“Are you quite certain?”
"Gabriel, I've been sharing your bed for two weeks, feeling you against me every night, wanting you with every breath, and maintaining control through sheer force of will. Yes, I am more than certain.”
"Thank Goodness," he breathed, and then his mouth was on hers again, his hands working the buttons of her dress with fingers that shook slightly.
"You're trembling," Clara observed.
"I've wanted this for so long I can barely believe it's happening."
"How long?"
"Since you walked in on me shirtless and didn't run away. Possibly since you appeared at my door looking like a drowned rat. Definitely since you told me my face was the least ugly thing about me."
"That's a terrible thing to find arousing."
"Everything about you arouses me. The way you argue with me, the way you organise my life without permission, the way you look when you're asleep in my arms."
Her dress pooled at her feet, and Gabriel's breath caught. "You're beautiful."
"I'm ordinary."
"You're everything."
He lifted her, carrying her to the bed they had shared so chastely for so many nights. The candlelight trembled over the walls, painting their joined shadows in gold. For a long moment, neither spoke. The quiet between them was reverent, almost sacred.
"Are you afraid?" he asked softly, brushing his thumb across her cheek.
"No," she whispered. "Are you?"
"Terrified," he confessed, his voice rough.
"Of what?"
"Of not being what you need. Of this being less than you deserve."
She smiled faintly. "You are what I choose. That’s all that matters."
He bent to kiss her, and the conversation dissolved into warmth and breath. His touch grew bolder by degrees, his restraint crumbling as hers did. Buttons slipped free, fabric pooled at her waist, and the shock of cool air against bare skin made her shiver.
When at last he shed the last of his clothing, her gaze caught on him, on the proof of his desire and she froze. The sight stole the air from her lungs. She had known, in some distant way, what must happen between a man and wife, but nothing had prepared her forthat.
Gabriel stilled immediately, misreading her silence. "Clara," he murmured, voice unsteady, "if this frightens you…"
"It doesn’t," she said quickly, though her cheeks burned. Her pulse fluttered wildly as she looked up at him, trying to reconcile the man she loved with this startling, unfamiliar truth of him. "Only… I hadn’t realised…"
A wry, gentle smile touched his lips. "Nor did I, the first time I understood what I was made for."
Her laugh trembled out, easing the tension. She reached for him then, shy but sure, tracing a tentative path along his chest before pulling him down beside her.
When he joined with her, the moment stole her breath. A sharp, startled sound escaped her lips before she could stop it, and his hands came up at once, steadying, soothing, his forehead resting against hers as though he could lend her his calm through sheer proximity.
“Breathe,” he murmured. “Only breathe.”
She did, and the ache melted into warmth, into something so tender it made her eyes sting. His movements were careful at first, searching, learning. Every sigh and every shiver became a new kind of language, one only they would ever understand.
His hands were commanding as they guided her onto her hands and knees, fingers digging into her hips with barely restrained need. She felt him behind her,solid, imposing,his breathing already ragged as he swept her hair aside and pressed his mouth to her nape with something between a kiss and a claim.
"Mine," he growled against her skin, the word more animal than aristocrat.
