Annette Blair

by Holy Scoundrel

  Look at him, she thought, wide-shouldered posture rigid, no hat or coat, defying the very elements to get his way. Stubborn. Dear. Traveling a raging river of a road as turbulent and deep as the man mocking it.

  How could he explain having sent her away?

  He couldn’t.

  It didn’t matter. It was done. She cared for him too much to let this break them. Had he said much the same after service?

  She had hurt him badly. Perhaps she’d deserved his revenge, if vengeance her banishment had been.

  “Gabriel,” she called, and he turned, surprised to see her.

  “Self-punishment will prove nothing,” she said. “Take me home.”

  The wordhome hung in the heavy, moist air between them, the pelting rain making the possibility of home and hearth more real and more appealing.

  His features lightening, he relaxed his hold on the reins and started to speak. The horses faltered. He swore and turned back to them, but the flood seemed more than they could navigate.

  Just when Lacey thought he had them under control, lightning and thunder struck as one.

  The horses bolted, tearing the reins from Gabe’s hands, and they raced forth till all she could see was a stand of trees.

  Gabriel fought to keep his seat and shouted for her to get back.

  She did, holding to anything that wasn’t toppling, and watched, frightened to death, as he struggled to climb over the seat and grasp the sill, the wagon careening and teetering like an angry mount trying to throw its rider.

  He’d barely climbed through and cleared the window than Lacey saw that the spooked horses were about to choose opposite sides of an ancient oak.

  Gabriel had just righted himself when the wagon hit.

  A limb pushed its way through the window he’d climbed through, splintering wood, shattering glass.

  Gabriel swore as they toppled.

  Books flew from a railed shelf, coming toward them and battering Gabe about his head and shoulders, one after another.

  The wagon teetered once, twice, three shuddering times, then it settled, with a huge creaking groan, nearly upright, impaled by a tree.

  When silence came, they lay on the floor of Ivy’s wagon, locked inside, Gabriel on top of her.

  Awareness came to Gabe in slow measure. He first registered his own rapid breathing. Ice cold and soaking wet, his body nevertheless rejoiced at its soft resting place—Lacey.

  He allowed himself to enjoy the feel of Lacey beneath him for one long delectable moment before he raised his aching head to look into her wide, verdant eyes.

  Invisible shafts of white-hot current shot between them as if they were at opposite poles of the light flashing about them.

  In her eyes, he read awareness of his body’s awakening, his arousal rampant. He knew just watching her that her own stirred as well.

  “You’re . . . wet,” she said, licking from her lips the rain dripping off him.

  “As are you.” The husky timbre of his voice surprised even him.

  “Yes.”

  Concerned of a sudden that he might crush her, Gabe rolled to his side. His erection now prodding her thigh, he kissed the second-hand rain from her lips.

  Salty.

  Tears, not rain.

  Heart tripping, he sat up. “Are you hurt?” He ran his hands over her to be certain.

  Lacey slapped them away and shot to her feet as if she meant to escape, except there was nowhere for her to go. The entire wagon was no bigger than a priest’s hole, sparse but homey, and surprisingly warm and dry . . . except for his own soaked self, the leaves on the impaling branch, and now Lacey, because of him.

  She stood as far away as she could get, beside the branch hanging over the cook-stove. Then she squeaked and came closer, despite herself. She must have been dripped on.

  Gabriel rose to his feet and began to peel away his cold, soaking vestments—cassock first—with slow, sensual purpose.

  Panic rose in her wide eyes. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re a vicar, for God’s sake.”

  “But I’m a man for my own sake . . . and yours. You knew me as a man first.”

  “A boy. I knew you as a boy first.”

  Gabriel hated the rag-wearing child he’d been. “I didn’t like that boy.”

  “Only because he wasn’t perfect, Gabriel. But he was human and that’s allowed. If you didn’t know it somewhere deep down, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  Score one for Lacey. “Right.” He began to unbutton his shirt.

  She stepped back and hit the branch, sprinkling more water over herself. “Look what you’ve brought us to,” she snapped. “What the devil were you thinking to steal me before the eyes of the town? Well, you wasted your time and a great deal of money as well for all this sorry mess will cost. You couldn’t take me far enough away to make me believe you had me cast out for any other reason but to save your sorry self from being exposed as having been . . . ensnared . . . in my wanton web. You—”

  “Lace, you’re babbling.”

  She flushed.

  “Prout would have had you stoned in all but fact had you stayed, Lace. I did nothing more than concur with your mother’s opinion, however, as did Ivy, that you should go for your own good!”

  She laughed contemptuously as she rummaged through a drawer.

  The scorn of no other could cut as deeply, Gabe realized.

  “Don’t be so disrespectful of your motherin-law,” she said as she lit a candle against the fading afternoon.

  “There’ll be a frost fair in hell before I marry that bit—harpy’s whelp.”

  “Vicar Kendrick! What would your flock think to have their sainted shepherd speaking so?”

  Gabe didn’t stifle his vulgarity this time. He peeled away his shirt and tossed it to the floor. “Nobody knows better than you that I’m as human, and a cursed sight more imperfect, than you are. You should also remember that nobody’s humanity calls to mine more than yours does, Lacey Ashton—soon to be Kendrick, after this day’s work is done.”

  “Nothing has happened to—”

  “That won’t matter.” Gabe unbuttoned his wet trousers.

  Lacey looked around but there was no place for her to go, so Gabe advanced, giving her less choice. “If we get you out of your crinolines,” he said, “you’ll have more room to run.”

  Lacey gasped, both shocked and exhilarated, as Gabriel knelt before her and lifted the hem of her gown.

  She knew she should stop him, but for the life of her, she could not raise a hand to do it. Her arms were leaden, as were her legs, but for their sudden need to buckle at the knees.

  He found the tapes at her waist and undid them with care, his forearms warm and wet against her belly.

  Her gown broke free and fell over his head.

  Lacey squeaked and pulled it up, holding it to allow him to continue, her face flaming when she realized what she was doing.

  But she didn’t let go.

  When he looked up at her then, eyes dancing, hair askew, she swore her heart did a small flip before it laid itself at his feet.

  One by one, her crinolines fell to the floor, wire and whalebone shaping them into smaller and smaller circles.

  Gabriel stroked the front of her cotton drawers, rushing warmth to her core, and rested his cheek there, before he turned his head and opened his mouth against her, whispering her name like a prayer.

  Lacey closed her eyes and wove the fingers of both hands through his wet mane of dark hair as if she were trying to keep him there.

  He moved his big cool hands upward along the backs of her thighs, sliding them beneath the soft cotton to cup her bare bottom, then he slid those talented hands slightly forward and splayed them to stroke and tease, closer and closer to her core.

  Lacey let out the breath she’d been holding with a ragged, shuddering sigh, and Gabriel rose like the vengeful Lucifer to open his mouth over hers. Ravenous, he swallowed her sighs, drew more, until he was so much a part of he
r, she might bleed if he stopped.

  Just when she thought the kiss had reached the height of perfection, he began to undo the buttons at her bodice, stroking her like a whisper of butterfly wings as he did, standing all her nerve endings and setting them aflame.

  He freed her arms from her sleeves before she knew it. Just as well; she had not the strength to help or resist.

  “That’s my sweet girl. Mine,” he whispered the claim as he slid her dress slowly downward along her torso, the palms of his hands skimming her. When he cleared her hips, her gown slid to the floor and joined nearly all that had once come between them on the floor.

  He took her hand and she stepped over her clothes, to face her lover in the center of a gypsy-wagon-turned-cocoon-turned-heaven.

  He slipped her camisole up and over her head. Then he stepped back to regard her, a connoisseur examining a work of art, assessing it and delighting in the vision of creation.

  “God’s work,” he said. “Well done.”

  Standing there, in corset, chemisette, and stockings, Lacey wished her underpinnings were silk and lace, like those she’d helped make for Jade’s trousseau at Peacehaven. Hers were no more than serviceable cotton, rough, plain, and well-worn, yet Gabriel regarded her every bit as hungrily as Marcus had often eyed Jade.

  She’d dreamed of this moment for five long years, and whether this would be the first of many nights for them, or the last, she loved this dignified, handsome, stubborn bear of a man more than she loved her life.

  She wouldn’t trade this time with him for anything, no matter the pain that must inevitably follow.

  She wanted him in the way a woman wants her man, inside her, deep, one with her and the universe, as if no one else existed but them.

  As if she spoke her surrender, Gabriel nodded and undid her garters with renewed determination, sliding each of her stockings down her legs. Then he stood, turned her back to him, and unlaced her corset just enough to slip his hands inside and around her, until he cupped her breasts full in them.

  Lacey leaned back against him as he plumped her breasts like silk pillows and pebbled her nipples, whispering his adoration of her body, his breath and lips warm along her neck, her ears, her shoulders.

  Potent points of pleasure coursed through her with burgeoning force. Happiness soared, her womanhood flowered, wet and welcoming, pulsing to take him in.

  In a trice, Gabriel did away with her corset, turned her, and lifted a breast to suckle through her chemisette. With his other hand, he reacquainted himself with the heat of her beneath her drawers.

  Finally, they, too, were gone and Lacey stood naked before the man she loved.

  Rather than allow his smoldering eyes to set her ablaze, she disposed of his trousers in a thrumming heartbeat and saw he was wearing an item of male attire she’d heard about but never seen. Underbreeches. She circled him to get a good look, then she gave him back a bit of his own.

  Stroking the fabric ever so lightly across the front, she discovered, to her surprise, that the marvelous new inventions were slit just enough to accommodate . . . a lover’s hand, or his own, the thought of which made her wet.

  He gasped when she found him, that part of him rigid and thick, the rest soft and supple . . . except her other hand wanted to touch him as well, and so she knelt and teased his underbreeches down his legs, slow and torturous, letting her cheek graze him, making him jump, and swear, and shiver and groan, until she finally cupped him in one hand even as she closed her other around him.

  Who knew she had such power? She incited him to throw back his head and shout for her to stop, and continue, and to stifle a groan, as if he experienced more pain than pleasure, but she knew better. She liked as well that she could make him beg and buck and plead for her to stop and continue and hurry and, “Stop!” but “Don’t!”

  Then he was setting her on the bed and kissing her and coming down on her, opening his mouth over her own once more.

  Hard to her soft, cool to her hot, he dipped where she curved, and arched where she plunged, and all so deliciously and perfectly well. They fit into and along each other like two pieces of a hand-shaped puzzle, making her wonder how even the Deity had accomplished it.

  “Gabriel. You feel so good.This is good; it’s right and—”

  “Just kisses,” he said. “Kisses and touches enough for pleasure. Nothing that can result in babies.”

  She reared back for a minute, too shocked to go on. “You think onlydark passion makes babies?”

  “Shut up, Lace, and kiss me.”

  She chuckled and did.

  Just touching could bring pleasure, Lacey discovered, wild pleasure, trembling pleasure, when touching just so, in just the right places, and with the right rhythm. Tongues touching and dancing, mating. Hands, legs . . . mouths touching everywhere.

  She learned variations on pleasure—with no danger of babies—a pleasure she never imagined possible without the joining of bodies. Wondrous. Yet, something was amiss, something nameless and poignant that made her want to weep, like sliding fast yet not fast enough, down an ice-slick hill. But despite the lack, pleasure grew and burst, and set them free to drift.

  Like two spoons in the small bed, they slept . . . until Lace woke, sat up, and examined every facet of Gabriel’s man parts in the soft light of dawn, stroking along and around, up and down, testing his bollocks, the soft, the hard, up his length, teasing his moist tip with a slick finger.

  When she dared to kiss that silky tip, he awoke with a moan, saw what she was about, and as fast as that, she was on her back with him deep inside her.

  In a frenzy, he brought her higher in three deep strokes than he had all night long, and she curled her legs around him and arched her back to pull him deeper, worked her muscles to keep him there.

  He gasped, he groaned, and he shouted her name to the heavens in thanksgiving.

  So blessedly good she felt with him there, she’d nearly wept after they crashed for the simple joy of his weight atop her. Even then she’d known she would take him any way she could have him. But this glorious, incredible, ordained way, this was the most perfect of all.

  They climbed and soared, and then, like water cascading down a mountain—pure, bubbling, wild, and free—they floated as one, peaceful and at rest, for minutes or hours. It might even have been days. Who cared?

  Ready again, Gabriel worked in her, slow and purposeful, making her whimper for faster, then slower, then just plain more. She looked up at him looking down at her, handsome, too handsome for a man of God, certainly too handsome for her. And when he laughed, the sun shone brighter in the sky.

  “Come with me, Lace,” he said. “Come with me to heaven. I’ll wait. Come.” Then, deepening each concentrated thrust, he dipped his head to suckle her, pulling hard shafts of leaping pleasure.

  He stopped suckling with a groan to move higher over her and increase his pace. She feared she might die of the frenzy, just before she shattered into a million star-bright pieces, to hover over the earth and become one with eternity.

  A fraction of a moment later, Gabriel climaxed, shouting her name, and she rushed to the heavens again. One last incredible time she fell to earth to drift sated and exhausted in Gabriel’s arms.

  After a time, he reversed their positions and settled her atop him in a state of lazy contentment.

  He urged her to sleep, so she closed her eyes.

  She had never been so comfortable.

  Awareness came as Gabriel felt the morning light tease at his eyelids. Remorse hit and consumed him before he opened them. Instinctively, he tightened his arms around Lacey to keep her with him, always to be a part of him.

  No use. He’d done it again, let passion all but rule him. He’d taken her, by God, while holding passion back, and could not imagine what might have happened had he set it free.

  If he were not careful, his baser instincts would win. This night alone together could ruin them. And Bridget, caught in its aftermath, would be hurt as well. Crick
et had lost everyone but him and Lacey. Him, she could do without; Lacey, she could not. He’d come to that sorry conclusion in the two days he spent mindlessly pacing after the night Lace came to his room.

  To keep Bridget, he knew he must keep Lace—no easy task. Though she had always been his missing half, he hadn’t realized it as a boy. Back then, he knew only that following her, adoring her, being ordered by her, even, infrequently touching her—as in, being pushed into the mud by her—had been joy enough for him.

  Now he wanted more. He wanted everything. He wanted . . . them.

  She stirred in his arms, snuggled her face deeper into his neck, moved, and moaned. Parts of her must be tender and sore. He would have to kiss them better the minute she woke. He frowned.

  No. First he would settle the matter of their marriage, then he would make her tender parts better, and after that, perhaps he would let her out of his bed.

  He supposed he had no choice in that matter. She should be dressed in the event someone spotted their benighted wagon, impaled by an encroaching tree, its leaves now bathed in colored light from the sunbeams splintered through the intact—praise be—stained-glass window at the back of the wagon.

  Lacey shifted and moaned and rubbed her nose back and forth against the hair on his chest. Then she stilled and looked up at him, as if getting her shocking bearings.

  He laughed and his stone heart warmed. “Itchy nose means you’re coming into money.”

  She smiled lazily and stretched her arms in that fine feline way of hers, her limbs sliding along his own. “Don’t need money. I have you.”

  “Not yet, but you will.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lacey regarded Gabriel soberly. “What do you mean by that? I will what?”

  “Have me.”

  “In the biblical sense?”

  “Well, yes. You’ll have me in that way as well. Often.”

  Lace took her luscious bottom lip between her teeth, making him want to bite it himself, while she appeared to be working out some high mathematical equation. Her growing silence made him nervous. “You understand,” he said, “that after last night, wemust marry.”