Then he gathered her up. She curled up in his arms, her buttocks pressed against his cock, her head resting on his huge biceps. She turned to kiss it. Then bite it a little, because it looked delicious. Then she kissed it again.
His breath was soft on the back of her neck.
“Guinevere,” he whispered. “Guinevere. You are precious. And I love you.”
He said this as though these were the last words he’d ever say to her. As though he’d thought about it the way he’d thought about “beloved.” He wanted her to know.
She’d been the strong one; that was her assignment. Her mother, desperate and knowing she was dying, had anointed her. For so long Ginny had not been allowed to be fragile, to come apart, to surrender. In choosing this, she had reclaimed herself.
You can decide the point ofyou, he’d said.
She rolled out of his arms and propped herself up on her elbows to gaze down at him.
They regarded each other somberly, searching for traces of regret or wariness.
Finally, she drew a finger along the clean, hard line of his jaw. His eyes went soft. What a luxury it seemed to touch him anywhere she pleased. “I’m not sorry. Are you?”
The ramifications of this night hovered on the outskirts of their awareness like storm clouds. Therein lay the only source of regret. Now that they knew what it was like to make love to each other, everything and everyone after would feel counterfeit.
“How could I be sorry for the sweetest night of my life?” He turned his head to lay a kiss on her palm.
She lowered herself to his side again, and his arms went around her. She drifted drowsily, allowing herself to feel only the heat radiating from this beautiful naked man, the blessed peace of her well-loved, sated body, the rightness of having given herself to him. The magnitude of what it meant to love him.
Presently she realized he’d fallen into a doze. The rise and fall of his breath against her back lulled her as though she drifted on a gentle sea. She didn’t stir. She scarcely even entertained a thought. It seemed enough to exist in this miraculous moment and to experience being loved.
Gabriel murmured something unintelligible. There was a sharp edge of fear to it.
Suddenly he shot bolt upright with a hoarse cry, panting as though he’d been running.
He turned to her, his eyes wild and dazed.
They went at once relieved and grateful when he realized she wasn’t a dream.
“I’m sorry.” He rasped. “I just... sometimes... when I dream...”
“I’m here.” She laid a hand over his heart and felt it thundering. She left her hand against him until the franticness slowed. And then she kissed his chest, gently, while he drew his fingers in a caress along her spine.
I’m here.It was what he’d said to her that day on the bench in the park. As though there was no danger he wouldn’t defeat for her.
She’d never felt so safe.
What a privilege it would be to be the person he turned to when old terrors jolted him from sleep.
A serrated grief slashed her heart. She could not ever be that person.
“Your arse”—his voice had gone low and rough and velvet—“is spectacular. Two pearls, side by side. I love it very much.”
She laughed and blushed furiously at his coarse eloquence.
“You are, in fact, so beautiful I think my head might explode. I cannot adequately absorb it.” He trailed his hands up over her rib cage and claimed her breasts again.
She knew what he meant. She wanted to wallow in him.
She leaned forward and gently kissed his nipple, then traced it with her tongue.
“I like that,” he said, his voice lulled. “Well done.”
His cock was stirring again, and the responding heat between her legs gave a pulse, wanting him again.
