Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
“Heavens, we will be heard,” Sibyl gasped as her hips were pinned against the bookcase.
Gabriel grazed his teeth down the side of her neck. “Not if you are quiet enough.” His voice was pitched low and sultry, sending bolts of heat through her more than his wandering hands did.
They were hidden, far back into the library at Stonehelm Hall, and Sibyl was trying her best to keep quiet. But Gabriel was making it particularly hard as his fingers slid between her legs.
“What—What caused this?” Sibyl shot him a curt smile over her shoulder, playing innocent.
Gabriel growled into her shoulder after pushing her sleeve aside. “You know exactly what caused it.”
“I have no idea,” she breathed.
“You think I did not understand the poetry you spoke? I speak fluent French, my dear Sibyl, and I understood all the filthy things you read to me.”
They had been spending a lazy morning in the library, and Sibyl had not entirely meant to tease her husband, but she had discovered the same poetry book she had once spotted on Hermia’s bookshelf, one her sister had kept from her grubby, curious hands, and she had not been able to help herself.
She had begun to read aloud, both to provoke Gabriel—to find out if he would understand her—and to show off her fluency in another language. Now, she had gotten far more than she had bargained for, and she felt rather happy with herself.
“Did you want to tease me?” Gabriel murmured into her ear, tugging on the ends of her hair.
She made a delighted little noise. “Did you want to show me that my wife is as intelligent as she is beautiful? Because it is working. Your body haunts my dreams and waking hours, but your mind… it is an endless, elaborate labyrinth you have not even let me see half of.”
“Gabriel,” she said softly, parting her legs, her head spinning at the praise.
“Let me in, Sibyl,” he coaxed, his fingers stroking her folds. “Let me in.”
“How far in?” she whispered, hoping he understood.
Gabriel pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “As far as you want to. I will not rush you. I can pleasure you with my tongue until you scream this estate to the ground, but I will never, ever push you into taking more than you are ready for.”
“And if I want to try?”
“Then we try,” he affirmed, “and we stop as soon as you say it.”
She shuddered at how simple he made it sound. And although she could feel his erection pressing against the curve of her backside, and she did indeed crave it—craved him—she wanted her first time with him to be romantic, atop silk sheets, bathed in candlelight.
Her stomach flipped with the worry of disappointing him when she reached for his wrist to guide his fingers inside her, rather than reach behind her for the fly of his breeches.
But he understood. He kissed her neck, her shoulder, and back up to her jaw before tilting her face to capture her mouth with his own. He kissed her deeply right as two digits slid into her, and she gasped.
He took the opportunity to suck on her tongue, and she moaned, seeing stars behind her closed eyelids.
Gabriel pulled away only an inch. “We will only go as far as you are comfortable,” he promised. “My fingers, my tongue, my cock—it’s all yours whenever you ask for it. Whenever you are ready.”
“And you will not be disapp—”
He cut her off with a curl of his fingers, playfully frowning at her. “Do not think such a thing. Now, be very, very quiet for me and let me pleasure you until this bookcase is shaking as much as you will.”
Heavens, Sibyl was not prepared for the effect his words had on her. She couldn’t help her giddy grin as pleasure shuddered through her.
Gabriel pushed her right back against the bookcase. As his fingers pumped in and out of her, coaxing breathy gasps and moans from her, his other hand slipped beneath her neckline, seeking her breasts.
Sibyl had chosen to wear a loose, simple gown that morning, patterned with small flowers against a pastel green fabric.
Now that the gown was bunched around her hips, she found herself busy holding it aloft.
She felt scandalous, as lewd as the woman in the latest novel she had read, who found pleasure in a prince’s arms.
… pulled apart like an unfurling flower, her wits falling from her like petals in winter…
“I am obsessed with you,” Gabriel groaned, his hands kneading her breasts, teasing one nipple and then the other. Meanwhile, his fingers kept a steady pace inside her, seeking that spot that had her arching her back.
Sibyl quivered under his ministrations, gasps falling too quickly from her mouth for words to form.
“When you climax, Sibyl, I want you to say my name.”
She nodded, her moans wanton.
“I want you to say it with every ounce of feeling you have for me, for I cannot help but say yours in the same way. Sibyl.”
He ground his hips against hers, and she knew it was not a push to go further, but a gesture for her to know just how deeply she affected him.
Sibyl reached behind her to grab his hip, holding him against her as she arched her back. He buried his face against her shoulder, groaning at the friction.
While she wouldn’t take things further, it did not mean that he needed to be left unattended every time.
“You sound so beautiful like this,” he whispered. “So beautiful, drowning in pleasure. So beautiful, speaking your scandalous poetry to me. Did you write your own?”
“Y-You tease me,” she moaned, “making me answer you while you… while you pleasure me.”
Gabriel curled his fingers again before letting out a low laugh. “I like seeing you come apart. So, will you answer me?”
“I—” She gasped when he brushed that spot inside her. “Heavens.”
“Did you write it late at night, while hiding in your room, perhaps touching yourself?”
Sibyl’s face burned. “Heavens, Gabriel. Oh!”
She braced her hand on the bookcase, her hips grinding against his hand for more, while his own pressed against her. She welcomed the sensation, for it felt desperate.
Desperate for her without pushing her beyond her limits.
“Yes,” she groaned, right as her pleasure crested. “Yes, yes, I did.”
Gabriel bit her shoulder lightly, and she jerked, a louder moan, tearing from her throat. She pressed her mouth to her wrist, trying to muffle her sounds.
“Have you ever written about me?”
At that moment, Gabriel slid another finger inside her, stretching her further. A delicious ache she couldn’t stave off.
Her release tore through her, and she tensed, quivering against him.
“Gabriel!” she cried out, thinking of every teasing moment he had put her through, of his strength, of the sight of his muscular back through that damned door, of the feel of his hardness against her.
She poured everything into his name, and it was only when she stilled, hearing his labored breathing, that she realized he was quivering too.
That and the fact that she had definitely been too loud.
Gabriel teased her through the aftershocks of her climax, letting her slowly come down from her high.
Sibyl panted against the wooden shelf she was still braced against, before slowly turning around to find her husband’s pupils blown wide and his lips parted.
“You…” Her voice was a whisper. “You…”
“Climaxed as well? Admittedly so. But how can I not, when you sound like that? When you look like that?”
And he did look at her, just like he had the first day they met: as though he saw much more than she or anybody else ever had.
Her knees buckled, and he caught her easily as her dress fluttered over his arms, unable to fall back into place.
“Apologies for stealing your ability to walk, Duchess.” His tone was utterly playful as he kissed her cheek. “I could not help making you climax.”
“I am—I am happy you did,” she said breathlessly, laughing as she practically draped herself over him. “Although I might need to sit down immediately.”
Gabriel guided her to the settee that faced the gardens, and they both curled up on it. He cocked his head at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Have you written about me?”
Sibyl jerked her head away from him lest he see the truth on her face, but her reaction gave her away. “No.”
“I believe that is a lie, my Sibyl.”
My Sibyl.
She trembled at the possessiveness, the protectiveness, in those two words. She had never wanted to be owned so badly.
Settling back against Gabriel’s chest, she turned her head and rubbed her cheek against his beard, humming. “Perhaps I have. Perhaps you will not read it, for my writing is deeply coveted.”
“Is that so?”
“Indeed,” she murmured, giggling. “Although if I had written about you, I might tell you that it was only several nights ago, while my candles burned low and my hand wandered where yours just was. But I was not brave enough to come to your chamber.”
Gabriel gave a low growl. “Next time, find that bravery, and let me do something about the ache between your legs.”
Sibyl melted further against him.
Heavens, she was getting closer and closer to giving in, and she wanted to so badly.
Soon. I know I will be ready soon.
Two days later, Sibyl walked into the drawing room and stopped short, for there sat her sister, brother-in-law, and niece.
Hermia’s face lit up as soon as she saw Sibyl. She flung herself and Phoebe off the armchair they had been sitting in and rushed towards Sibyl.
“Sister!” She laughed. “We were under very strict instructions to remain quiet, so we did not ruin the surprise, but—surprise!”
“Surprise, Sibyl.”
Sibyl whirled around to see Gabriel, who had appeared in the doorway. Had he known about this?
“I… What is this?” she asked, holding her sister’s hand before embracing her.
Behind Hermia, Charles approached, hugging her as well.
“Gabriel reached out to us,” Hermia explained. “Well, he addressed Charles to make the arrangements, but he reminded us that, before everything happened, we had a picnic planned that we never got to go on.”
“So we have brought the picnic plans back into place,” Charles added.