Page 14 of A Bride By Morning
Lydia bit Gabriel’s lower lip hard.
When he jerked back, she gave him no quarter. She curled a hand into his lapel and tugged him close. Gabriel stiffened with surprise as she returned his kiss with one of her own. She was a battalion meeting his enemy siege. Their lips met like dueling swords, every touch becoming a battleground.
But then the kiss changed.
A frenzied desire caught hold of them both. Lydia sensed the shift in Gabriel’s body, in the pulse that thrummed beneath her fingers. He growled low in his throat. Their kiss was no longer a punishment, no longer a game. It was the air they needed to breathe. It was ten years of repressed frustration and anger, grief and yearning.
Lydia showed Gabriel everything he could have had for a decade if only he had been honest with her. She showed him what she’d thought about in the darkness even after he rejected her. That kiss was every night she had agonized over his abandonment. It was three-hundred and twenty-two letters she’d sent that went unanswered. It was every stare she’d given him from the remote, desolate corner of the ballroom, wishing he would acknowledge her existence.
Notice me.
Remember me.
Remember us.
Gabriel tore away from her, panting. “What are you doing to me?” he whispered.
Their breath clashed, mouths inches apart. Lydia drew her lip between her teeth, hoping that was answer enough. Words failed her. But perhaps they didn’t matter: Gabriel’s attention caught on the movement, and she was gratified by the heat that blazed in his eyes.
Then a shadow shifted in Lydia’s periphery.
Metal glinted in the moonlight.
And three men stepped out of the shadows holding weapons at the ready.
Gabriel moved faster than Lydia could blink. He shoved her to the ground just as the men attacked. The sickening crunch of fists striking skin jarred her to action, and Lydia rolled to see Gabriel engaging with all three attackers in a violent dance. Fear flared through Lydia, but then she noticed Gabriel’s expression: a grim acceptance as he circled the other men.
“Pyotr. Dimitri. Mikhail.” His smile was small as he said something in Russian.
Lydia froze. Heknewthese men?
The man named Pyotr replied in terse Russian and called Gabriel by a name that Lydia didn’t recognize: Alexei Borislov. Lydia’s gaze settled on Gabriel. She studied his severe features, this man she loved as a child but who had become a stranger to her.
Spy, her thoughts whispered. Here was more confirmation of that word, the dark precipice of his past beckoning her closer to the edge.
The other men lunged, and Gabriel pivoted. Lydia couldn’t help but pause to appreciate his body in motion, so beautiful and deadly. How could she have foolishly overlooked that he moved with the sleek dexterity of a predator? Even in his evening finery, he fought as swiftly as a jungle cat pursuing its prey. The agility with which he handled the three men was extraordinary.
Lydia was so shocked by the transformation that she hadn’t fled out of danger.
The hesitation cost her.
One of the men spun away from Gabriel and seized Lydia by the arm. The attacker hauled her up against his front and set his blade to her throat. “She’s a pretty thing.” This time, the man spoke in accented English—for Lydia’s benefit, she gathered. Gabriel paused, his lips flattening. “Yours,zver?”
Gabriel carefully watched the other two assailants even as he spoke to the man who held Lydia captive. “Let her go, Mikhail. She has nothing to do with this.”
“No?” Lydia held her breath as Mikhail slid his nose down the line of her neck. “Then you won’t mind me having her. I’ve never fucked an English noblewoman.”
Gabriel snapped something in Russian, and Mikhail pressed the blade deeper into her skin. With the slightest pressure, he could slit her throat. “In English. I don’t like listening to a liar in my mother tongue,zver. Or perhaps I should call you by your real name,Lord Montgomery.”
Gabriel stiffened. “Let her go,” he repeated. His voice was as sharp as broken glass.
“Not yet.” Mikhail’s breath was hot on Lydia’s skin. “I think the boss might want a look at her. Or maybe I’ll just slit her throat right here as punishment for your betrayal,zver. You seem to care about this one.”
Gabriel’s eyes flickered to Lydia. She didn’t understand the harsh, almost cold scrutiny that descended over his features. As if the very foundations of him hardened to ice. Then his lip lifted in some unspoken message she couldn’t quite comprehend. But it seemed almost . . . apologetic?
Then he struck as fast as a cobra. He grasped a blade concealed within his coat and flung it.
Right into Mikhail’s eye.
