“Show me.”
He looked up at her, heat pulsing through every vein.
“I need you now, Olivia. While you’re standing here like this. Wanting me.”
He reached for her, his hands skimming the silk at her hips before sliding upward, gathering the fabric until he touched the warmth of her thighs.
“You’ve only yourself to blame,” he said, voice deepening, his thumbs tracing the bare skin above her stockings. “For looking at me the way you do. For touching me. For making me forget everything but having you.”
For saving me without ever meaning to.
She raised her skirts, revealing the barest glimpse of thigh and the soft shadow between. Then came the tangle, silk and petticoats and limbs, before she settled astride him, pressed tight to his body, driving the air from his lungs.
Sweet mercy.
His hands found her hips, rougher than he intended, hiscontrol hanging by a thread. “Yes. There. Exactly where I need you.”
He felt her, flush to him, slick, hot, the pressure exquisite. Her soft moan told him she felt it too. He tightened his grip, moving her slowly, rhythmically, over every throbbing inch.
“This is what you do. You strip me bare. You get past every defence … and touch me like no one else ever has.”
She arched her back, every subtle shift of her body drawing a rough sound from his throat.
“I’m not sure how or why I have that effect on you,” she murmured, “but you leave me near mindless, too.”
She quickened the pace, rubbing against him.
“That’s it. Take what you need. You can come like this.”
Their breath turned ragged, lost amid the hum in the auditorium. The world outside seemed to fall away. No stage. No audience. Only the shocking truth of how badly he needed her.
“Gabriel … please. I need you inside me.”
He gave her what she wanted—what he craved—easing into her in one slow, measured stroke. Saints preserve him, the way she yielded. Enveloped him. Drew him deeper. A groan escaped before he could stop it.
“Do you feel that?” He held her closer, rocking her slowly, the world narrowing to the heat of her, the way her breath caught every time he moved. “Feel how hard I am for you? Feel the power you wield?”
“I feel it,” she whispered, a silk tendril slipping free of its pins and brushing her cheek. “All of you, and still ache for more.”
“Then take more.”
Her mouth found his in a rush. There was nothing carefulin it. She kissed him like she meant to take every breath he had, and he gave it willingly.
His thoughts scattered.
He kissed her back, open-mouthed, tasting her, answering every shift of her body with his own.
She moved with him, the rhythm deepening, growing frantic, her fingers tightening on his shoulders as her composure unravelled. He watched it—felt it—each tremor of her body building like a storm behind her eyes, until it tore through her with a cry she didn’t try to silence.
Pleasure broke over her like something startled into existence, too real to be contained. She didn’t hide from it. And he knew she could not lie. Not in this.
But now was not the moment for thoughts. His body rebelled, needing its own reckoning. He buried his face against her neck, gripping her as he drove into her, hard and deep, until the last of his control gave way.
“Olivia …” His voice broke as the moment overtook him.
She understood, softening against him, trusting him even now.
He barely withdrew in time, release catching him mid-motion, hot and breathless as he spilled over her thigh. He had never known a release that felt so little like pleasure, and so much like surrender.
