Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Stop it!” Janelle snapped at Benedict. “Let me think!” At that moment, she couldn’t possibly hate her husband more. It was one thing to keep her ignorant of his…difficulty…until after their wedding. It was another thing entirely to bring Gabriel into this disaster.
And yet if there were anyone she would want with her tonight, anyone who could hold her hand while she made sense of this, well, it would be Gabriel. Indeed, she believed it would always be him. She turned away from her husband and stepped up to the man she loved.
“I won’t do it,” she said, “if you don’t want to.” She reached out and grabbed his near hand. It was clenched tight at his side, a hard fist that was part of a body gone rigid. “It doesn’t have to be you.”
She winced when she said that, but it was nothing compared to the reaction he gave. He gripped her arms and his eyes blazed into her. “You will not go elsewhere!”
“I won’t,” she swore. “I…” Her heart wrenched in her chest. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to hurt you.”
His gaze softened at that, and his expression shifted as if it were torn. She saw anguish and pain, but also desire. And a wrenching whisper of hope.
“Do you want this?” she whispered.
“Yes.” His word was barely audible.
“Then why do you hesitate?” She guessed at the answer. Honor. Loyalty. Pride. Any of those words would fit, and she could argue every one. “When the husband and wife both allow it, there is no sin,” she said. He understood practicalities, and Benedict was right. This was a solution.
But a moment’s thought told her Gabriel’s refusal wasn’t about practicality or logic. If it were, he’d already be in her bed.
“This is about love, isn’t it?” she asked. “You love him and have pledged to serve him however he asks. You love me, you have said as much. So what is the thing that love cannot conquer?” She touched his face, stroking along the harsh cut of his jaw.
He closed his eyes, and his body shook. His hands tightened on her arms as his breath heaved. “I want this,” he finally rasped. “I want you, but it cannot be right.”
And there it was. The rule of right and wrong, honored or sinful.
She had long since decided that the church’s laws were not meant for everyone.
She had tended good women who the church damned through no fault of their own.
She guessed that Lord Benedict had felt cursed the first time he felt his unnatural urges, and yet he served his country nobly and was accounted a great man.
But what of Gabriel? He was a bastard, tainted the moment he was born, surrounded by sin throughout his childhood.
He had built his life in another direction, serving his country and acting with a warrior’s honor.
And now she was asking him to bend the one thing he valued over all other things—his morality.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her heart breaking. “We are asking you to break—”
“Not break!” Benedict pressed, taking a step forward. “Bend, Gabriel. A little bend.”
Gabriel turned to her husband, his eyes flashing and his voice grating like stone on stone. “You want this, Benny? Truly?”
Benedict didn’t hesitate. “I do.”
“Then leave. Get out of this room. Hell, get out of the castle. The rest is between her and me.”
Her husband’s eyes narrowed. He looked to Janelle, and she nodded, telling him that she agreed. More than that, she wanted him out of the discussion.
“Go,” she ordered.
Benedict nodded, but he didn’t leave yet. Instead, he spoke, his voice gentle but no less clear. “I have thought of other options,” he said. “There are babes to adopt quietly. She could pretend to be pregnant.”
Janelle blinked. The depth of his thoughts unnerved her. Her mind hadn’t even gone to such places, but apparently he had already contemplated it.
“It could be done,” Benedict continued, “but I prefer this.”
“To be cuckolded?” Gabriel asked, the words spoken like an accusation. Benedict shook his head.
“If I cannot sire the child, then I would have a child from the two people I care for the most.” He swallowed. “Gabriel, how many times have I said you are the better man? A thousand times out loud. A million more in my thoughts.”
“You are a good man.”
“As are you.”
They looked at each other long and hard. What passed between them, she did not know, except that a measure of tension left Gabriel’s body. And when it drained away, Benedict nodded. Then he gave her a half smile, one of apology and respect before quietly leaving the room.
Which left the two of them now. She said nothing. It was enough to stand near him, to feel his hand—now gentle—upon her arm. And to wait for what he chose.
Rather than speak, he pulled her into his arms. He tucked her close and set his cheek against her forehead. He was not a man to speak his pain, and yet she heard it in the rasp of his breath and the slow stroke of his hand up and down her back.
“Why would you agree to this?” he whispered against her forehead.
“Because I love you.”
Only now when she was pressed against him did she feel the way those words struck him. He tensed almost imperceptibly. Then he trembled as if shaking them away.
“You don’t believe that,” she abruptly realized. “You don’t think I can love you.” She jerked backwards, staring into his eyes as she struggled to understand. “I wanted to throw everything away for you. I asked you to marry me! Do you think I would do that for anything except love?”
He shook his head, his mouth pressed tight. And in that one gesture she finally understood.
“You don’t believe you deserve love. Somehow, somewhere, you decided you cannot receive what is freely given.” She pressed her palm to his chest above her heart. “You cannot believe it in here.”
His head bowed until she could not see his face. But she did not need to see to know that his eyes were wet with tears. He shuddered in her arms, and she knew that finally she had come to the core of it.
“I cannot force you to believe, Gabriel. You must open yourself to the idea that I love you. That Benedict loves you as truly as if you were brothers. I have said it. He has said it.” She cupped his face in her palm and stroked her thumb across his cheek.
“But you must love yourself before you can feel anything from us.”
She waited for her words to sink in. She had known people who could not accept their own value, no matter what was said. But in this, he proved stronger than those others. He lifted his gaze to hers.
“Help me,” he whispered. “I cannot believe it without you.”
She smiled. That was the easiest thing to do.
She lifted her face to his and she began to whisper words between kisses.
She began with the easiest. “I love you.” Then she pressed her mouth to his.
The kiss was short, barely a press of flesh, because she wanted to say more.
“I think you are the best man I know.” Another kiss, this time to his cheek.
“You’re honest—” Kiss. “—smart—” Kiss. “—kind—” Kiss. “True—”
She would have said more. She felt every word she uttered sink into his body as if pushing open a stuck door.
At first, he flinched or stiffened, but with every word, he moved more with her than against her.
His hands stopped tightening and began to stroke more than clench.
And where his breath seemed trapped with catches and jerks, he now inhaled as if waking from a long sleep.
Deeper and stronger as his mouth opened against her cheek.
And then he abruptly scooped her up into his arms. She gasped in surprise as she flung her arms around his shoulders. He carried her quickly to the bed, laying her down before stroking his knuckles across her cheeks.
“You are so beautiful,” he said as his gaze roved over her face and then down her body. “I cannot believe you are m—” His voice cut off before he said the word “mine.”
“I am yours,” she said as she smiled at him. “My marriage wasn’t formed from love. We both know that. My heart and my body are yours.” She trailed her fingers across his cheeks. “My children, too.”
His eyes flashed fire at that, a burst of joy that lit up his whole face. Then he kissed her. The press of his mouth was fierce, the thrust of his tongue possessive. She opened herself to him, loving the feel of him taking her. He left no part of her mouth untouched.
His hands coiled across her jaw and neck, then stroked down her body. His hands were unsteady, but the strength in them was real. And though he stroked a fire in her skin, she grew frustrated with how careful he was with the fabric.
She brought his face up to hers. “The silk was for Benedict. Tear it away.”
The sound he released was half groan, half growl. His fists bunched against her chest as he ripped the fabric from breast to stern. And when the seam caught and held, he used his teeth to break the thread. He didn’t let any part of it pull on her body as he removed it.
When she lay completely naked before him, he sat back. He looked at her with such hunger as his fingers traced the moonlight across her skin. Such reverence in his caress. It made her skin tingle and her heart swell.
“My turn,” she said. She wasn’t gentle as she pulled off his clothing.
She felt a strange savageness as she stripped him naked.
She was claiming him as surely as he wanted her.
And while she pulled every scrap of fabric off his body, he stroked his hands through her hair, and he kissed whatever he could reach of her body until they tumbled about the bed in a wild abandon.
It was maddening getting all those clothes off him.
And it was made more difficult as his fingers found her breasts and her thighs.
She was on her knees when she finally managed to pull off his falls. His organ sprang free, thick and ruddy. She smelled his scent, felt his heat, and bent to taste it because it was right there. Because she wanted him inside her body. And because she knew it would pleasure him.
It did. His body went tight, and his hips flexed. He went deep into her mouth while a shudder of delight slid through his frame.
She thought she had the upper hand. She knew how this put him at her mercy. But in that, she erred because his fingers found her cleft. He stroked her deftly, quickly, and the urgency built in her so fast that she writhed.
He toppled her easily. And while she gasped on the bed, he kissed her breasts. He knew just how to tease them. He knew she liked it when he sucked on her nipples and teased the tight buds with his teeth. Her whole body felt so alive. Every cell reached for him. Every breath felt shared with him.
She wriggled, loving the feel of the hot length of his cock. He growled as he pressed against her, but it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t in the right place.
She wrapped her arms around him, trying to pull him upwards, but he refused to budge. “Not yet,” he murmured against her ear while his fingers pushed into her body. One at first, hard and calloused. Then a second with steady pressure.
“Not yet?” she gasped. “Gabriel, please!” She was bursting for waiting, but he nibbled at her jaw while his fingers kept up their work.
“Such a sight,” he said. He lifted up to watch her while a third finger joined the second.
He stretched her as he did that, and her eyes fluttered at the marvelous feel. Her legs were spread open, and her buttocks kept tightening, pushing him deeper.
Her stomach coiled tight. She knew what was coming, she knew the feel of pleasure as it burst across her skin, but this time she wanted more. This time was for them together. So she gripped his shoulders and pulled him forward. She grabbed his face and impressed her words upon him.
“I want you now.”
He grinned as he moved, and she finally felt the weight of him atop her. He settled between her thighs, and she moaned as he slid his cock along her cleft. Twice he did that while she tried to drive herself down on him. Twice he held back, using his knees to press her thighs apart.
“This is love,” he said as his cock finally slid to her opening.
“Yes,” she said, not understanding why he was waiting.
“Janelle,” he said, his words urgent enough to catch her attention. “It’s not for him or for children. It’s for you,” he said. “For love.”
So many words when she wanted action. So much thought when she was all but bursting for need of him. But his seriousness settled into her mind. His intensity brought her heart to match where he was.
This wasn’t just penetration or propagation. This was love shared between them. Love felt and returned.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you,” he said.
And then he thrust home.
A flash of sensation—bright pain, quickly fading. Then pleasure grew inside her.
He was so big, so hard. She was shocked by how much she wanted it. “More,” she whispered as he thrust over and over.
She gripped him with arms and legs, loving the ride. She was impaled and exploding with sensation.
Until she shattered. Pleasure filled her. Ecstasy infused her.
He met her there, his body pulsing with hers.
And they held on to each other.
Riding the love.
As one.