Chapter Ten
Gabriel stalked through the crowded hallways and dodged into theaters, checked every booth he could find, and intruded on every intimate meeting behind closed doors.
Fauns and satyrs leered up at him, while nymphs tried to entice him and watched in disappointment as he pushed past them. Where the devil had she gone?
Gabriel had told Caroline the faint outline of his past, and why?
For the very reasons she had told him: he’d wanted to inspire her with discomfort. He’d wanted her to ask for an end to their proposed marriage. He’d brought her to this place tonight with people like Mrs. Haddock because he wanted to shock her. Startle her. He’d wanted to unsettle her to such an extent that she’d run away from him into the night.
Caroline had seen all of it, his every move, as if it were a child’s doing.
And as she’d told him his own motivations exactly, he’d found that he suddenly, senselessly wanted to kiss her. How could she still surprise him after all they’d been through already? Gabriel realized he hadn’t wanted to drive her away, but to draw her nearer. He had wanted to inspire sensual excitement within her; he’d wanted her to capitulate into his embrace.
Instead, she’d broken from him and scorned him. The worst part? She was right to do so. Gabriel should have been smarter by now, should have known that Caroline was no fainting damsel to be horrified by such techniques. She was bold as brass.
Now she was also tipsy and alone in a den of lecherous bastards who would look at the lovely morsel she presented and gobble her up.
And he’d fucking kill them if they touched her.
Gabriel pushed his way through a group of masked women chattering together and fluttering fans and found himself on the edge of a ballroom.
The inside had been transformed into a faerie glen, with vines of silk wrapping themselves along the walls, torches lighting the space to lend it a pagan glow.
Bare-chested men in stag masks led willing ladies in a quadrille. And there, on the very outskirts of the dancers, Gabriel saw one of the masked men attempting to drag Caroline onto the floor. She was shaking her head, trying to gently discourage him. After all, Caroline sober had knocked down a whole host of dancers; who knew what nightmare would unfold should she take to the floor while intoxicated?
Gabriel pushed through and claimed his partner, slipping a firm arm around her waist and pushing the stag away.
“The lady is spoken for. Go play elsewhere,” he growled.
The dancer made the wise decision to leave as Caroline wormed her way out of Gabriel’s grasp.
“Perhaps I wanted to dance.” She scowled up at him, a strange expression to see beneath a lavender dove mask.
“You were trying to get that prick to leave you alone. I stepped in and assisted.”
“Oh yes. However could I manage in this world without a strong, manly protector like you?” She tried to leave the ballroom, but Gabriel pursued her. “Must you follow wherever you’re unwanted?”
Gabriel had known the feeling of being unwanted for much of his childhood.
After all, as the second son he was superfluous, and the old Lord Rockford had valued Philip as the heir and not much else. That he hadn’t believed Gabriel was even his own son did not help relations between them. The old earl’s children had been mere extensions of him, not people in their own right. So at the word “unwanted,” a burst of anger guided Gabriel’s actions.
He scooped Caroline into his arms and carried her through the party, masked attendees and servers with trays leaping out of his path as the young lady kicked and flailed, trying to extricate herself from him to no avail.
“This is kidnapping!” she cried.
“Go ahead and scream for help if you think I have any ill designs on you.” Gabriel noticed that she stopped fighting as much; after all, he wasn’t about to truly hurt her, and too much of a struggle might attract unwanted attention. If anyone found out who Caroline was tonight, the damage to her family could be immense.
Gabriel had been shown the way to his own private room by Rafe just before he went on the hunt for his errant young lady. He found his way back, kicked open the door, and set her down inside the chamber before shutting them in. Caroline hopped about, fumbling off her slipper before holding it overhead.
“If you try anything, sir, I shall attack with all my might,” she warned.
Gabriel studied the slipper. It was not the most fearsome footwear he had ever encountered, but it seemed impolite to say.
“If you’d like to leave, I won’t stop you.” Gabriel gestured to the room’s features. “But I think you’ll be more comfortable if you remain.”
A pair of low, Persian-looking settees with overstuffed and tasseled cushions were set around a table. A bottle of champagne and glasses had been laid out, as had a variety of berries and tartlets. Caroline studied the treats, glared at Gabriel, and then hopped to put her slipper back on.
“Perhaps I’m not afraid of you.” She pointed a threatening finger at him. “But do not test me, sir.”
“I can’t keep to that promise, Miss. Testing you is fast becoming my favorite occupation.” Gabriel laughed as Caroline installed herself upon one of the settees with indignation, removed her mask, and took up a cherry tartlet.
She nibbled on it with evident pleasure as Gabriel sauntered over, and she watched him with wariness as he lowered himself onto the opposite settee, though there was plenty of room for both of them where she sat. But Gabriel was no fool; to tame a wild animal, you first needed to lower its defenses. He poured a glass of champagne and offered it to her, but she shook her head in refusal.
“I’ve had just enough to lower my inhibitions; more and I’d be drunk, I know it.”
“You know yourself well, then?”
“Better than you, I promise.”
He drank the glass down while Caroline selected a strawberry. She dipped it into a bowl of cream and sank her teeth into its ripe red flesh. Gabriel’s whole body stiffened as he watched her cunning little tongue lick up the cream. He could imagine other activities for that deft, pink tongue, and the thought made him almost bullish with lust.
He had lusted after women before, but this was becoming something new altogether. He wanted her, not just her lush, physical body. He wanted the very soul and secret of her.
It was becoming a struggle to remember why he was trying to get away from marrying the girl.
“Why do you look at me like that?” Caroline selected another strawberry.
“Like what?”
“As though you’d swallow me whole.”
Was he truly that transparent? Hearing that he was easy to read made him want to throw caution to the wind. “Perhaps I find you desirable.”
She scoffed. “More flattery designed to make me swoon. You’re so predictable.”
“You were right about my so-called manipulations before,” he said. Blunt honesty seemed to work well with this girl. “But I think you should know by now that my admiration for you is very real.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort.” But she was coy about it, even took a glass of champagne and sipped at it. Her every movement and glance told him she wanted to be made love to with words, told how heavenly she was. Gabriel didn’t much like words where actions would do, but he knew how to wield them when necessary.
“You’re ignorant as to my admiration? You’ve much to learn then,” he murmured, his eyes tracing her silk-clad form. “May I tell you about yourself?”
“You may, I suppose.” She feigned disinterest, but he could sense her heightened level of awareness. This woman had taken to preparing herself for a betrayal or a hurtful jab.
The realization that she had learned to be so strong, that she’d had to be, only made him angry at the world outside. Caroline Devereux had a warped idea of herself; she deserved the truth.
“You were never what I imagined. From the moment we met, you confounded my every expectation.” His voice grew husky with his honesty. Caroline noticed, bit her lip, and tried to pass it off as a joke.
“Too ill-spoken, my lord?” She wrinkled her nose at him.
“That’s not the word I’d use. I expected a prim spinster whose rigidity and lack of warmth necessitated an arranged marriage. I did not anticipate a buxom, yellow-haired vixen with flashing eyes and an insolent mouth. And despite what you may think, that insolent mouth may be your most enticing feature.”
Caroline had set down the champagne and was now listening intently. Her cheeks colored, and Gabriel made his move.
He rose and sat beside her on the settee. He could not help himself. It was as if he were drawn to her, and every inch that he came closer fed heat and excitement throughout his body.
“You say my mouth is attractive?” she whispered.
He gazed hungrily at those lips. “Most assuredly so.”
“How can an ill-mannered woman be attractive?” But she spoke soft and almost shy.
“You’re not ill-mannered.”
“I’m not?”
“No.” Gabriel tucked a curl behind her ear, reveling in the hitched intake of her breath when his thumb stroked her cheek.
God, the mere touch of her skin and his body lit up with ecstatic signals.
To Gabriel, lovemaking had been sport. Exertion, heaving breasts, a sprint at the finish. But with her, he would take his time. To make love to Caroline Devereux, he realized, would require artistry. Because she was something of a masterpiece.
“Miss Devereux, you’re only honest. Unfortunately, many in this damned world take honesty for ill manners. Particularly in women. But you meet every challenge head on, and that’s what I admire about you. No matter the obstacles in your path, you don’t quiver and fall to the floor asking to be shielded from reality.” Caroline gasped when he took her chin in his hand and passed his thumb along her ripe lower lip. Fire was in his veins now instead of blood; his mind was on fire, too. He burned to kiss her on that ripe bottom lip, to kiss her all over. “You’re not obstinate to be obstinate. You can be reasoned with, but you refuse to accept anything you don’t believe to be true. I have never met a woman like you before in all my years traveling this world. You stand alone.”
He meant it, too. Gabriel meant all of this. It wasn’t only Caroline’s lush, gorgeous figure that occupied his thoughts at all hours of the day; it was also the memory of insults she had flung at him or insights she had offered.
“You…” Caroline’s words trailed off. She shook her head almost dreamily. “I can’t trust anything you say.” She wanted to believe him, but she resisted giving him that last little bit of herself. It was maddeningly attractive.
“Why not?” he growled. “Why can’t you trust me?”
“Because…” She sighed. “Bloody hell. I don’t know.”
Gabriel leaned over the woman, and she lay back upon the settee, helpless beneath him. No, not helpless, never that. Caroline gazed up at him with half-lidded, lustful eyes, but she was in control of all of this. He would do as she wished.
“I’ll tell you, then, why you shouldn’t trust me. I’m a rake,” he said.
“Yes.” Damn, she sounded thrilled. His blood pumped harder.
“I’m a vile seducer. A fornicator. A blackguard.”
“These are mostly synonyms of rake, but I agree to all of them.”
She made him laugh unexpectedly. Perhaps that was the quality of hers he most enjoyed. Laughter had been such a rare guest in his life.
In that moment, he didn’t care if he was playing into her hands or walking into a trap or any of that rubbish. He didn’t care if this one moment locked him up forever in the shackles of matrimony. He didn’t give a damn the price; he’d pay it. He wanted to taste her lips. He needed to.
“May I kiss you, Miss Devereux?” He grinned. “In a rakish manner.”
He was already bridging the distance between them.
“No.” Caroline stopped him and looked pleased with herself, the tease. “Not until I say so.”
He huffed in frustration, which she seemed to love. Gabriel would not kiss her when she wasn’t ready. He could feel his soul pacing about, yearning to touch her. But if she’d forbade him kissing…
He got an idea and smirked as he began to slide her silk gown up her stockinged knee. Caroline gasped, sitting up and shoving down her skirt at once.
“Sir! How dare you take such a liberty!”
But it was all pretend, this affront. Her eyes were liquid with desire.
“If I’m not allowed to kiss you,” Gabriel murmured, “perhaps you’d let me show you something else. Perhaps something more daring.”
“Why would I do that?” Her voice was breathy. She quivered, and he imagined how she’d feel trembling under his hand.
“Because you’re curious.” He leaned close to her ear. She smelled lightly of lilac, and his mouth watered. Gabriel whispered, “As a writer, shouldn’t you wish to experience everything life has to offer?”
“What do you mean?” She inhaled sharply as his lips brushed her earlobe.
“You’ve never touched yourself, have you?” Gabriel felt himself descending a long staircase, something wild and new waiting at the bottom of it. His lips found her shoulder, but he went no further than that. He could taste her, the talcum powder and lilac. His mouth watered with hunger as Caroline groaned softly.
“This had better not be a trick. You’re not trying to catch me in a compromising position and then ruin me, are you?”
“This little escapade puts my freedom at far greater risk than yours, wouldn’t you say?” After all, he wouldn’t do much to polish the Rockford name if he were caught seducing a young gentlewoman in a club.
But Gabriel’s desire to be wise had never been strong, and right now it was utterly gone.
Caroline collapsed then, lying down upon the settee and gazing up at him in naked curiosity. “What will you do?”
“Nothing that will hurt. Nothing that will put you in danger.” He vibrated over her, but would go no further. He was a hound waiting on his master’s call. “Miss Devereux. Caroline. May I show you more?”
And he leaned down and brushed his lips against the white line of her throat just once.
“Oh, God.” She sighed. “Yes. Yes, show me.”
Gabriel slid the silk up her leg again, cresting her knee and stopping the reveal just before the hem crossed the tops of her stockings. Caroline whimpered in pleasure as he cupped her shapely calf in his hand. Gabriel loved to feel how she quivered at his touch.
“Your body is gorgeous.” He was obsessed by the simple action of tracing a hand along the length of her leg, up the soft domain of her thigh. “I know you chafe at your virtue being kept under lock and key, but I’m so damned glad I’m the first man who’s ever touched you.”
“Oh, God.” Caroline gasped when he reached the tops of her thighs, before that sweet juncture between her legs. He could have growled with delight to find her a bit damp, her arousal more than evident. Gabriel leaned over the girl, gazed deep into her wide, trusting eyes.
“If you’re a student of Gothic novels, you’ll know that women experience ecstasy when their illicit lovers hold them close. Have you ever tasted ecstasy yourself?”
“No.” She gazed at his lips but didn’t give him the signal to kiss her. “I’ve imagined it, though.”
“Why not taste that fruit of knowledge for yourself?” He parted her with a finger, and Caroline gripped the edge of the settee.
She cried out in astonishment, but not fear. Gabriel paused; he would do nothing that she did not want.
“Do you wish me to stop?” he whispered.
“No. No, I don’t.” Her voice was clear and bold this time. She yearned for every bit of this. “Please continue, my lord.”
And God help them both, he did.
She felt like heaven and sin itself, all sleek and slick. Gabriel grunted his pleasure as he trailed his finger along the very seam of her body, and he stopped to slide one finger ever so delicately into her. Caroline groaned loudly, tilting her face to the ceiling. She was so tight, so obviously a virgin. Gabriel felt his manhood stiffening further. In fact, he’d never known he could become this hard.
“This is where a man and woman join,” he whispered. He moved farther up to the little spot of ecstasy between her thighs. “But before lovemaking, a woman needs to be made ready. Soft and receptive and yielding for a man.”
Not that Caroline needed much more readiness. She was wet and swollen, burning for his touch.
“How?” She moaned when he showed her.
Gabriel traced that little bud at the juncture of her thighs over and over, relishing the way she cooed and whimpered his name. Caroline shut her eyes tight, moaning with abandon as he worked her harder with his fingers.
It was as if he’d never touched any woman before her.
His nights of passion had been spent as if in a daydream, one part of him always far away from the bed and the woman in it. But Caroline demanded every degree of his focus. Gabriel felt as if this were the first moment he’d ever truly lived.
He held his breath as her body trembled, as her hips lifted on instinct, wanting to feel joined to him. As he brought her to ecstasy, he slid another finger inside of her and reveled in how she clenched tight around him.
“This is perfect,” he hissed, lost in pleasure as she was.
“God. Oh, God. Ah.” She gave a breathy utterance as she achieved her climax. Her body gripped his finger tight, and he felt her silken walls ripple. Her cheeks and chest flushed with passion, and she gave a longer, louder yell of absolute abandon. Gabriel hushed her, one finger to her lips. He stared at her mouth, burning alive, his need to kiss her threatening to overpower him.
“You must be silent, Miss Devereux. We don’t want anyone coming in and finding you like this, do we?” His voice shook. She’d almost overcome him.
“That was…” Caroline appeared languid with bliss. “I don’t think even I know how to describe it. Like watching an enormous wave build up before you on the shore and then letting it crash down all around you.”
“As far as descriptions go, that wasn’t bad.” Gabriel was too hungry for her now. His cock was too stiff and swollen, his lips thirsting for her own. He had enough self-control left not to pull out his cock and have his way with her, but that was all. “Let me kiss you, Caroline,” he growled.
“Yes.” She sighed. “Kiss me.”
It was not a kiss so much as a claiming.
Gabriel pressed his lips to hers and tasted the champagne and strawberries, tasted the innocence and the desire. Her mouth opened, accepting him as his tongue slipped against hers.
She groaned low in her throat as she pressed herself against him, her breasts pushed to his chest. He could feel the pounding of her heart against his.
He never wanted this moment to end, wanted only to continue this conquest until they had both reached their peak of satisfaction. He kissed her and loved the way she kissed him back, with equal fire and hunger.
She put her arms around his neck and held him close, ran her fingers though his hair. Gabriel lay down fully upon her, his clothed manhood lined up with where the wet satin of her own sex waited. His whole body throbbed, his brain shouted that full satisfaction was so close.
But he knew that was too far for one night.
For now, he satiated himself with the ecstasy of her lips on his own.
Caroline pressed for another kiss when he broke the first one off, and then another after that. He could not resist another, and then another, snatching at every kiss as though it were a gulp of air to a drowning man.
Eventually Gabriel had to stop, because he knew that if they continued in this vein he’d have her before the night was out. He stilled atop her, his hands gripping the settee to either side of her body. His every muscle strained with repressed desire.
With the greatest reluctance, he sat up and left her panting and quivering upon the cushions. Fuck, he was going to have to do something about his own excitement. There wasn’t enough freezing water in the world to make his body behave.
“Is that the same kind of ecstasy men and women know when they’re joined?” Caroline sat up as well, now blushing with shyness as she pushed down her skirts.
“In my experience, the pleasure is ten times sweeter during lovemaking.” Gabriel poured himself a glass of champagne and took it in one swallow. “But I don’t suppose that’s something you’ll be learning tonight.”
“No. I think that would be going much too far.” She shook her head. “Though I’ve gone far enough now, haven’t I?”
“Do you regret it?” He felt a sharp pang beneath his ribs at the thought. He wanted her to feel as he did currently: euphoric beyond description. If she did not want it as he did…
She shook her head. “Not a chance. I will never regret that.”
Those words were sweeter than champagne or cherry tarts.
Gabriel had never known one could be so bloody excited and so calm at once. For the first time in his life, he felt as if he knew what he was supposed to do. What was good for him to want. Goodness and clarity had long been denied him, but no longer.
“So you don’t fear me?” After all, they were still technically staring at each other across combat lines.
She studied him, truly considered his words. “No, I don’t fear you.”
“That feels different. What changed?”
“Because of the way you spoke of your duty to your mother and your brother’s memory. You want to restore their good name; resorting to cheap debauchery and using it to hurt me is something your father would have done. Not you.” Her eyebrows lifted. “You may be a rake, my lord, but in your own way you are a gentleman.”
The frank admiration he saw in this girl’s eyes caught Gabriel through the heart. Not to mention how she’d seen to the core of him and had accepted it.
And she was right; he didn’t want to be his father. He didn’t want to be an earl, either, of course. Who the hell did he want to be?
Someone who earns her approval , he realized. If Gabriel could look into those eyes every day and find admiration and desire staring back, he could live and die a happy man.