Page 54 of A Bride By Morning
Lydia shook her head. “Up here,” she said, gently skimming her fingers through his hair. “You’re no longer with me up here.” A breath vibrated through her. “So, are you in Moscow or Kabul?”
Gabriel placed his hands to her shoulders, to the delicate wings of her naked collarbones. He let himself marvel at her beauty, at the open honesty of her features. All that trust he did not deserve. She was his lodestar, his one constant as he navigated the tumult of his past. But like Polaris, she would always be out of reach—a shining beacon in the distance.
“What does it say about me,” he asked her, “that I can have you right in front of me, and part of my mind will always be thousands of kilometers away?”
Lydia reached up and slowly pushed the overcoat from his shoulders. “Then let us be in Moscow,” she said softly, grazing her fingers against his bare skin. “Let us be in Kabul. Imagine me there with you, as if you had taken me with you that day ten years ago.”
Just tonight, he thought to himself.
Couldn’t he have tonight? Tomorrow, he would consider how he had sullied her. Tomorrow, he would relearn how to exist without her. Hadn’t he learned to live with his sins before? Wasn’t this no different?
But tonight, she was offering herself to him, dragging him to her like a force of gravity.
She trailed her hand down his shoulders as if she were memorizing him. Cataloging every feature for her clever mind.
Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she reached for his trousers. He held his breath as she flicked open the buttons and pushed the garment down his thighs. He kicked them off the rest of the way, waiting as she took her fill. Her eyes studied him with a tangibility that resembled the soft touch of fingertips skimming across his naked skin.
Heat flared in Lydia’s eyes. That fire matched the conflagration within Gabriel; his blaze recognized its equal in her. His savage urge to take her flared to life, but he tamped it down. He wouldn’t subject her to the hard fucking he typically employed to forget himself. He needed to be tender with her.
Gabriel lowered his lips to hers, kissing her with a soft, searching caress. He realized then that he had not kissed her enough. That he would have to fit all of their kisses into the span of a single evening because he could not do this again.
All they had was tonight.
“Not Moscow, nor Kabul,” he whispered against her lips as he swept her into his arms. He set her onto the bed and fit his body against hers. “But Vienna, Zürich, Paris? I’ll take you with me, as I should have done ten years ago.”
24
Gabriel gazed down at Lydia as if she was a wonder.
His muscular form was pressed hard to hers, the physique and topography so different from her own. Lydia let her fingertips trail down the sinewy line of his torso to the curve of his hip. She held her breath as her hand came to rest over the strong bend of his buttocks.
She longed to admire Gabriel in the light, to spend an inordinate amount of time exploring his shape, the dips and valleys that comprised his lean form. She longed to slide her hands over the entire terrain of his body and marvel at how his muscles moved when he shifted.
He was a work of art.
But then he kissed her, and that changed the course of her thoughts. His lips were their own revelation, the pressure soft and light and searching. But she had skill at it now; she could use this intimacy for her purposes. Lydia slid her hand back up and sank her fingers into his hair, deepening the kiss.
Gabriel groaned into her mouth. Lydia teased him with her tongue, coaxing him from the depths of his mind, all those places she couldn’t follow. Her caresses summoned him from the abyss of his memories, traveled with him across the landscape of his thoughts. She could take up residence there, burn that kiss into his recollections like a brand.
Take me with you to Kabul. Take me with you to Moscow. And I can bring you back to England. I can take you home with me every night, if you need.
She pulled his face from hers, her nails scraping gently across his scalp. “Your name is Gabriel St. Clair,” she whispered. “And this is real. Understand?”
His eyes closed briefly at the pressure of her touch, as if it grounded him. Dragged him away from his memories. Returned him from the distance of his mind.
Then he leaned down and kissed her again.
This time, Lydia let Gabriel set the pace. His kiss was tender, lips sipping at hers like sweet nectar. Gabriel trembled above her as though that kiss left him unsteady. His hips sought purchase against her own, and Lydia gasped at his arousal sliding along her wet quim. Gabriel made a soft noise—every bit as lost to that sudden contact of their bodies. They were two forces colliding.
“Please,” she said. She held him close, pushed her knees to his hips. “Please. Give me more.”Give me everything.
“You want me inside you?” he murmured, his lips grazing gently across her nipple.
“Yes.”
Gabriel lifted his head, his gaze colliding with hers. “How deep do you want me to be?”
The intensity of that look rendered her speechless. Her thoughts were chaos—he was already beneath her skin, imbedded in her soul. But she craved his love, his heart. Every part he kept from her.
