Kissingate Magic #7
The wagon teetered once, twice, three shuddering times, then it settled, with a huge creaking groan, nearly upright, impaled by a tree.
Eighteen
Gabe’s heart and breathing slowed, and though freezing wet, he appreciated his mattress, and enjoyed it for one delectable beat before raising his aching head and staring into her wide, emerald eyes.
Shafts of white-hot current shot between them, as if each were the opposite poles of the same lightening bolt.
She must feel his physical reaction, and given her lowered lids, she answered its call. “You’re … wet,” she said, licking rain from her lips.
“As are you.” The timbre of his voice surprised him. Afraid to crush her, Gabriel rolled to her side, his erection prodding her thigh as he kissed the rain from her lips.
A salty kiss. Tears, not rain.
He sat up. “Are you hurt?” He ran his hands over her, feeling for breaks.
Jacey shot to her feet with no escape. The entire wagon would fit in the vicarage entry, but it was homey, warm and dry, unlike them, except where the impaling branch dripped rain.
She stood as far from him as she could.
Only one thing to do. He peeled away his cold, soaking vestments.
“What are you doing? You’re a vicar for God’s sake.”
“But a man for my own sake, the way you first knew me.”
“A boy. I knew you as a boy first.”
“An urchin, you mean. I despised that boy.”
“Because he wasn’t perfect, but humanity is allowed.”
“Right.” He unbuttoned his shirt.
She backed into the branch and it sprinkled them with rain. “Look what you’ve brought us to,” she snapped. “You can’t make me believe you cast me out other than to save your sorry self from being exposed as having been … ensnared … in my wanton web. You—”
“Jace, you’re babbling.”
“I wanted you gone for your own good! Prout would have had you stoned in all but fact if you stayed.”
“Don’t be disrespectful of your mother-in-law.” Jace lit a candle against the drear.
“There’ll be a frost fair in hell before I marry the harpy’s whelp.” Gabriel discarded his wet shirt. “We both know I’m as human, and a damned sight more imperfect than you. Nobody’s humanity calls to mine more than yours, Jacey Lockhart, soon to be Macgregor, after this day’s work.”
“Nothing happened to—”
“That won’t matter.” He unbuttoned his trousers.
She found no place to run, so he advanced, giving her less. “If we removed your crinolines, we’d have more room.”
She thought about that, exhilarated as Gabriel knelt and lifted the hem of her gown. He undid the tapes at her waist, his arms warm and soaking through at her belly. Her crinoline fell over his head.
Jacey pulled it up, allowing him to continue, her face warm.
He looked at her, eyes dancing, hair askew, and her heart fluttered while her underskirts fell, forming smaller and smaller circles.
Gabriel stroked the front of her cotton drawers, rushing warmth to her core, rested his cheek there before he turned, opened his mouth against her, and whispered her name like a prayer.
She gasped, combed her hands through his hair, and held him there.
He slid his cool hands along the backs of her thighs, up beneath her drawers, to cup her bare bottom, then he splayed them to stroke and tease where she ached for him.
Jacey released a shuddering sigh, and Gabriel stood and opened his mouth over hers. Ravenous, he swallowed her sighs, and became as much a part of her as the night she conceived their child.
He lightly stroked her as he undid the buttons at her bodice, freed her arms from her sleeves, and she had no strength to resist.
“That’s my sweet Jace,” he whispered as he slid her dress down, palms skimming skin, until he cleared her hips and that garment joined the rest.
He took her hand and she stepped over her clothes, to face her lover. Her camisole came up and over her head.
In corset, chemisette and stockings, Jacey wished they were silk and lace, not serviceable cotton, yet Gabriel regarded her with hunger.
She’d dreamed of this for years, because she loved this dignified, handsome, stubborn, broody man more than her life.
She wouldn’t change this time together, despite the inevitable pain.
Nineteen
Gabriel unlaced her corset and slipped his hands inside from the back to cup her breasts.
Jacey leaned against him as he rubbed her nipples, whispered his adoration, his breath and lips warm along her neck and shoulders.
Potent points of pleasure coursed through her. Her happiness soared, her womanhood flowered.
Gabe did away with the corset, and lifted a breast to suckle through her chemisette while he reacquainted himself with the heat of her beneath her drawers. Then, they, too, were gone, and Jacey stood naked before the man she loved.
She disposed of his trousers in a thrumming beat and found a new item of male attire. Underbreeches. She circled him, to get a good look.
Sliding her hand across the front, loving her ability to make his eager member pulsate, she found a slit in the garment, enough to accommodate her hand.
He gasped when she found him, rigid and thick, then she did away with the underbreeches and cupped his ballocks while she worked him.
She made him groan, and beg, and buck, and plead for her to stop, but more, and hurry and, “Wait!”
He set her on the bed and ravaged her mouth. Hard to her soft, cool to her hot, he dipped where she curved, arched where she plunged, fitting deliciously and perfectly well.
“Gabriel. You feel so good, this is good; it’s right and—”
“Just kisses,” he said. “Kisses and touches enough for pleasure. Nothing that causes babies.”
“You’re mistaken if you think only dark passion causes babies.”
“Shut up, Jace, and kiss me.”
Just touching brought wild pleasure when touching just so, in just the right places, and with the right person and rhythm. Tongues touching, dancing, mating. Hands, legs, mouths every where.
She learned a new form of pleasure without mating. Yet something seemed missing, something sad and poignant, disappointing, like sliding down a snow-slick hill, not quite fast enough. Despite that, pleasure grew, burst and set them free.
Like two spoons in the wee bed, they slept, until Jace woke and examined his man parts in the soft light of dawn, along and around, up and down, rolling her finger around his moist tip.
When she dared kiss that tip, he woke with a surge and a groan, and she was on her back, him deep inside her.
He brought her higher in three deep strokes than he had all night.
So blessedly good, his weight atop her. She’d take him any way she could, but this glorious, ordained way, this was perfect.
They climbed and soared, then like water cascading down a mountain – pure, bubbling, wild and free – they floated as one, peaceful, at rest.
After a time, he reversed their positions and settled her atop him in lazy contentment.
“Gabriel, we’re at peace now, right? We’ve formed a truce?”
“As your mattress, I say, aye, peace.”
“Was her service beautiful?”
“What service, pet?”
“My baby’s funeral. Did you make it wonderful? Tell me.”
“Ach, Jace, your Mother wanted no service. The babe was stillborn.”
“No, I heard her cry. Mama said she didn’t, but I remember.”
“She had no service, sweet.” Gabe wiped her cheeks with the corner of a blanket. “We’ll ask the gravedigger, and if there was nothing graveside, I’ll do a service.”
“Who’d come?”
“You, me, Bridget, Mackenzie … and Nick.”
“You’d do that for me? With Nick?”
He settled her head on his chest. “Aye, love, I’d do anything for you. Even give you to Nick, though I’d rather keep you for myself.”
Twenty
He’d always wanted her. Now he wanted everything. And for the first time, he admitted it, and she fell asleep.
She stirred in his arms, snuggled her face deeper into his neck, moved and moaned. Parts of her must be tender. He’d kiss her better.
First he’d settle the matter of their marriage, then perhaps he’d let her out of bed.
He guessed he had no choice. She should be dressed if anyone spotted the wagon.
Jacey shifted and rubbed her nose back and forth, hard, against the hair on his chest.
He chuckled. “Itchy nose means you’re coming into money.”
She smiled lazily and stretched in that rod-hardening feline way, her limbs sliding sinuously along his own. “Don’t need money. I have you.”
“Not yet, but you will.”
She regarded him soberly. “I will what?”
“Have me.”
“In the biblical sense?”
“Well, aye. You’ll have me that way, often.”
Jace took her luscious bottom lip between her teeth, making him want to bite it, but her silence made him nervous. “You ken that after last night, we must marry.”
“Must we?” She rose quickly, placing his favourite parts in perilous danger. “We’ll speak no more about it.”
Distracted by her pert breasts and fine bottom, he let the subject drop, for now. She rummaged and blushed, until a nearly see-through shirt covered her to her thighs.
He raised his knee to hide his reaction, or she’d find something else to wear. She was acting that contrary.
“Jace, listen. Bridget needs a mother, and if you marry me, you can save me from a mother-in-law who carries a pitchfork.”
That brought thunderclouds to her brow.
“I know,” he said, looking for food, “I might lose my Kirk over this, but—” He caught her ludicrous expression. “What?” he asked.
She pointed to his raging manhood with annoyed amazement.
“Sorry. I forgot.”
“You can forget something that big? It’s in your way for pity’s sake.”
“I’m hungry.”
“For food, even?”
“That too, aye.” He looked into a tin. “Sodabread.” He bit into it and offered her the tin. “Needs jam.”
Jacey took a jar off the floor. “I saw it rolling around before, before …”
Gabriel raised a brow. “Before we hit the tree? Stripped? Laid hands on each other? Burned each other alive?”
She about strangled him, her cheeks strawberry-bright. “Before any of it, blast you. Will you put on some clothes?”
“They’re wet.”
“Suttie must have something you can wear.” Jace rummaged. “Here put this on.” She handed him another old shirt.
It didn’t meet in the front to button or cover … anything.
He chuckled at the sight, her: half dressed, half appalled.