‘If you keep doing that,’ he groaned, his voice hoarse with need, ‘you will learn only what it means to have your hand covered in a man’s seed.’
‘Show me,’ she repeated finally letting go of his cock and leaning back down towards him to press a soft kiss on his lips. ‘Please Gabriel. I do not want to die a maid.’
The Viscount shut his eyes briefly, knowing he was lost. Then with a growl, he relented, pulling her head down to reclaim her mouth. This time his tongue plundered hers as he carefully shifted her onto her back. As soon as she was beneath him, he put one knee between her legs and tearing himself away from her lips, manoeuvred himself down as far as her breasts, already pink in the candlelight from his fondling. With one last glance at her glazed features, he bent his head and took one rosy nipple into his mouth, causing her to cry out and grip his shoulders. He flicked his tongue first across one nub, then the other until Hope was writhing beneath him, twisting her head restlessly from side to side.
Heart thudding as though this was his first time, Gabriel lifted her skirts, exposing her to his heated gaze. There was no time to make sure she was ready for him, they could be discovered at any time, and now for some explicable reason that had nothing to do with Hope offering herself to him, Gabriel was determined to make her his. Entirely.
His hand sought and found her shadowy centre, and without taking his eyes off her face, he slowly slid a finger into her tight heat. Dear God, she was wet. She would need no priming. He slid another finger alongside, sinking both deep into her tight sheath in readiness for his entrance. In answer, her eyes flew to his and she gave a gasping moan, thrusting her hips up towards his questing fingers, her knees falling open instinctively. ‘Please,’ she whimpered.
Gabriel needed no further urging. Rising up, he positioned himself above her. ‘Are you sure love?’ he questioned through gritted teeth, the effort of holding himself back almost too much.
Hope lifted her hands to cup his face. She could feel the tip of him between her legs, hard and throbbing against her entrance. ‘Show me,’ she whispered again and lifted her hips, inviting him in.
With a harsh groan, Gabriel plunged deep inside her tight warmth. All thoughts of taking his time were lost in the desperate need to feel her heat surrounding him. Dimly, he heard her cry out, felt the slight resistance to his thrust, and panting, he began to pull out then forced himself to hold still. Had he hurt her? He bent his head to stare down at her dazed features, the strain of remaining unmoving with her tight warmth wrapped around him an agony he could hardly endure. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ he whispered harshly. Hope gazed up the face above her. Even now, he was giving her a choice. Her eyes closed and she accepted the truth.
She loved this man. She loved him enough to give herself to him in what might be her last act on earth.
Smiling, she shook her head, and reaching her hands around them to grasp his taut buttocks, pulled him down towards her. With another groan, Gabriel threw his head back and thrust hard and deep. Hope moaned, at first simply revelling in the feel of him stretching and filling her. But as he continued to slide in and out of her in an inexorable rhythm, she began to meet him thrust for thrust until she was arching her hips upwards, almost mindlessly pursuing the throbbing pressure that was building, building, building… until abruptly the pleasure intensified as she cascaded over the edge, crying out as wave after wave of sensation engulfed her. Dimly she felt his thrusts increase their tempo until with a low gasping moan, he thrust into her one last time before losing himself to oblivion.
They were both dirty, battered and bruised and lying on a cold hard floor. And Gabriel just experienced the most powerful release of his life.
Chapter Twenty One
‘Right then Percy, you give me a leg up and I’ll scope out the lay of the land so to speak.’
‘That wall’s got to be six foot high,’ protested Percy, ‘We’ve already tried to do this at Redstone House Sir, and you can’t deny it didn’t end well.’
‘That was a deuced window,’ huffed the Reverend. ‘Entirely different. If I can get on the top of the wall, I can pull you up and we’re in.’
‘What about Freddy?’ The Reverend paused, clearly having forgotten about the foxhound who was busy snuffling around in the underbrush.
‘He’ll just have to wait for us here. Come on then Percy lad, stop dallying. Hope’s may well be in there somewhere and it’s up to us to get her out.’ He waited impatiently until, with a weary sigh, the curate got down on his hands and knees. ‘The ground’s cold and wet,’ he complained placing his hands gingerly into the dirt.
‘It’s the middle of deuced winter, what did you expect?’ was the unsympathetic response. ‘Right then, don’t move.’ The Reverend’s first attempt to climb on his curate’s back ended up with Percy spreadeagled in the dirt with Freddy capering around in excitement.
‘Tare an’ hounds,’ the large man grumbled. ‘This is harder than it looks.’
‘We’ve had this conversation before,’ retorted Percy, spitting out some obnoxious brown substance tangled in the leaves. ‘And now my cassock is ruined.’
‘You needed a new one anyway. In all honesty Percy, I’ve been meaning to have a word. I’m all for a vow of poverty, but when it means going into the church looking like the village beggar, then it’s time to put your hand in your pocket.’
The curate climbed crossly back to his feet and leant forward in an effort to brush some of the dirt off his robe.
‘You might be right on this occasion though,’ the Reverend conceded after a moment, eying the wall doubtfully. ‘Mayhap if I give you a bit of a lift, you can have a look what the drop’s like on the other side.’
Percy sighed as his superior bent down cupping his hands together creating a step. ‘Come on then lad, get a move on, this is not doing my back any good at all.’
Tentatively the curate placed his foot into the Reverend’s hands. ‘Just give me a minu…’
His words trailed into a startled yelp as Reverend Shackleford heaved upwards, launching the terrified curate into mid-air. Half a second later, Percy landed back on the wall with a loud thump, legs and arse facing his superior.
To be fair, the Reverend was not entirely without sympathy and his demand of, ‘What can you see?’ was said with a definite wince.
For a few seconds the silence was interrupted only by a strangled wheezing noise due to Percy having the wind completely knocked out of him.
‘We haven’t got all day,’ added the Reverend, his commiseration evidently short lived.
‘Freddy,’ wheezed Percy a few seconds later. ‘I can see Freddy.’
