She’d almost given up altogether when she recalled his studio.
Her knock on the closed door went unanswered, as did her tentative, “Gavin?” and her somewhat more forceful, “Gavin!” Either he was not inside, or he had no wish for her company. Too bad.
Her fingers curved around the brass doorknob. The cold metal sent ripples of gooseflesh along her arms. Or perhaps the gooseflesh was due to her impending confrontation with the man within. If he were within. There was but one way to be sure.
With a twist of the handle, she eased the door open.
Large windows graced the far wall. A maze of tall wooden easels cluttered up the interior. Layer upon layer of canvases tilted against all four walls, some bare, some with breath-stealing landscapes. A thick, pungent smell permeated the air with a sharp, strange scent. Paintbrushes, color-smudged palettes, and half-rolled tubes lay atop a table covered in stained cloths. A jumble of wood stacked in one corner next to an unfinished frame.
On the opposite side of the room stood a lone long-limbed figure, feet at shoulder width, thumbs hooked into his waistband, gaze fixed at the sprawling view of wild blackberry fields below.
Evangeline cleared her throat.
He remained motionless.
“I know you’re innocent,” she informed him softly. “I know you’ve never killed anyone in your life.”
He smiled grimly.
“Rebecca heard rumors, that’s all,” she tried again, taking a hesitant step closer. “I had already told her you didn’t do it.”
He didn’t respond.
“I apologize,” Evangeline said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He said nothing.
“Do you want me to leave?”
His jaw tightened.
“Do you want me to stay?”
His muscles twitched.
“May I see Jane’s portrait?”
He whirled to face her.
“What would be the point?” he demanded, eyes bleak. “It’s half-finished. It’ll never be finished. Now that they’re terrified I killed their father, they’ll be too frightened to suffer my company, much less sit for me. Rose will take them away and I’ll never see them again. Not even on canvas.”
Before she could respond, he strode to an easel facing a small chair. He grimaced at the canvas perched on the crossbar. His hand lifted above his shoulder, then came flying down toward what was no doubt Jane’s unfinished portrait.
“No,” Evangeline cried and launched herself across the room.
She tried to throw herself between him and the still-wet canvas—and succeeded.
The edge of his palm barely glanced against her, but a horrified expression engulfed his face.
“Oh, my God.” His voice was strangled, his face ashen. “I hit you. Oh, my God.”
“You didn’t.” She shook her head frantically. “I swear you didn’t. It was me. I didn’t want you to ruin the painting. You love your niece. She loves you. Don’t look at me like that, Gavin. You didn’t hurt me. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know. You didn’t. I swear.”
He hauled her to his chest and crushed his lips to hers.
She clung to him and opened her mouth to his. He tasted like shock, like fear, like desperation. She gripped his forearms, dug her fingers into hard muscle. His tongue swept across hers, needing, searching. She licked, bit, suckled. He growled and held her closer, tighter, as if afraid to let her go, as if afraid she would go. She welcomed the passionate fury of his kisses, tried to tell him with her tongue and her mouth and her body that she could never leave him alone and hurting, that she couldn’t bear to see him in pain. She needed him, trusted him, loved him.
Her breath caught. She loved him.
As if she’d spoken the thought aloud, his embrace gentled, his kiss became sweeter, less demanding. After a moment, he gave her lips a final soft kiss and rested his overly warm forehead against hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was…scared.”
The admission sounded as though it had been tortured from his lungs.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, leaning her cheek against the rapid beating of his heart. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He scooped her up, reached the portrait chair in two long strides, cuddled her onto his lap. He kissed her again, hungrily, urgently, as if he couldn’t bear not kissing her. She hoped he never stopped. His hands cradled her face, stroked her hair, nestled her closer. His shaft was hot and rigid against her thigh. Her breasts ached above her stays, the nipples chafing against the unyielding cloth.
“Touch me,” she whispered into his mouth.
For a moment, she thought he would refuse, that she’d been too forward, that he was shocked at her request.
Half a heartbeat later, he sucked in a deep shuddering breath and slid his hand from the back of her neck to her shoulder.
“Here?” he asked, his voice teasing, his eyes dark with passion. “Should I touch you here, on your shoulder?”
“No.” Her nipples tightened in anticipation. “Lower. Please.”
His palm slid downward, coasting from her shoulder, to her forearm, to the side of her ribs. His fingers splayed there, his thumb tantalizingly close to the swell of her breast.
“Here?” he asked. “Is this better?”
“You know it’s not.” It was all Evangeline could do not to rip her bodice open herself and force his hands to her chest. “I want you to touch my breast.”
“Oh, your breast,” he said, his rakish grin stealing her breath and quickening her pulse. “I would love to touch your breast.”
Slowly, slowly, his fingers slid from her side, the heat from his palm burning through her gown. His hand cupped her, stroked her, caressed her. He claimed her mouth with a hot, wet kiss. His fingers rolled across her nipples until she arched into him, silently demanding more. And when her aching, needing body didn’t get everything he could offer, she voiced her demands out loud.
“Touch me,” she said, “like you were going to touch me in the summerhouse.”
He arched a brow. “Do you know what I was going to do?”
She shook her head.
“But you want me to do it anyway?”
She nodded eagerly.
His eyes crinkled as his mouth curved into a slow sensual smile that left her trembling with need. “Then I would love to.”
His head bent over hers, his breath becoming her breath. She threaded her fingers through the back of his hair and kissed him back. His teasing fingers left her nipple, slid down her breast, her ribs, her waist, her hip, her thigh. Cool air tickled her skin as he lifted her gown higher, higher. His warm knuckles brushed against her ankle, the curve of her calf, the back of her knee.
She whimpered against his mouth as his warm palm coasted up her inner thigh. His fingertips brushed against the damp hair hidden beneath her chemise. She was fairly certain she was getting damper by the second. Her entire core heated, moistened, swelled. She shifted, tilting her pelvis toward his taunting fingertips, desperate to feel them against the throbbing ache between her legs.
Ah! She sucked in a breath. There. There. The curve of his finger stroked against her flesh. Her thighs tightened around his hand. He did it again, over and over, his knuckle warm and slick against her, forward, backward, rubbing, nuzzling, teasing. Her thighs tightened again as muscles she didn’t even know she had began to wake, to tense, to yearn.
She gasped when he nudged the tip of his finger inside her body and stroked her with his thumb. He slid his finger the rest of the way inside, slowly, relentlessly, the entire time making delicious circular patterns with the pad of his thumb against her burning flesh. With one finger fully inside and the other coaxing her to an ever-building pressure, he bent his head to her breast and suckled her through the thin silk of her gown, grazing his teeth across her tender nipple.
&nbs
p; Her entire body spasmed. Her muscles clenched around his finger, kneading him. His thumb continued stroking her until the tremors subsided and she fell face forward against his shoulder, panting.
“That,” he murmured into her hair, “is what I wanted to do in the summerhouse.”
Her muscles contracted again at the thought.
He slid his finger from her gently, smoothed down her gown, cradled her to him. His cheek rested atop her head. Evangeline wrapped her arms around his chest and held tight. His heart was beating as fast as her own. His shaft still throbbed against her.
“May I touch you?” she asked.
He seemed to grow even harder against her thigh.
“Not here,” he said. “Too messy.”
She lifted her head until her gaze met his. “When can I?”
“Evangeline,” he said, his voice hoarse and unsteady, his gaze smoldering with restrained passion. “You don’t have to touch me just because I—”
“I want to touch you.” She stroked his cheek with her palm, nipped at his mouth. “I want…everything.”
He swallowed. “Everything?”
She pressed her lips to his and nodded. “Will you?”
His shaft leapt and swelled. She smiled. He may not have realized it, but his body had already given his answer. She opened her mouth and kissed him.
“Tonight,” he gasped between hot, demanding kisses. “I’ll come to you tonight.”
She licked his lower lip. “And you’ll touch me again?”
He closed his eyes and shuddered. “I’ll do anything you ask.”
Chapter 36
He came to her through the bookcase.
Evangeline replaced the poker she’d used to stoke the fire and turned to face him. Gavin was in half dress. She wore nothing but her shift. He looked splendid, as always. Dashing. Hungry. Hers.
Thumbs hooked in waistband, he lounged against the now-closed panel. The intensity of his gaze heated her flesh more than the fire at her back. Now that she’d invited the lion into her den, what was she going to do with him?
She took a tentative step toward him. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You.” His mouth smiled, but his eyes suggested he wanted to devour her.
She glanced around her bedchamber. Bookshelf, bookshelf, fireplace, mirror, bed. Yet he continued lounging against the bookshelf, watching her, waiting.
“W-what are you doing?” she asked again.
“I told you.” His eyes held wicked promise. “Anything you ask.”
She wrapped her arms across her chest. “I have to ask for everything I wish?”
He inclined his head. “I’m yours to command.”
Her arms relaxed. Hmmm. Put that way, she couldn’t help but think of a dozen different things she could ask him to do. Everything he’d done in the studio. And then some.
Perhaps she should start with the “then some.”
“Come here,” she ordered. Her pulse raced when he immediately prowled closer, his dark eyes never leaving her face.
He stopped just before the tips of his boots brushed against her toes. He gazed down at her, serious, intense, the heat in his eyes betraying barely restrained patience. It was killing him not to take charge, Evangeline realized as she stared up at him. He was the sort of man who knew what he wanted, went after what he wanted, took what he wanted. And yet he did not. He was relinquishing control for her.
Her thin cotton shift suddenly felt as thick and heavy as wool. Already she could feel her body responding to the masculine scent of his skin, the dark passion in his eyes, the power in his taut muscles.
She reached out with one hand and skated her fingertips along the width of his shoulder, down the length of his arm. He didn’t move. Holding himself in check. For her. Her body thrilled at the knowledge.
“Take off your jacket,” she commanded him.
In a trice, he shucked the offending garment and dropped it at his feet. She kicked it away. Still his gaze didn’t leave her face.
“May I divest you of your cravat?” She tugged at the snowy white cloth without waiting for a response.
He gave none; just waited, tense, letting her do as she would.
“And this waistcoat,” she said. “We must take it off.”
Fingers trembling, she fumbled with the first button. When he stood there, strong, silent, unmoving except for his heart pounding beneath her fingertips, Evangeline grew bolder. She tossed him a saucy sideways look through her lashes as she slipped the buttons from their holes. But when his waistcoat joined his jacket and cravat in an unceremonious pile on the floor, she hesitated before touching the last remaining bit of linen covering his chest.
“You…don’t have to do anything you don’t wish to,” he said softly, the words coming out gruff and strained.
“I wish,” she informed him just as softly, “to do everything.”
His lashes lowered. His nostrils flared.
Unable to wait a moment longer, Evangeline pushed up with her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. He caught her just as she pressed her lips to his.
“Kiss me,” she whispered against his closed mouth.
When his teeth parted, she swept her tongue against his. He tasted just like she remembered. Spicy. Masculine. Potent. Leaving him tomorrow would tear her heart in two. At least she’d have tonight.
Reminded of their fleeting time together, she set to work removing his shirt as best she could between long, lingering kisses. Once unbuttoned, she slid the linen sleeves off his wide shoulders, down the hard ridges of his arms. He let go of her long enough to let the garment fall to the floor, and then he pulled her to him. He held her against his mouth, his bare chest, his thick shaft.
When a now-familiar heat began to coil between her thighs, she pulled away just far enough to look at him. Warm firelight flickered across his neck, his shoulders, his arms. Her hands slid across the warm skin of his chest, the strange wiry hairs, the tensed muscles. She rubbed one of his nipples. It hardened beneath her fingertip.
“When do I get to do that to you?” he asked gruffly.
“When I ask you.”
He frowned, as if more than half-regretting putting her in control of the evening’s activities. “Ask soon.”
“I will.” She smiled up at him, a large part of her delighting in having the power to determine what and when and how. She pushed him backward until his thighs bumped against the foot of the bed. “Sit. I want to take off your boots.”
He sat.
She knelt before him, tugged his boots from his feet, tossed them aside. Fingers curving around a carved wooden bedpost, she pulled herself upright and then slanted him a suspicious glance.
“You’re not the artist responsible for these hideous trolls, are you?”
“You don’t like them?” he asked innocently.
“Insufferable man.”
He grinned.
Once she’d stripped him of his stockings, she pushed at his chest until he fell back against the mattress.
Legs splayed, he propped himself up on his elbows to watch her. His arms flexed. His grin widened. She ran a finger along the edge of his waistband. His eyes grew serious, intense. Her hand hovered a hairsbreadth above the ridge creasing the fall of his breeches. His shaft pulsed, pushing the material in brief contact with her fingers. She touched him again, gently, tentatively. As before, his shaft jumped against her palm. She cupped her hand over it, stroking down, stroking up.
Gavin collapsed against the mattress.
Evangeline froze, her hand still molded to his heat.
“What’s wrong?” she asked nervously. “You don’t like it?”
“No,” he groaned toward the canopy. “I love it.”
She smiled, gripped him a little harder, stroked again. His fingers clenched the bedsheet. She undid the buttons of his fall to caress him again, this time without the cumbersome cloth between his shaft and her hand. It
was smooth, hot, throbbing.
“Give me words,” she commanded.
“What?”
She squeezed a little as she tugged. “What do you call this?”
“Uh…my cock?”
His cock. Yes. It responded to her caresses by swelling against her palm, just like her body had responded to his caresses by heating and becoming damp.
She tugged down his breeches and paused when she caught sight of a thin red line slashing across one hip. He had gotten that wound while trying to protect her.
“Will it scar?”
He lifted himself up on one elbow, shrugged. “Won’t be the first.”
She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
“I’d do it again.” He gazed at her, his expression grave.
Evangeline stared back at him for a moment, silent, wishing he weren’t lying down so she could kiss him. Wait. He was hers to command, was he not? She could kiss him anytime she wished.
She tugged him forward until he was sitting up enough for her to cradle his face in her hands and touch her lips to his. His mouth opened hungrily beneath hers, licking, suckling, nibbling. When he slid his hands down her back to cup her closer, she pulled away long enough to yank off his breeches.
Finally. He was naked. And perfect.
She’d seen men in various states of undress before, but only in visions. She’d never held one, touched one, loved one. Everything she knew about lovemaking came from stolen glimpses of other people’s lives. At last she would have a memory of her own. She lifted her shift above her head and tossed it to the floor. There. She was naked, too.
Her nipples budded in the cool air. His cock pulsed.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.
She touched a hand to her head. “My chignon fell apart.”
“I like your hair curly and loose and wild. The fire gives your silhouette a warm glow. I would like to paint you, just like that.”
“Nude?”
“Utterly.”
A thrill shivered down her spine. Could she do something like that? Pose naked, exposed, allowing him to commit every curve of her body to canvas? The very illicitness of his proposal only made the idea more erotic.
Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1 Page 29
