But, exhausted as she was, she must have slept despite everything, for when she next became aware of her surroundings the light coming through the tall windows had changed, and so had her situation.
Gabriel had pulled up the bedlinens to cover them both. She was exceedingly warm. Hot. Her face was pillowed comfortably on his chest as it had been when she fell asleep, and his strong arms were still secure about her, but everything else had altered. At some point in the afternoon she had turned into his embrace, so that her leg now lay across him and her body was pressed to his; his thigh had inserted itself between hers, or she had wrapped herself around it, and it seemed to fit very snugly there. Their proximity did not feel quite so innocent any more. Did not feel innocent at all.
She raised her head a little and saw that he was awake, his glinting silver gaze regarding her from under his heavy lids. There was a world of meaning in his eyes. ‘Georgiana…’ he said, his voice deep and caressing, and at the mere sound of it all the fine hairs on her skin stood on end.
She felt sure that her face was creased from sleep and unbecomingly flushed from the heat of the bed, and from their closeness. But her dishevelment did not seem to have given him a disgust of her. ‘Would you care to kiss me?’ he said simply.
‘I should like to.’ It was true. She knew all her confusion, all her unanswered, unanswerable questions still remained. She also knew, or feared, that physical intimacy between them would not resolve anything. But God, she wanted it. Wanted him. It would have to be enough.
Georgie wriggled into a more upright position, lying on his chest now with her breasts crushed against him, a delicious pressure. His hands came tight about her ribcage and pulled hera little higher, so that she was able to reach him, and take his face between her hands, and brush his lips with hers. She was only tentative for a moment; it seemed a long time, far too long, since they had tasted each other – they had not been properly alone since the night of the ball – and it felt so right that within seconds their mouths were locked together in mutual and growing hunger. She fastened her fingers in his hair and pressed every inch of her body close to his, and his hands slid down her stays and over her petticoats till they found her buttocks and cupped them through the flimsy layers that covered her. He pulled her tighter still against him, and she gripped his hard thigh between hers. She wanted, needed there to be no space between them, for his flesh to touch hers.
But they were still largely clothed – her long-sleeved embroidered lawn habit shirt and all her undergarments, his waistcoat, shirt and pantaloons. She put a finger to his lips and drew away from him reluctantly, so that she could sit up. She unbuttoned her shirt with impatient fingers, pulling it off and flinging it away so that her arms, shoulders and upper chest were bare. He followed her lead, shrugging out of his waistcoat, dragging his shirt over his head and letting it fall. She had not seen him shirtless before, despite all their intimacy; his torso was far more strongly muscled than his habitually languid demeanour would lead one to imagine. She had no time to admire him, though, for he lifted her without the least effort and set her astride his body, and her knees came up instinctively so that she could set them on the bed either side of him and steady herself. He was partially sitting now, so that they faced each other, breathless, panting. He seemed to understand what she needed; his clever hands pulled her white petticoats ruthlessly up so that her naked core could settle against the bare skin of his abdomen. In his haste, fragile muslin ripped. She did not care. She gasped at the intimate contact, and he smiled.
They stayed still for a moment, skin to skin. Through the thin fabric of his pantaloons she could feel him hot and hard beneath the back of her thigh. His left hand came down to clasp her buttock once again and tuck her more tightly into him, and she welcomed the pressure with a tiny moan. The tips of his fingers grazed her most sensitive skin, and now his right hand moved to cup her face. She turned into it and pressed her lips to his palm, and then her tongue came out and tasted it.
He said, his voice unsteadier than she had ever heard it, ‘I came to look for you, Georgiana. It seems important somehow that I tell you that now.’
Her hands were on his chest, tangling in the soft whorls of dark hair that grew there; she could not get enough of touching him. ‘How can that be? When, when did you do this?’
‘In London, after… we first met. I couldn’t get you out of my head, and so I went to ton parties in search of you. I never go to such parties now. I am invited to some, but I don’t like them much, and so I never go. I went looking for you wherever I thought you might be, but I did not find you. Of course, I had not the least idea who you were and could think of no way to find out.’
He laughed softly. ‘I could hardly go about asking people if they knew a beautiful girl with extraordinary blue eyes and short dark curls; I had not quite lost all self-control. Not quite. I even procured a voucher for Almack’s – Sally Jersey has a soft spot for me still. You should have seen the tabbies stare. You were not there.’
‘I easily might have been. What would you have done if you had found me?’ she whispered. His right hand had left her face now, and his fingers were tracing idle lines down her throat, and across her shoulders, and lower. His other hand was similarly occupied where her buttock met her thigh. It was increasingly difficult to form coherent thoughts. She was aware of heatkindling where her sex was pressed against his bare skin, and could not resist moving a little in response to it.
‘Solicited your hand for a waltz, perhaps. God knows I had no wish to dance with anyone else, and I did not. If I had walked up to you and claimed you and you alone as I wished to, that would have given the chaperons something to chatter over.’
‘I might have panicked and refused you.’ She scarcely knew what she was saying. He had found the ties of her chemise and undone them, and was pulling the thin material down so that her breasts were exposed, offered up to him by the boning of her stays. Her nipples were engorged and aching for his touch; with an inarticulate murmur he bent his head and tantalised her with long, slow licks around them and across them. The contact was wonderful, but it was too brief. She arched her back in mute appeal and ran her hands up the corded muscles of his back, and his fingers tightened on her bottom in response, kneading the sensitive skin.
He spoke against her flesh, between tantalising kisses, and his feathered breath tormented her further. ‘You might well have publicly spurned me. What a scandal that would have caused among the haut ton. And even more if I had put you across my shoulder and carried you off out of the place so that I could ravish you immediately in my carriage, which was one of the fantasies I entertained at that time. One of the many fantasies…’
His right hand held her tightly under her breast, splayed possessively across her ribcage. She felt taut as a bowstring in his grasp, and acutely conscious of his strength, and his desire, and hers. And hers.
‘I simply could not get you out of my head,’ he said raggedly, ‘your fearlessness, the sight of you there on that couch baring yourself to me, the taste of you, the fact that I might never see you again, and yet my tongue had explored you so intimately and brought you to…’
‘Oh, God, please, Gabriel!’ she said wildly. His lips closed on her nipple and sucked it at last, gently and then harder, and she moaned aloud, and dug her nails into his flesh, and writhed against him.
He pulled away after a long moment, and the air was cold on her slick, sensitised skin, and then his tongue went out again to taste her. She could feel the short stubble on his cheeks against her breasts as he moved his attention from one erect nipple to the other, and she welcomed the friction. She was wet against him, and although the ridged muscles of his abdomen were hard and the contact delicious, she needed more.
‘I could not get you out of my head,’ he said again, ‘and now I do not need to. Can I lose myself in you again, Georgie, and give you pleasure as I did once before, as I have been desperate to all these long weeks?’
She moaned assent, and he turned her on her back and moved away a moment, to drag off his pantaloons with impatient hands before returning to her. ‘Shall I undress you?’ he said. ‘Would you be more comfortable?’
‘The only thing that would make me more comfortable,’ she said, ‘is you setting about fulfilling your fantasies, and mine!’
‘Yours too? Do you say so?’ He was smiling, teasing her, as he smoothed back her ruined petticoats with exaggerated care.
‘Do not pretend you did not know it!’ And then his hungry mouth was on her, and she could no longer speak, nor did she wish to. He did not tantalise her any longer, did not kiss his slow way upwards to her core as he had once before. There was no need, and it was not what either of them wanted. There would be a time for slow exploration and sophisticated pleasures, but this was not it. She was in a high state of arousal before ever his eager tongue touched her most secret places, desperate for release. God, she had missed this, had dreamed of this too every night.
Within a few moments she was clutching the bedcovers and gasping as the waves of pleasure built and then broke over her, and he devoured her and prolonged the pleasure ruthlessly until she saw stars behind her closed eyelids.
This time there was no need for him to move away or let her go. He came to lie close beside her, took her limp hand and kissed it, and said, ‘Georgie…?’
She could only murmur yes, and welcome him into her arms as he came back to her. He was above her now, and she wrapped her legs around him and clung to him. He kissed her neck and her breasts, whispering endearments, teasing her sensitised skin, and then a moment of discomfort, but no more than that, and she knew that he was inside her.
‘Oh, God,’ he gasped. ‘How I have longed for this. Let us be still a moment.’
They lay panting, their bodies slicked with sweat, and he touched her face with gentle, wondering fingers. She captured one between her teeth and bit it, then sucked on it, and he traced the moist, tender flesh inside her lower lip as she had done to him once before. She whimpered in response to all the sensations his touch, the pressure of his body on hers and in hers evoked in her, and he laughed shakily. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘very well, my eager Duchess.’ Slowly at first he began to move in her, with her, and before long they found a rhythm together, growing harder and faster. His hands found hers and clasped them, and she arched her back against him and raised her hips to meet him as he thrust into her, her legs locked around him and her heels pressing into his buttocks. This was the forbidden action at last, the thing women talked of, if they talked of it at all, behind their hands, and her thoughts were fractured, almost submerged as she was in the physical moment and all the new sensations it brought, but some small, detached part of her brainwas glad that she was experiencing it with him, and no one else. No regrets, in this moment. Whatever came of it.
