Page 73 of A Bride By Morning
Gabriel turned away from her, returning his attention to the window. “It’s late. You ought to sleep if you can.”
She sighed, and the air grew cold as she moved away. Gabriel swallowed as he listened to the rustle of fabric—Lydia removing her garments.
After a beat of silence, she spoke again. “This dress has buttons up the back,” she said. “And you’ve sent my maid home.”
Gabriel shut his eyes briefly, cursing his decision to send her maid away, cursing ladies’ garments for requiring help to take on and off. Cursing the sudden stiffening of his cock, which didnothelp matters.
He pushed away from the window seat and approached her. Lydia turned to offer her back, sweeping aside the tendril of hair that had fallen from her coiffure. Gabriel was left with a view of her graceful nape, the tidy row of buttons like a gift to unwrap. He wanted to press his lipsright there, to the small expanse of exposed skin bared like a taunt.
As if she sensed the direction of his thoughts, Lydia’s breath hitched. It was as if their bodies suddenly became mirrored images of one another: same heart, same set of lungs, same need. Gabriel flicked open the top button, and Lydia’s entire body responded to his touch, a shiver passing through her.
Gabriel opened another button. And another. The triangle of exposed pale skin expanded until he bared the top of her combination, then the stays of her corset. Frustration paused his hands as he contemplated these obstructions—both of them denying him this moment. This opportunity. Thisexcuseto see all of her. A justification he would not have once he answered that goddamn letter on his desk.
He set his jaw and tackled the remaining buttons with a determination to get it over with and find some way to collect himself while she slumbered. He would relearn to fucking breathe if he had to.
But Gabriel had overestimated his ability to resist her; when he finished, he could not bring himself to move. Lydia pushed her dress down her shoulders. The gown slithered to the floor, where it landed in a whisper of fabric. Gabriel watched as her long, graceful fingers unpicked the tapes of her petticoats. Those, too, joined the heap of material on the floor.
Gabriel closed his fingers into fists and fought the urge to put his hands on her. Her undergarments were another sort of intimacy: no other man but he would glimpse the dainty lace that lined the drawers of her combination, nor the ribbons and tiny rosebuds that adorned her pink corset. Garments made so beautifully just to be hidden away. A blessing for him alone.
Lydia turned her face slightly until he had a partial view of her profile. Of the faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “My corset,” she whispered.
Gabriel held his breath as he reached for Lydia again, plucking the laces of the garment. It yielded beneath his ministrations, the silk encased boning splitting from her body to reveal the delicate muslin combination beneath—such a minuscule scrap of fabric to hide her from his view. When the corset landed on the floor, her remaining undergarment did little to conceal her body. Her pale skin was visible beneath the white fabric, the outline of her shape illuminated by the firelight. All he had to do was remove one more layer, and she would be bared entirely. Her nudity was a gift he had not fully enjoyed back at Meadowcroft.
Gabriel heard Lydia swallow. “My combination.”
He was aware that the delicate undergarment didn’t require his help to remove. Yet he could not bring himself to remind her, nor could he refuse her request. It was as if she had stirred a compulsion within him, a strange hunger that could only be sated by touch—and only hers would satisfy.
Unable to stop, Gabriel slid his arms around her to gently untie the ribbons at her breasts. She stilled, a soft moan escaping her as his hand grazed the nipple that puckered through the flimsy fabric. Something about that sound snagged at him, caught fire in his lungs, spread heat through his bloodstream. He dropped his mouth to her nape and pressed his lips to the bared skin there.
“What are you doing to me?” Gabriel whispered. She was a fire melting every part of him, right down to his very foundations.
As if she read his mind, Lydia shoved the combination off her shoulders. The fabric dropped to the floor with the rest of her clothes, that final impediment absent from her body. All that remained was hot bare skin against his hands.
His teeth gently scraped her nape, a wordless request for an answer.
He ought to have known she would not cower away from such a demand. Instead, Lydia turned in his arms, those dark eyes meeting his own. “I wish to keep you,” she said firmly. “Understand?”
That voice might as well have been steel. It ought to have battered against his better instincts—reminded him of the letter on the table not ten feet away—but Gabriel no longer had defenses against her. Everything he’d built crumbled beneath her touch. Perhaps it had been formed of flawed foundations to begin with. She had known every vulnerable part of his anatomy.
Gabriel’s gaze dropped to her body, proudly bared before him. The jut of her small breasts, the dip of her waist—both features he traced with his palm to feel their shape. Her skin was lined and puckered from the corset’s constriction. Features that only his eyes would see.
His desire ignited when she grasped his chin and forced his gaze up. “I am yours. You are mine,” she said. “Yes?”
Because those words were true—because he could no longer deny them—Gabriel answered with a single word, spoken in a rough growl: “Yes.”
And then he claimed her lips with his own.
Gabriel ought to have remembered what her kiss did. When their lips touched, he ceased the capacity to think and reason. All that mattered was more of her.
Frantically, he flicked open the buttons of his clothes. His movements were inelegant, concerned only with removing those obstructions that separated them. Her fingers were cleverer—she had his garments off in seconds. Her desperation gratified him, reminded him that he was not the only victim of their shared passion. She had declared herself his, and he had always been hers. They were equal in their need.
Gabriel nipped at her lips, his hands coasting down her hips to find her quim wet beneath his fingers. “Is this what you’ve wanted for days?” he asked her, sliding his fingers inside her.
Lydia grasped his shoulders as if for balance. “Yes.Yes.”
A satisfied noise escaped Gabriel’s throat as he picked her up and carried her to the bed. “Tell me you want me to fuck you.”
Her hot lips tracked down the line of his jaw. “I want you to fuck me.”
