CHAPTER SEVEN THE TERMS OF PLEASURE #3
“I have imagined you naked,” she admitted.
Gabriel closed his eyes briefly. “Since the ballroom?”
“Before.”
That startled him.
“When?”
“The first night you appeared in Arabella’s hidden library.”
“You regarded me as an unreliable translation.”
“I wondered whether the original text was more interesting.”
A laugh escaped him, low and genuine. Eleanor smiled. Then she stepped away and reached for the fastenings of her own gown. Gabriel moved instinctively to help.
“No.”
His hand stopped.
“I will do it.”
He lowered his arm. Eleanor opened the back hooks as far as she could reach, then turned.
“You may assist with those.”
Gabriel approached. His fingers found the remaining fastenings.
The backs of his knuckles brushed her skin as he worked downward.
Each contact felt deliberate even when it was not.
Eleanor’s breathing quickened, but she did not hurry him.
When the gown loosened, she stepped away before he could lower it.
She drew the sleeves from her shoulders and pushed the blue-black silk down herself.
The fabric pooled around her feet. Gabriel stared.
She wore her corset, chemise, stockings and drawers, the ordinary architecture society demanded beneath a widow’s mystery.
Yet the intensity of his gaze made her feel more exposed than nakedness could have done.
Eleanor removed each garment at her own pace.
The silver necklace first. Then the corset, which she loosened carefully until she could breathe without resistance.
Her chemise followed. Cool air touched her breasts.
Gabriel’s hands clenched at his sides. Eleanor looked at him.
“No performance.”
“I am attempting not to alarm you.”
“You are allowed to want me.”
His gaze moved over her bare breasts, down her waist and to the shadowed opening in her drawers.
“I want you more than is remotely sensible.”
The honesty sent heat through her. She removed the remaining clothing.
Her stockings were last. When she straightened, Gabriel’s eyes had darkened almost beyond green.
Neither of them wore anything. Eleanor felt the instinct to cover herself and refused it.
She allowed him to look. More importantly, she allowed herself to enjoy being looked at. Gabriel crossed the distance slowly.
“May I touch you?”
“Yes.”
His hands settled at her waist. The contact was gentle, almost reverent.
He traced her sides, then moved upward until his palms cupped both breasts.
Eleanor exhaled. His thumbs passed over her nipples.
Pleasure tightened them immediately. Gabriel watched her face while he repeated the movement.
He used more pressure when she leaned toward him and eased it when her breath became uncertain.
“You may ask questions,” he said.
“I know.”
“You are thinking one.”
“How can you tell?”
“You have that crease between your brows.”
She touched his shoulder. “Why does this feel stronger than it did through the gown?”
“Skin. Anticipation. The fact that neither of us can pretend it happened accidentally.”
He rolled one nipple gently between his fingers. Eleanor gasped.
“Does that hurt?”
“No.”
“More?”
“Yes.”
He gave her what she asked for. The sensation travelled directly between her thighs.
Eleanor felt herself grow wet, her body responding without shame or restraint.
Gabriel bent and kissed her breast. His mouth closed over the nipple.
Eleanor’s hand went to his hair. She remembered the sensation from Sabine’s library, but there had been silk at the edge of his mouth, danger in the corridor and the knowledge that he might stop at any moment. Now there was nothing between them.
Gabriel’s tongue circled the tight peak before he drew it into his mouth. The slow pull made her knees weaken. He caught her around the waist.
“You stopped breathing.”
“I forgot.”
“That seems impractical.”
She tugged his hair. Gabriel lifted his head, smiling faintly.
Eleanor kissed him before the charm could become a shield.
Their mouths met with immediate hunger. His hands moved over her naked back, following the line of her spine and gripping her hips.
Eleanor pressed against him and felt his erection hard between their bodies.
She wrapped one hand around it. Gabriel groaned into her mouth.
Control affected him more powerfully now that he had surrendered the role of instructor.
Each movement of her fingers altered his breath, tightened his body and stripped another layer from the man society believed unshakeable. Eleanor stroked him slowly.
His hand covered hers, but he did not direct. He merely held it there as though the contact anchored him.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“What?”
“What you like.”
Gabriel’s eyes opened. The question seemed to strike somewhere beyond pleasure.
“Your hand.”
“That is not specific.”
“Tighter.”
She obeyed. His head dipped toward her shoulder.
“Slower,” he said.
Eleanor moved her hand from base to tip at the pace he requested. A drop of moisture gathered beneath her thumb. She spread it over him. Gabriel’s hips moved involuntarily. The response thrilled her. She stroked him again, watching his face.
“Enough.”
He caught her wrist.
Eleanor frowned. “You said I choose.”
“You do. I am informing you that if you continue, the evening will conclude before I have touched half the places I intend to.”
Her body tightened at the promise.
“Where do you intend to touch me?”
Gabriel looked down her naked body.
“Everywhere you permit.”
He lifted her into his arms. The ease of the movement surprised a laugh from her.
Gabriel looked at her as though the sound pleased him unbearably.
He carried her to the bed and laid her upon the coverlet.
The mattress dipped as he knelt beside her.
Eleanor had imagined this moment in fragments: his weight above her, his mouth upon her skin, the intimacy of allowing him between her thighs.
Imagination had not included the quietness of the room or the way Gabriel looked at her as though pleasure mattered more than performance. He kissed her mouth first.
Then her throat. His lips moved slowly over her collarbone and breasts, stopping whenever she tensed, waiting until her hand urged him onward. Gabriel kissed her stomach. Eleanor’s breath quickened as he moved lower. He reached her navel and looked up.
“Do you want me to continue?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what I intend?”
“I believe so.”
“Say it.”
Heat rushed into her face. Gabriel waited. Eleanor had asked for honesty. He would not permit her to hide from her own desire now.
“I want your mouth between my thighs.”
His eyes darkened.
“So do I.”
He moved lower. Eleanor opened her legs.
The position felt scandalously vulnerable.
Gabriel knelt between them, his shoulders spreading her thighs while his gaze lowered to the most private part of her body.
She resisted the urge to close them. He kissed the inside of one knee.
Then higher. Each slow touch increased the ache at her centre.
By the time his mouth reached the soft skin near her hip, Eleanor was trembling.
Gabriel placed one hand over her lower stomach.
“Breathe.”
She inhaled. His tongue touched her. Eleanor’s body lifted from the bed.
The sensation was warm, wet and shockingly direct.
Gabriel’s hand held her gently in place while his mouth explored her with the same care his fingers had shown in the carriage.
He licked slowly through the folds, tasting the wetness gathered there.
Eleanor made a sound she had never heard from herself.
Gabriel repeated the stroke. Her hands clenched in the coverlet.
“You may touch me,” he murmured against her.
She reached for his hair. His tongue found the sensitive point at the top of her sex.
Pleasure flashed through her. Eleanor’s fingers tightened.
Gabriel circled it, learning the pressure that made her hips move and the rhythm that prevented her from thinking.
He used his lips as well, drawing the swollen flesh gently into his mouth before releasing it beneath his tongue.
Her body began to build toward the release she had twice refused.
This time she wanted it. The knowledge carried no fear.
Gabriel slid one finger inside her. Eleanor tensed at the intrusion. He stopped immediately.
“Pain?”
“No. Wait.”
He held still while her body adjusted around him. Eleanor concentrated upon the feel of him: the fullness, the slight stretch and the knowledge that his mouth remained poised above the place that ached most fiercely.
“Now,” she whispered.
Gabriel moved his finger. Slowly at first. Then with greater depth as she opened around him.
His tongue resumed its rhythm. Pleasure gathered rapidly.
Eleanor felt it in her stomach, her thighs and every point of contact with the bed.
She moved against his mouth without restraint, no longer caring how she looked or sounded.
Gabriel added another finger. The fullness startled her. He watched her face.
“Still?”
“Yes.”
He pressed deeper. His fingers curved inside her, touching a place that sent a different, more powerful sensation through her.
Eleanor cried out. Gabriel repeated the movement while his tongue worked steadily over her.
The pressure became overwhelming. Her muscles tightened around his fingers.
Her thighs trembled beside his shoulders, and the pleasure drew inward until it seemed impossible for her body to contain it.
“Gabriel.”