CHAPTER NINE WHAT THE SCHOLAR STOLE #6
He gave it to her. Each slow, powerful movement touched the place that made her body tighten around him. Pleasure built again, not separately from emotion but because of it. Gabriel remained open to her, every sound and reaction honest. Eleanor traced his face as he moved.
“You are here,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Stay.”
“I am trying.”
The words nearly broke her. She drew him down and kissed him.
Gabriel’s pace increased. Not frantic, but no longer entirely controlled.
His body began revealing need in the tightening of his hips, the roughness of his breathing and the pressure of his hand beneath her.
Eleanor touched herself between their bodies.
Gabriel looked down. The sight affected him fiercely.
His thrust faltered. Eleanor circled the sensitive point while he moved inside her. Pleasure sharpened.
Gabriel groaned her name. She watched him.
The man who believed he was valuable only while performing pleasure had forgotten every practiced expression.
His face was open, vulnerable and beautiful in a way society had never seen.
Eleanor wanted him exactly like this. The thought rose so powerfully that the truth behind it frightened her.
She tightened around him. Gabriel’s eyes closed.
“Do not,” she whispered.
He opened them.
“Stay with me.”
His gaze locked upon hers. Eleanor’s climax gathered.
Gabriel felt it. His movements became deeper, timed with the rhythm of her hand.
The release broke through her while she looked at him.
Her body contracted around his, each pulse drawing a helpless sound from Gabriel’s throat.
Eleanor held his face between her hands as pleasure shook her.
Gabriel followed. He thrust once more, then went rigid above her.
His expression broke open as he reached release inside the sheath, his body pulsing deep within hers. He did not look away.
Neither did she. For several breaths, they remained joined and motionless.
Gabriel’s arms trembled. Eleanor loosened her legs.
He withdrew carefully and disposed of the sheath before returning with a warm cloth.
She expected him to clean her first, as he had before.
Instead, Eleanor took the cloth from his hand.
“Lie down.”
He hesitated.
“Eleanor—”
“Lie down.”
Gabriel obeyed. She cleaned him gently, then herself, and placed the cloth aside.
When she returned to the bed, Gabriel lay upon his back staring at the ceiling.
Eleanor moved beside him. He looked toward her.
The fear had returned. Not fear of sex, scandal or discovery.
Fear of what remained afterward. Eleanor opened her arms. Gabriel stared.
“You do not have to,” she said.
He rolled toward her slowly. At first, he rested his head upon the pillow near her shoulder.
Then Eleanor drew him closer. Gabriel placed his head against her breast. His body went rigid.
She stroked his hair. He remained still for so long that she thought he might leave.
Then the tension released. Gabriel’s arm moved around her waist. His face settled over her heart.
Eleanor felt his breath against her skin. No charm.
No pleasure offered. Nothing useful to provide.
He allowed himself to be held. The trust of it entered her more deeply than his body had.
Eleanor continued stroking his hair until his breathing slowed.
Gabriel fought sleep at first, shifting whenever his body relaxed too completely.
Each time, she touched the scar near his shoulder.
“You are safe,” she whispered once.
He did not answer. Eventually, sleep took him.
The man who slept against her looked younger, his face softened and his mouth free of the smile he used as armour.
Eleanor watched him until the fire burned low.
She woke near dawn. For a moment, she did not remember where she was.
Then Gabriel’s weight shifted against her.
His head remained upon her breast, one hand open against her waist. Eleanor looked at him.
Tenderness filled her so swiftly that denial became impossible.
She loved him. The truth did not arrive as the dramatic catastrophe romantic poets promised.
It settled quietly into every place he had already occupied: the publishing office, the carriage, the ballroom, her anger and the wounded part of her that recognised his own.
She loved his humour. His intelligence. His impossible fear of tenderness.
She loved the man who had betrayed her trust and was trying, awkwardly and imperfectly, to earn it again.
The knowledge should have felt like surrender.
Instead, it felt like clarity. Gabriel stirred. His eyes opened. He looked first at her face and then at the hand resting in his hair. Eleanor did not know what he saw in her expression. Whatever it was, fear moved into his eyes before he could hide it.