He nudged her legs gently apart with his knee. “Do you know the effort it’s taking not to forget everything except the need to be inside you? How the thought of it has driven me half-mad.”
“Then don’t wait.”
“And forgo the chance to pleasure you?” His grin carried a trace of arrogance. “To show you what it means when a man makes love to his wife, when I make love to you, Olivia?”
“Then show me, Gabriel.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
If she’d had to list the places a man might kiss a woman, she would have fallen dreadfully short. He pressed his lips to her forehead, her cheek, her jaw, her mouth. Each kiss led him lower—the hollow of her throat, the languid brush along her collarbone, the curve of her breast.
He looked up at her through lowered lashes before tracing her nipple with the tip of his tongue and drawing it softly between his lips.
She moaned quietly, barely moving until the sensation sent flutters through her belly. Need overcame hesitation. She slid her fingers into his hair and arched her back, pressing herself deeper into his mouth.
“Gabriel, please.” The sound of her own voice surprisedher, so desperate, so needy, driven by every teasing suck and the hard ridge of him hot against her thigh. “Don’t stop.”
He moved to worship the other breast, then continued lower, slowing as he trailed kisses down her body before settling between her thighs. “You wanted to know what I could promise?”
If his vow was to make her feel wanted, to leave her aroused beyond reason, he had already fulfilled it.
“I mean to taste you. And I promise you’ll crave more of me when I do.”
He parted her legs and lowered his mouth to her most intimate place. The first stroke of his tongue stole her breath. With it came the realisation she had made a shocking error of judgement. With others, Gabriel was staid. Principled. But with her, he was a man ruled by need, by hunger, by a reckless desire to possess.
Yes, you’re so different with me.
She smiled, the thought oddly pleasing.
No one had ever touched her like this. As if he meant to learn every inch of her, to claim her, brand her, undo her until there was no part of her that didn’t belong to him.
“Let me show you how it feels to be mine,” he murmured against her skin, his tongue tracing slow, torturous patterns until she could no longer stay still.
She could no longer think. Only feel.
Every flick of his tongue wound her tighter, until pleasure coiled and broke in one breathless rush.
Release took her, swift and shattering. The world fell away until there was nothing but him.
The man who’d saved her. The man who held her. The man she feared had claimed her heart.
The pleasure was fierce, but it was the connection that left her shaken.
“Gabriel … yes. Oh, sweet heaven.”
She panted his name, the sound a plea, a prayer.
He rose over her, a fire in his eyes, his tongue skimming his lips as though he’d tasted Molière’s peaches à la crème. One hand closed around himself, a shudder running through him as he stroked, deliberately.
“Do you want more, Olivia?”
She looked at him, at the hard, pulsing length of him, and dismissed her concern. “I want it all.” A vision flashed through her mind: a real marriage, a real family, a love that might last a lifetime. “You promised to leave no part untouched. I mean to hold you to that vow.”
“And I always keep my word.”
He pressed against her, thick and insistent, sending a ripple of tension through her body. Then his eyes found hers, searching, waiting for permission. She gave it with a trembling nod.
He hesitated, the moment a tense beat between them.
