“It is too much because my husband is well-endowed and I can feel himeverywhere.” She caressed his face and kissed the tip of his nose. “You may move, Gabriel. Take me, for I am yours to take. I have been from the moment I met you.”
“Sibyl,” he groaned, kissing her shoulder. Inside her, his length twitched. “You—you disarm me, do you know that?”
“Then perhaps you should disarm me too,” she whispered.
And then his hips were moving, pulling out of her before pushing back in, rocking steadily.
Sibyl’s back arched, her entire body shuddering and coming apart at the seams with pleasure. Her thoughts scattered, letting her float in desire, only grounded by Gabriel’s thrusts.
“Gabriel,” she moaned when he hit a deeper spot as she shifted her legs slightly. “Gabriel.”
He smiled down at her, pausing to take her hand and intertwine their fingers. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“When you are close,” he murmured into her ear, “do tell me. I want us to climax together for the first time. My wife deserves the attention, and I will have you climaxing a thousand times before I ever think selfishly about my own release, but there is something intimate about doing it together.”
“I agree,” she gasped, and he quickened his pace. “Ga-Gabriel, you… you are speeding up.”
“Is it bad?” he asked.
She shook her head vehemently.
“I just… Sibyl, I am desperate for you. I cannot keep the pace slow and steady unless it is something I really want. But your body entices me, your voice stirs me, and your entire being makes every part of me come alive. I cannot fight the desperate need I have for you.”
The worship, the devotion he rained upon her, pushed her closer to her release. Her moans turned breathier as her hips rocked sharply against his, as her fingers tightened around his.
She was lost to pleasure, and she never wanted to feel any other way.
“I am close,” she warned. “It is—it is building inside me, and I feel like… like I am going to burst.”
“Then do so, Duchess.” Gabriel pressed a hard kiss to her neck. “Fall apart, and do it as messily and as loudly as you need. We do not have to worry about anything.”
Sibyl quietened the voice that worried the servants would gossip about them, but the need to climax was greater.
Soon, the two of them were rocking against one another frantically, gasping and moaning, tugging at one another, grasping wherever they could. It was uncoordinated yet sensual.
It was everything Sibyl had wanted, and she flew into her release right as Gabriel did.
They clung to each other, both shaking and moaning. In that moment, Sibyl had never felt closer to him. So much so that even when her body stopped trembling, she didn’t let go, and he didn’t pull away either.
“Gabriel.” Her voice was a mere whisper in the aftermath of their coupling.
“Sibyl.”
Words hung on the tip of her tongue:I love you. I am in love with you. You have saved me in more ways than you know. You have brought me back to life. I was a ghost, Gabriel, and you have breathed life back into me.
In the end, she only murmured, “Will you hold me for a while?”
And Gabriel did.
They fell asleep like that, naked and joined, tangled together on the bedsheets.
Chapter Twenty
Something was wrong with Gabriel, and Sibyl did not know why he would not tell her what it was.
All she knew was that he kept receiving letters at breakfast, discarded them as quickly as he read them, and shook his head.
“What is wrong?” she had urged, over and over, for a week.
