Her hands flying from beneath the covers to cradle his face even as he drew her up to crush her against him.
Could so many things be forgiven just in a kiss? Oh, she hoped so—she hoped so!
His low groan seemed an answer to her plea, his mouth growing hungrier, and now she found herself kneeling upon the bed.
His strong arms so tight around her while hers flew around his neck. Wonder filled her, overwhelmed her as his kiss deepened, his tongue pressing into her mouth.
She started at the new sensation, but returned his kiss with her tongue teasing his, which only made him groan louder and seem to shudder against her.
“Ah, Maggie…Maggie.”
He pulled away so abruptly to look at her, searching her eyes, her face, that Magdalene felt bereft now that he was no longer kissing her.
She searched his face, too, his eyes so hungrily upon her, though they held a question that she sensed only she could answer.
Breathless, she drew her arms from around his neck to press her hands to his face, her fingers caressing the hard planes of his cheekbones.
He wanted her, his breathing ragged while she felt lightheaded from a yearning so powerful that she nodded as she traced a trembling finger across his lips.
She wanted him, too, not knowing fully what was to come but that she longed to feel him kissing her, touching her, holding her…
“Oh, Gabriel, can you ever forgive me?”
She had barely whispered, tears filling her eyes as he pulled her against him once more, his fingers tunneling into her hair, his mouth nuzzling her ear.
“There’s nothing to forgive, love. Nothing…”
She shivered at the warmth of his breath, the strength of his arms around her. Yet she gasped when he spun her from the bed and then sat down with her straddling him, his hand between their bodies as he wrenched up his tunic.
“It will be better this way, Maggie—swift so there’s less pain this first time. Do you trust me?”
With him kissing her face, her neck, she murmured, “Aye,” though she began to tremble as his hands slid her nightgown above her hips until she was naked against him.
Her bare thighs hugging his hips. His hand again sliding between them and his fingers finding the very heart of her, Magdalene crying out as he gently plied her there.
At once he pressed his mouth to hers, whispering against her lips that there was nothing to fear.
Whispering for her to open herself to him as Gabriel’s fingers teased her, coaxing broken moans from her until he was trembling, too.
Trembling as his flesh pressed hard and thick at that place made wet and slick by his fingers, Magdalene overcome by sensations she’d never known before…never dreamed before.
Yet those sensations were nothing to when he cupped her bottom and lifted her, thrusting himself into her.
She cried out again, a flash of pain bursting like lightning against her closed eyelids even as she began to move with him…her hips meeting his upward thrusts with no conscious thought at all.
Her arms winding around him, her fingers splayed upon his back and clutching at his tunic as the pain disappeared and something altogether more intense overwhelmed her.
She shook from the power of it, Gabriel driving his body deeper into her as he swept his tongue into her mouth…everything in them melding as he shook, too, groaning her name.
“Maggie…”
Another blinding burst of white light erupted as she cried out his name, too, all sensation centered at the place their bodies were joined together.
A surging heat filling her as Gabriel shuddered against her while she moaned in a frenzy until she collapsed against him.
Her head pressed to his shoulder, her tousled hair covering her face. Her uneven breathing lifting soft tendrils that must have tickled him for he chuckled deep in his throat.
A low husky sound in spite of him breathing raggedly, too, though a few moments more and he lifted her from him and settled her once more upon the bed.
