Chapter Twenty-One
One of the benefits of growing up around women was that Gabriel learned early how to view things from their perspective.
He knew how to give a woman pleasure in a myriad of ways, no matter who the “her” was.
It was on his sixteenth birthday that he discovered how much he adored hearing a woman’s sounds as he feasted between her thighs.
Janelle didn’t understand what he was about to do.
She clearly had never imagined such a thing, and so he eased her into it by rubbing her feet, teasing the back of her knee with his tongue, and then easing her thighs open as he kissed his way to her core.
By the time her modesty tried to protest, his fingers were already spreading her open, her breath came too quickly for her to protest, and his tongue was already tasting the juice of her body.
He settled in to enjoy her, taking his time as he tongued her.
He learned her sounds and the way she writhed beneath him.
He teased her to the peak, then brought her back down as he plunged fingers and tongue into her.
He could only take her to the verge so many times before she gripped his ears and demanded he take her the rest of the way.
He did. Eventually. And then he made a game of keeping her climax going while he explored her every sound and whimper.
He was grinding his own cock into the floor while he pleasured her.
The need to release darkened his vision while his back burned from the restraint.
But he had justified this action by telling himself he was teaching her how to enjoy life in a loveless marriage.
His reward was the knowledge that she would remember him as her first. He was the one who took her to the height of ecstasy. Indulging himself was not an option.
He took her to heaven in the only way he knew how, and he kept himself…well, not pure so much as restrained.
Until she said, “Stop.”
She didn’t cry it aloud. She didn’t have the breath. But he heard her whisper it even as her body pulsed around his tongue.
“One mmmmmore,” he hummed against her clit.
Then he licked her slowly, knowing it took very little to keep her aloft.
She whimpered her surrender, so he let her fall boneless back to earth.
He watched her face, her breasts, and her whole being flush rosy gold amid the yellow silk of her dress.
He stretched forward to lave her nipples again.
Such hard points of sensation, so sweet on his tongue.
He kissed her neck, her jaw, and then teased her mouth.
She met him with what strength she had left, and he fought the urge to lower his falls and drive into her.
She would take him easily now. She was stretched open, relaxed enough to enjoy the slide of his cock, and he would surrender the last of his honor in the act.
So he kept himself back. But he still had to stake his claim.
“You will remember me forever,” he said against her ear.
“Longer than that,” she said with a low chuckle.
“And every time you pleasure yourself, you will know that I was the one who showed you this. You will think of this and remember me.”
She was silent after he spoke, her body stilling until she rolled her head to look straight at him. “This is how you want to be remembered? This is your legacy?”
He smiled. “What else is there for me?”
“Your work. Your children. I can think of a thousand other things, but you have chosen this.” She languidly stroked her fingers across his cheek, threading them into his hair as she continued to study his face. “Don’t misunderstand. It was wonderful.”
He brushed his fingertips across her belly, a mimicry of how she stroked through his hair. She gasped in reaction, arching her back as a purr rumbled in the back of her throat. God, he loved the sight of a well-pleasured woman.
She must have seen his smirk because she rolled her eyes. “Yes, Gabriel, it’s still wonderful.” Then her expression turned serious. “But I cannot imagine you believe this is all you have to offer the world.”
“I offer my service to you and Lord Benedict.”
“Well, I certainly hope you haven’t done this for him,” she said with a laugh.
A frisson of worry burned down his back. What did she know? “I have not,” he said firmly. “This was for you alone.”
“Liar,” she chuckled. “If you truly think this is your legacy, then there are a string of women in your past, all aching for your return.”
“There are a few,” he admitted. “But it has been years since I have done something so…” dishonorable. “So sweet a service.”
“I shall grow cross with you if you continue to view me as your duty.”
What else could she be? She was engaged to Lord Benedict. “You are more than a service, Janelle.” Daring of him to use her first name, but he would say it out loud now and every time in his thoughts. “But to wish for more would be—”
She stopped him quickly, pressing her fingers to his mouth. He held himself still, but in his mind, he was curling his tongue around her fingers, pulling them into his mouth, and nibbling at the tips.
“You are my choice,” she whispered. “I want to be yours, too.”
“You are too innocent to know—”
“Do you think I haven’t had choices? Either as Betty or Janelle, there have been men. I wanted none of them. Only you.”
Now he did kiss her fingers. And then he pulled them away and pressed his mouth to hers. It was by no means a chaste kiss, but it was restrained. And when he pulled back, he looked her in the eyes. “You are my choice as well,” he confessed. “But I was bound to Lord Benedict first.”
“Me, too.”
“He is a great man, and he will keep the war from coming back. He will see peace in our country and on the continent.”
“I know,” she said. Then she sighed. “I cannot understand why he picked me.”
How much could he tell her? “He wants a wife with her own interests. Your hobby is one that he respects. Better yet, it gives you access to the peasants and the laborers.”
She pulled back from him, her face tightened with confusion. “I deliver their babies,” she said.
“And you would know if they speak of violent rebellion.”
“Like the mad French? They don’t. Not really.”
So some did. “You would know if they grew serious, and you would tell him.”
“That cannot be the whole of my appeal.”
“Of course not. You have all the accomplishments of a well-bred young lady and none of the vices.”
She sighed. “Damned by faint praise.”
“Did you want him to love you?” The words cut as he uttered them. Did she long for love? Of course, she did. All souls did.
“I had hoped for a little.”
“He gives you what he can.”
She turned back to him. “And I give you what I can.”
He smiled, though the expression hurt. “And I am pleased by your gift.”
She touched his face again, tender across his cheeks and lips. “Of the three of us, you are the one who can choose better. Find a wife whom you love. Have children of your own. Ones that will not be tainted as a bastard.”
“Every child of mine will be tainted by my parentage. Not as badly as I am, but their options will be limited.”
She knew it was true. He could see the acknowledgement in her eyes. “So you spend your time giving quickenings to lonely women? Instead of finding a wife?”
“Just you,” he said. “And just this once.”
“And another heart breaks in your wake.”
Yes. It was his own. “You do not love me,” he chided.
“Are you sure? Because I am not.” She took a breath. “I have all the symptoms, you know. I have thought of little more than you.”
“You have been cursing my name.”
“That, too. And then the first time you touch me…” She bit her lip, but the rest of her statement was clear. One kiss, and now she lay sprawled before him in naked abandon.
“This was pleasure, Janelle. It is different than love.”
“Maybe. But I would not do this with anyone else.”
A surge of pride hit him, swelling every part of him including that part that had just started to ease.
“I must take you home now,” he said.
“I know.”
“And I will look for a better place for your work. This room will not do.”
“It will not.” She flashed him a mischievous smile. “But I love it nonetheless.”
He would certainly never forget it.
Moving slowly, he pushed up from her side.
The brush of his clothing sent the fires of hell across his flesh.
He counted her worth every agony. He helped her stand, and he groaned at the sight of her rising naked from the pool of yellow silk.
She blushed as she made it to her feet, her hands shaking a bit as she ducked her head.
“What you must think of me.”
“That you are beautiful. And I am very lucky to see such a sight once in my lifetime.” And that he had never hated Lord Benedict more.
Because she was skittish, he held out her shift. She took it but didn’t release his hands. “I would have touched you. I—” She swallowed. “I would like to touch you.”
To do such a thing would kill him. His heart would not be able to withstand the pleasure. “No, Janelle. Leave me some tiny bit of honor.”
She nodded, pulling back and quickly donning her shift. When her head emerged from the fabric, she slanted him a quixotic look. “Men’s honor is very changeable concept.”
He could not deny it. “We rarely understand it ourselves.”
“And yet so much is done in its name.” She said no more as she gathered her dress and shook it out. The thing was crushed, and yet she shrugged. “No blood.” She chuckled. “All in all, that makes this a good night clothing-wise.”
Good lord, what must her clothes look like regularly? “I hope this was a good night for other reasons as well.”
“Fishing for compliments, Major?”
He winced at her more formal tone, but then again, she was pulling the ribbons of her stays tight and so the changed tone was appropriate.
“Maybe.” He stopped her hands as she finished tying the bow. “Or maybe I hope we both don’t come to regret it.”
“Never,” she said, the word surprisingly sharp. And at his look, she lifted up her chin and dared him to deny her. “And if you ever do, I command you to never tell me. This was wonderful. I don’t regret it.”
Her eyes had gone wet with her vehemence, and if she weren’t speaking so forcefully, he would think that she was steeped in regret.
Instead, he thought perhaps she was feeling the same melancholy that gripped him.
They might have been more to one another, if only they had met at a different time in a different way.
“I could not regret this either,” he said as he cupped her face. “I feel too lucky to have experienced it to ever regret—”
“Oh, stop it!” she said with a huff. “Kiss me already.”
He did. And since they both knew it was their last, they lingered at it, lip to lip, tongue to tongue.
And when he deepened it, she opened willingly.
His lust drove through him, demanding more, always more, but he kept it back with an act of will.
He would not taint this moment of tenderness with any baser needs. Not when she was so sweet in his arms.
But even that had to end. He broke off the kiss and watched while she pulled on her gown. He helped button the back while he fought the urge to caress her skin. Then he gathered Betty’s huge bag and held out his arm to her.
“What about the other things?” she asked.
“I have a lady coming to clean in the morning. Then once I find a new place, I’ll move—”
“The birthing chair.”
He smiled. “Yes, the birthing chair. I will not forget the one thing I did right when finding this place.”
“We will do better if we work together.”
More time in her presence? More moments when they could banter with ease while he watched the light on her skin or the blush on her cheeks?
“I will consult you every step of the way,” he promised.
“I will hold you to that.”
And what sweet torture that will be.