Chapter Sixteen #3
Their eyes locked as he brought her to a slow, intense climax, the pressure building relentlessly until she thrashed and shuddered and collapsed bonelessly against him as he shattered also and drowned in her eyes.
She fell asleep with her cheek against the bare skin of his chest, cradled against his heart. He held her to him, unwilling to let her go, even for a moment.
He was going to lose her. He could see it in her eyes.
Oh God, what was he going to do?
Gabe awoke much later to find the day well advanced.
It was still wet and gray and chilly.
She slept curled like a cat against him, her lashes long and dark and silky against her satin-pale skin. He watched her sleeping, her mouth fallen a little open, her breathing deep and regular.
He leaned over and kissed her lightly, and though she stirred a little she didn’t wake. He nuzzled the hollow between her jaw and her shoulder and inhaled deeply. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget the scent of her.
He slipped out of bed and, naked, padded across the thick carpets to the fire, which was almost out. He fed it with chips of wood and then coal until it was blazing again.
He turned to return to bed and found her sitting up on one elbow, watching him. He crossed the room, feeling a little self-conscious with her eyes on him. She inspected him with frank interest, a small smile—he hoped of appreciation—playing about her lips.
He slipped back into bed with her and kissed her.
“Good morning,” she murmured and reached for him again. Her palm curled possessively around his hardened flesh, and the most adorable mouth in the world curved as she registered the evidence of his desire.
“Good morning indeed,” he murmured, feeling a surge of new hope. “And it’s about to get even better…”
Afterward he rang the bell and ordered hot water for himself and her, which she amended to a bath. He ordered breakfast to follow.
Then, with a self-consciousness that amused him, she excused herself to take her bath in her dressing room and sent him off to his, to dress and shave.
For a moment, Gabe considered the possibility of assisting her with her bath, but decided against it.
Despite her years of marriage, she wasn’t used to sensual delights, and he didn’t want to throw his entire battery at her at once.
It was going to be a long, slow siege. He could wait another day, he thought. Perhaps tomorrow.
Callie sat in the bath, soaping herself and thinking about the extraordinary few moments of utter despair she’d experienced in the middle of the night. Strange that it had occurred just hours after she’d experienced the most intense moment of bliss in her life.
Not really strange, she realized. The bliss had caused the despair. Last night in Gabriel’s arms, he’d shown her what she’d missed all her married life, and worse—showed her what she could have if this wretched marriage was real instead of merely legal.
She hadn’t been able to talk to him about it then—not when she was feeling so raw and vulnerable. All her defenses…he’d destroyed them making love to her as he had. She hadn’t known it was possible to feel like that.
She wanted her marriage to be real, wanted to have this man for herself and love him with everything she had in her.
He was everything she’d ever dreamed of: kind and strong and loving, a man to be cherished and loved, not used and discarded. She wanted him forever, not just for a day or a week or a month.
But no matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t see how it could work. A marriage was more than just feelings, it was a living, day-to-day partnership. His life was here. Hers, eventually, as soon as Count Anton was dealt with, had to be back in Zindaria.
Zindaria was Nicky’s future, his heritage. What sort of a mother would she be if she traded her son’s glorious future for her own selfish happiness?
Gabriel’s whole family was in England: his brothers, his aunt, the many others who’d come to the wedding. His friends were here, too, and they were close, more so than many brothers.
Callie knew the importance of friends and family, she who had so few of either.
She had a few distant cousins she’d never met scattered across Europe, and almost no friends in Zindaria.
A princess lived a very isolated life. How could she ask him to exchange his full, exciting life for her lonely, routine existence in a foreign land.
He had family, friends, a home, land, and responsibilities. He belonged. What man would give all that up for her?
None. So she should face that and move on from there.
She scrubbed at her skin briskly and tried to count her blessings.
She’d made Nicky a little bit safer by her marriage.
And she had a wonderful husband, albeit for a limited time.
She could mope around feeling sorry for herself, waiting for the day he would walk away, or she could make the most of what she had now.
Seize the joy while it was hers to enjoy.
She soaped herself meditatively, aware of her body in a new way, soaping her breasts with their tender, aching tips, and recalling the way he’d suckled on them, lavishing her with pleasure. And the pleasurable soreness between her thighs, aching in places she’d never known could ache.
The last time she’d felt like this about her body was when she’d been carrying Nicky. She remembered being fascinated with its female power and its mystery—this seemingly ordinary body of hers that was actually creating a baby, a living miracle.
Last night her body had amazed her again. She’d never imagined the pleasure it was capable of feeling—that she could shatter in a thousand shards of ecstasy and afterward feel like she was floating in a bubble.
And she’d never in her life imagined it could bring a strong, disciplined man like Gabriel Renfrew to his knees with uncontrollable lust. And it had. Three times in the night. Four, if you counted this morning. She smiled to herself. Again.
She hadn’t been able to stop smiling all morning. She felt like her body: female, powerful, and mysterious.
She suddenly didn’t care that it was temporary, that one day they would live hundreds of miles apart, still legally married, but living separate lives. What good did it do to dwell on that dismal prospect? She’d made the marriage to save her son. That alone was worth any heartbreak to come.
She hadn’t understood Gabriel’s motives for marrying her, had wondered what he would get from the marriage, and now she knew: her. He desired her. Uncontrollably. Her body tingled and ached with the knowledge. And her heart exulted in it.
It was as though somehow, something inside her had burst in the night and drained away, and now she was…different.
She suddenly felt lighter, freer, as if the rain in the night had washed her as clean as it had washed the air. Like a clean slate. Her slate, to write and rewrite on as she wished.
She was going to take that man and love him while she could. And if—when he walked away, as they’d arranged to do, she would know that she had loved, and loved well. And that would be enough.
She dried herself and donned a fresh chemise, then rang for a maidservant to come and lace her stays. While she waited for the maid she brushed her hair.
She was no longer frightened of losing her heart to him. It was too late for that. Her heart had been lost some time in the hours before dawn. Perhaps when he’d put himself so entirely in her hands, so generously. He’d taken her to the top of the mountain and shown her how to fly…
Or perhaps it happened when he’d simply held her in her misery, wrapping her in warmth and wanting to fix it. Or when he’d kissed her tears away, making her feel like something precious and lovely and not at all foolish.
Or maybe it was when he’d carried her back to bed and made love to her for the third time, so tenderly it almost broke her heart, so that she fell asleep feeling utterly cherished.
Whenever it was, her heart was well and truly lost to him.
She would accept these moments of happiness, but she still had enough of her old defenses left to know it would be easier in the end if she kept her feelings to herself.
As Gabriel escorted her downstairs for breakfast the hall clock chimed four times.
“Four!” she exclaimed. “That cannot be right.”
He checked it against his fob watch. “It is.”
“But where did the time go? I told Nicky I’d see him in the morning.”
He gave her a slow, reminiscent smile. “Nicky will manage. It was time well spent, if you ask me.”
She blushed and smiled. She couldn’t stop looking at him. It felt like her whole body was smiling.
“I’m ravenous,” she said as they entered the breakfast parlor.
He stopped dead. “Me, too,” he said, his eyes devouring her. “Shall we go back upstairs?” His eyes were dancing, but he was also quite serious, she saw.
No.” She tried to hide how his words had pleased her, but smiles kept breaking out. She felt so wonderful, so feminine, so…desired. “I want my breakfast.”
“Yes, you need to keep your strength up for tonight,” he agreed.
After breakfast—he’d ordered bacon and eggs and hot chocolate and crumpets and coffee and she ate almost all of it—they walked around to Lady Gosforth’s.
It was just a few moments’ walk. The rain had started again, but it was not heavy and they shared an umbrella.
Their bodies bumped pleasurably as they walked.
Sometimes the bumping was deliberate; Callie could not stop touching him.
They were both in high spirits, jumping puddles like children and laughing at nothing.
Callie told herself it had to stop. It was one thing to acknowledge to herself she had feelings for him, it was quite another to be acting like a giddy girl in love. Even if she was.
It was a certain way to heartbreak, that she knew from experience. Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she’d be sensible.