“Broad?”
“Very outspoken,” she clarified. “And she is the eye of a storm, unable to be pinned down.”
“I can pin down any lady if she asks me nicely enough.” Nicholas grinned at her.
Sibyl thought of her youngest sister, picturing her and Nicholas courting. Of course, the age gap between them would elicit gossip, but Alicia acted older, and Nicholas’s jovial nature made him look younger at times, so they might make a successful match.
“She would certainly challenge you at every turn,” Sibyl warned. “But I can always introduce you.”
Gabriel groaned. “Oh, heavens, I know exactly who you mean.”
Sibyl giggled and dug into her meal. “Nicholas, I believe this is the start of a most fascinating friendship.”
Nicholas only stared at her as though he knew something was going on, but that something was not a thing he understood, so he just shook his head and let out a confused chuckle.
Chapter Seventeen
“Heavens, we will be heard,” Sibyl gasped as her hips were pinned against the bookcase.
Gabriel grazed his teeth down the side of her neck. “Not if you are quiet enough.” His voice was pitched low and sultry, sending bolts of heat through her more than his wandering hands did.
They were hidden, far back into the library at Stonehelm Hall, and Sibyl was trying her best to keep quiet. But Gabriel was making it particularly hard as his fingers slid between her legs.
“What—What caused this?” Sibyl shot him a curt smile over her shoulder, playing innocent.
Gabriel growled into her shoulder after pushing her sleeve aside. “You knowexactlywhat caused it.”
“I have no idea,” she breathed.
“You think I did not understand the poetry you spoke? I speak fluent French, my dear Sibyl, and I understood all the filthy things you read to me.”
They had been spending a lazy morning in the library, and Sibyl had notentirelymeant to tease her husband, but she had discovered the same poetry book she had once spotted on Hermia’s bookshelf, one her sister had kept from her grubby, curious hands, and she had not been able to help herself.
She had begun to read aloud, both to provoke Gabriel—to find out if he would understand her—and to show off her fluency in another language. Now, she had gotten far more than she had bargained for, and she felt rather happy with herself.
“Did you want to tease me?” Gabriel murmured into her ear, tugging on the ends of her hair. She made a delighted little noise. “Did you want to show me that my wife is as intelligent as she is beautiful? Because it is working. Your body haunts my dreams and waking hours, but your mind… it is an endless, elaborate labyrinth you have not even let me see half of.”
“Gabriel,” she said softly, parting her legs, her head spinning at the praise.
“Let me in, Sibyl,” he coaxed, his fingers stroking her folds. “Let me in.”
“How far in?” she whispered, hoping he understood.
Gabriel pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “As far as you want to. I will not rush you. I can pleasure you with my tongue until you scream this estate to the ground, but I will never, ever push you into taking more than you are ready for.”
“And if I want to try?”
“Then we try,” he affirmed, “and we stop as soon as you say it.”
She shuddered at how simple he made it sound. And although she could feel his erection pressing against the curve of her backside, and she did indeed crave it—cravedhim—she wanted her first time with him to be romantic, atop silk sheets, bathed in candlelight.
Her stomach flipped with the worry of disappointing him when she reached for his wrist to guide his fingers inside her, rather than reach behind her for the fly of his breeches.
But he understood. He kissed her neck, her shoulder, and back up to her jaw before tilting her face to capture her mouth with his own. He kissed her deeply right as two digits slid into her, and she gasped.
He took the opportunity to suck on her tongue, and she moaned, seeing stars behind her closed eyelids.
Gabriel pulled away only an inch. “We will only go as far as you are comfortable,” he promised. “My fingers, my tongue, my cock—it’s all yours whenever you ask for it. Whenever youare ready.”
