by Nina Lane
The old mansion sat at the end of the drive, big and luminous under the warmth of the late-afternoon sun. The oak trees lining the path seemed to arch toward her, Spanish moss cascading from their branches in lacy curtains, as if welcoming her back into their embrace. A breeze shifted through the air, carrying the scents of grass and the faint, rotting smell of the bayou lining the perimeter of the grounds.
Lydia walked, her hand tightening on her valise, her stomach knotting a bit as she climbed the worn steps of the front porch. She knew she was taking a risk, that Preston could very well have returned by now, but she also knew she would far rather endure his punishment within the haven of the plantation rather than the horrible little room above Whiskey Street.
She reached out to press the bell, then waited with her heart in her throat for someone to respond.
If Preston didn’t respond, would anyone? Gabriel had said that he was still here, but…
No answer came from within. Lydia reached out a tentative hand to test the doorknob, which turned under gentle pressure. She stepped into the foyer, her whole body weakening at the familiar sense of home that she’d thought she would never experience again.
She dropped her valise, her breath shortening. She closed the door behind her and listened for a taut moment, trying to hear the sounds of Kruin’s heavy tread or Preston coming down the stairs. All was silent. Lydia let her gaze wander to the big, sweeping staircase that had once led to her room, then to the boot rack beside the door.
Gabriel’s riding boots were gone, but his sneakers were still there. That meant—
Lydia didn’t hesitate. She ran through the house, out to the veranda, down the steps, and across the flagstone path of the garden to the expanse of grass beyond. At the sight of the stables, she ran faster, loving how the breeze whipped across her face and molded her sundress to her body.
She yanked open the stable door and stopped, trying to let her eyes adjust to the darker interior, her nose filling with the familiar smells of horses and hay. She saw Gabriel’s silhouette first, tall and powerful, a thin stream of sunlight falling onto his black hair. He turned, stillness surrounding him as he caught sight of her, and then he dropped the pitchfork he was holding and started toward her.
Before she could move, before she could speak, he had her in his arms, hauling her against him, his mouth coming down on hers with a possessive force that flooded Lydia with heat and tenderness. She wound her arms around his neck, parting her lips beneath his, glorying in the sensation of pure desire that sparked between them.
He moved his hands around her, sliding them down to clutch her hips, and the pressure against the welts from Preston’s whip had Lydia sucking in a gasp of pain.
Gabriel stopped. He eased back to look at her, a frown creasing his face. “Turn around.”
She did, closing her eyes. He grasped the folds of her skirt and lifted it over her hips. Lydia hadn’t worn underwear, both because the material chafed against her bruised skin and also because she wanted to adhere to the dictate that had been issued to her when she first set foot on the plantation all those months ago.
Behind her, Gabriel was silent as he studied the map of red lines crisscrossing her round buttocks and the tops of her thighs, marking a path all the way up her lower back and over her spine. His fingers brushed against a particularly thick welt, and Lydia’s breath hissed outward in pain.
“Tell me,” he murmured.
She did. An enormous weight seemed to lift from her chest as she told Gabriel about Preston’s coercion, the horrible little room above Whiskey Street, the depraved things he had subjected her to, and finally her transgression of uttering Kruin’s name and the punishment such a remark had wrought.
When she turned back to face Gabriel, his expression was steel-like, his eyes dark with some indefinable emotion. Lydia reached up to press her hand against his jaw, wanting to ease the darkness, to bring him back to her.
She gazed at him with hot eyes and reached up to tentatively run her finger across his lips, down to the notch that lay like a secret beneath his lower lip. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him again, daring to flick her tongue against that very spot.
With a mutter, Gabriel moved away to kick the stable door shut. He grabbed a horse blanket from a rack on the wall and tossed it to the floor, and then they were both sinking to their knees with their mouths locked together and lust flaming to life.
Lydia clenched her fingers into his shirt, inhaling the clean, sweaty smell of him, her head falling back as she accepted the thrust of his tongue. He grasped her skirt again, pulling it up over her hips. Gabriel exhaled a hiss of pleasure when his fingers encountered the heat between her legs. He ran his thumb over the shorn apex of her mons, lowering his head to press kisses along the ridge of her collarbone.
Lydia arched into him, wanting to touch him in return but mindful of her still-subservient position. Only when Gabriel grasped her wrist and drew it to the unmistakable bulge pressing against the front of his jeans did Lydia experience a sense of freedom unlike anything she’d felt before.
She pressed kisses along his whiskered jaw, inhaling the faint scent of his shaving cream. She worked the buttons of his fly and took his erection into her hand. He was all warm male flesh and urgency, dampness trickling from the tip of his penis, the thick shaft pulsing beneath his taut skin. Lydia pressed her thighs together in response, her own body surging with the anticipation of having him buried deep inside her.
She moved to take off his T-shirt, her hands shaking. She gave him a questioning glance, a plea to allow her to touch his beautifully muscled chest and arms. He only smiled at her, and she slid her palms over the planes of his pectoral muscles and down to the ridges of his abdomen. Tension corded through him, a sudden restraint whose cause Lydia sensed.
To allay his concerns, she lay back against the blanket, welcoming the sting of the rough wool against her welts because in some way, Preston’s punishment had brought her back here.
Drenched in heat, Lydia pushed the straps of her sundress over her shoulders, her bare breasts topped with tight, rosy nipples jutting toward Gabriel as if begging for his touch. She stretched her arms over her head, curving her body up to him. He closed his teeth gently around one rigid peak and tugged. Shivers rained through her, centering in the pulsing ache of her lower body. She lifted her knees to hug his hips. He settled between her thighs and sealed their bodies together like a closed book.
One shift of his hips and the hard knob of his erection was pressing against her moist folds. Lydia gasped, suddenly unnerved by this reminder of his size and just how deeply he would immerse himself in her body.
He paused, one hand pressed to the side of her head as he lifted himself to look at her.
Lydia wiggled a little beneath him, her hands closing around his biceps. He pushed gently forward. Her breath caught, her chest tightening with heat as he slowly filled her, stretching her inner muscles, his breath rasping against her forehead. She let her eyes close, allowed herself to experience the sensation of him, even while part of her still recognized the novelty of this union—one untainted by shame or coercion or fear. One that just was.
He stilled for only an instant after he was fully embedded inside her and then he began to thrust, his testicles hitting her smooth flesh, his muscles tight with strain and groans rumbling through his chest. Lydia thought that she wouldn’t care if he didn’t allow her to orgasm, that it didn’t matter as long as she could feel the weight of him on top of her, the thrust of his cock, the pleasure of freedom… But inevitably her body reacted to the delicious friction, and she tightened her grip on his arms.
“Gabriel…” Her voice was strained, her eyes searching his.
He responded by slipping his hand between their bodies to her swollen clit, and that single light touch flared through Lydia’s blood like a firestorm. Ecstasy exploded through her veins, and she gave a choked cry.
Still quivering, she watched Gabriel get to his knees and take hold
of his shaft, glossy with her juices, the head darkened to a deep red. Lydia’s lips parted, her tongue flickering out with the urge to taste him, but he placed his other hand on her knee and began thrusting into the vise of his fist.
Lydia pushed up to her elbows, her rapt gaze focused on the easy motion of his hand, the shifting of his hips. A growl rumbled from his throat as his body jerked, jets of semen spilling onto Lydia’s damp thighs and sex. She drew in a breath and reached down to spread the sticky fluid over her skin, the scent filling her head. The Lydia lay back and rubbed her palms over her breasts, over the sensitive peaks of her nipples.
Gabriel stretched out beside her, settling his hand across her throat where her pulse still throbbed heavily. She turned her head to face him, struck as always by the beauty of his green eyes—not like cold, stony sapphires, but warm and alive, like grass, leaves, clover. A trickle of sweat ran down his temple.
One of the horses snorted and stamped, the noise breaking Lydia from her reverie.
“Is Preston here?” she whispered, unable to prevent the cold threads from invading her heart once again.
Gabriel shook his head, his palm still loose and warm against her throat. “Not now. I don’t know when he’ll return.”
The cold in her heart intensified. Gabriel brushed his fingers across her lips before getting to his feet. He pulled her up to stand and tugged her sundress back over her head. Lydia smoothed the skirt while Gabriel shrugged into his clothes, then took her hand and led her back outside. Her body throbbed, her skin hurting anew from the friction against the painful bruises, but now the sensation was almost enjoyable.
“Is Kruin here?” she asked as they walked back toward the house.
“No. He’s expected to return at the end of the week.” Gabriel pressed his hand to her upper back, a shadow passing across his features. “I don’t want to risk him finding you here. He’s a good man, but he owes Preston a great deal and is loyal to him.”
Kruin is a big, stupid dog on a leash…
Lydia’s heart sank. Surely Kruin wouldn’t betray her and Gabriel for Preston’s sake?
“Go inside,” Gabriel murmured, urging her up the veranda steps. “I’ll be right there.”
Lydia went into the house, then stopped when she realized she didn’t quite know where she was supposed to go. Her heart knocked against her ribs as she thought of her old room at the top of the stairs, and Gabriel’s bedroom right next to it.
Anxiety twisted inside her. Had they changed the room completely, expecting her never to return? She went upstairs and down the corridor to the closed door. She opened it slowly, hardly daring to breathe.
It was the same. Everything, from her soft, rumpled comforter to the lotions and brush on the dresser to the clothes still hanging in the closet and the robe tossed over the bed… all of it was exactly the way she’d left it.
Lydia opened the closet door and saw her pretty cotton dresses still hanging neatly. She selected a blue dress with bell sleeves and a full skirt, tossing it onto the bed and fumbling to divest herself of her wrinkled sundress.
The door clicked open before she’d gotten the straps off her shoulders.
Gabriel entered the room. His expression was gentle, though there was still an edge of anger to him that Lydia knew was not directed at her. He moved behind her, slipping the dress from her body and letting it puddle to the floor so she could step out of it. He led her to the bathroom and ran warm water into the tub, filling it with peach-scented bubbles. He took her hand to help her step into the soothing bath, and Lydia almost cried when he began to soap her with a touch so tender and exquisite that she never wanted him to stop.
His strong hands glided over her naked body, rubbing froth over her breasts and into the crevice beneath them, dipping his fingers between her legs, the cleft of her buttocks, down the curves of her legs. He washed every part of her body, taking particular care with the wounds lacing her skin, cleansing her of the grime and filth that had clung to her while under Preston’s cruel control.
Gabriel then scrubbed her hair with a deliciously scented shampoo, his adept fingers working blissfully against her scalp. He turned on the shower to wash the bubbles from her wet body, then helped her out and enfolded her in a big, fluffy towel, his movements such that he made her feel like a cherished treasure.
After returning to the bedroom, he instructed her to lie down on the bed so he could massage a cooling salve into the welts on her backside. His care of her was so soothing, so welcoming and heavenly, that Lydia thought she would do anything to avoid returning to Preston, no matter the degree of his threats.
Gabriel pressed his hand against Lydia’s hair and bent to kiss her forehead. “Rest now. I’ll come and get you for dinner.”
After he left, Lydia closed her eyes with a sigh of relief and pleasure. She refused to think about what would happen next, about the danger in which she’d put herself yet again.
For now, she was back within the haven of the plantation. For now, Gabriel was here. For now, nothing else mattered.
Lydia slept for a short time. When she woke, she slipped into the fresh dress still lying on her bed. She curled up in the chair beside the window and read chapters of a book that she’d not had a chance to finish before leaving La Nouvelle Vie.
The sky was just beginning to darken when Gabriel came to call her in for dinner. She was delighted to find that the meal was being served in the solarium, and the evening sunlight filled the glass annex with a reddish glow. The numerous windows reflected the lush, glossy plants, and the table was set with delicate china plates and silver dishes that emitted the mouth-watering aromas of dill and lemon.
Gabriel pulled out a chair for Lydia, giving her a smile as she took her seat. He sat across from her and gestured for her to serve herself—another revelation considering how Preston had always taken it upon himself to fill her plate as if she were a child incapable of procuring her own food.
Tonight’s meal was utterly scrumptious, consisting of arugula salad with candied walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette; fresh grilled salmon; fluffy, brown-butter couscous; and roasted asparagus drizzled with olive oil and lemon. Gabriel poured her a glass of Syrah, a light but rich wine with a hint of earthiness that paired beautifully with the fish.
Lydia ate slowly, relishing every bite, welcoming with her whole being the change from both the pathetic bland portions at her parents’ house and the gluttonous, gastronomic excess of the food Preston offered her.
This was how one should eat—these carefully prepared, layered meals where each bite complemented the next, where flavors and textures were perfectly united and meant to be savored. One should eat in such a lovely setting all the time, with pretty plates and shiny cutlery, surrounded by green plants and flowers, enjoying the setting sun glowing through the windows and a view of grassy hills dotted with trees. One should not eat stifled by the dark paneling and heavy chandelier in a formal dining room or sweating in a hot, decrepit hovel with street noise and shouts filtering through the smudged window.
Lydia shot Gabriel a smile of thanks as he refilled her wineglass. She let herself be lulled by the deliciousness of the food, the quiet but comforting presence of this man whom she had so deeply missed, the safety of the plantation. By the time they began dessert, a light lemon angel cake topped with fresh raspberries, Lydia thought she would do anything to be able to stay at La Nouvelle Vie forever.
When the reddish glow disappeared from the sky, Gabriel finally spoke.
“Where does he take you?” His voice was quiet, but edged with steel.
“I don’t know exactly where it is.” Lydia shrugged, not wanting to think about what she’d done in that horrible little hovel. “A room above a noisy street.”
“For how long?”
“A few weeks. Maybe a month. I can’t remember. He threatened to divulge what… what happens here. And he made implications about my mother and sister.”
She lifted her gaze to look at him. He was frow
ning at his wineglass, his brow knit.
She knew she couldn’t stay. Not with her father certain to close in the moment he heard she was gone again. Not with Preston looming at the edges of her life, his jealous possessiveness black and greasy as an oil spill. He might already have guessed she was here and was just biding his time before making a move. And Lydia could not wait around to see what, exactly, that move would be.
At the same time, she couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the dreadful duality of her life back in New Orleans.
“Will you send me back?” she asked. Just the thought had anxiety clawing at her, even as she knew that neither Preston nor her father would allow her to hide away at the plantation again.
“No.” Gabriel shook his head. “But neither can you stay here, Lydia. You’ll have to leave again within a day or two. We both will.”
Her breath caught. “We?”
Gabriel pushed back his chair and stood. Though his expression was grave, a distinct warmth filled his eyes as he curled his hand around hers.
Together they returned upstairs, but he guided Lydia past her own bedroom to his. A shiver of pleasure traveled through her when she stepped into the comfortable, masculine space she’d only been in once before, and without Gabriel’s knowledge.
She detached her hand from his and wandered around the room as if she were seeing it for the first time. She touched the rumpled navy comforter, studied the books on the shelf, looked out the window, picked up the DVDs resting beside the television. She sensed Gabriel watching her, but he didn’t move to stop her.
Lydia ran one finger over the comb resting on his dresser. She lifted her head and met his gaze in the mirror. He was still standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets and his eyes hooded.
Something clicked inside Lydia suddenly, like a key turning in a lock. Opening it. She stared at Gabriel, struck by the sense that she was both falling and rising, that for perhaps the first time in her life a man had thought more of her than of himself.
