the sheet where Gabriel had ejaculated.

She lightly touched the largest stain. It was still damp.

The taste of Gabriel lingered underneath the bite of tooth powder.

Victoria swung open the bedchamber door, silk rustling, air swooshing.

The study was empty.

Like Victoria’s body.

The overhead chandelier battled the coming sunset.

Or perhaps the sun had already set. In the winter months it was difficult to tell when foggy day became

foggy night.

Gabriel had promised he would die in order to save her life. But Victoria didn’t want him to die.

She didn’t want fear to diminish the pleasure that still pulsated throughout her entire body.

A silver tray sat on the black-marble-topped desk. Victoria smelled—she picked up the lid—sausage and

egg omelet. She did not recognize the thick, meaty slices of fruit in the small, translucent china bowl. She

did not need to.

Tears clogged her nose.

Victoria had said she had not tasted pineapple. Gabriel now provided her with the opportunity.

She picked up a yellow slice of the exotic fruit between her thumb and forefinger, juice dripping.

It was tart yet sweet. Exactly as Gabriel had described pineapple.

She licked her fingers.

Drowning in silk and satin—how quickly she had become accustomed to nakedness—she sat down in

Gabriel’s chair.

Victoria remembered the taste of his kiss; she licked a drop of pineapple juice off her lips, and tasted

Gabriel. She held up the sausage—it was far smaller than Gabriel—and bit off the end.

Abruptly her appetite perished.

Victoria could die; Gabriel could die.