She bathed his face and clung onto his hand, weeping all the while.
Blake came a short time later, and put one knee on the bed to examine the unconscious man.
She told the doctor what had happened, and finished tearfully, "It's the worst seizure I've ever seen him have."
"The strain of helping your sister must have been awfully great for him," he guessed.
Blake examined him thoroughly, with Gabrielle lingering by his side fretfully wringing her hands. Why had this happened? And just when he had been doing so well?
"I don't dare give him anything for the pain due to his past addiction, so all I can say is cold compresses, camphor, and prayer," Blake said with a sigh.
"Thank you, I'll do exactly as you say."
Gabrielle tended to him for several hours, never leaving Simon's side even though everyone in the house, from the Dowager Lay Hazelmere down to little Adeline, and each one of the servants, offered to take a turn.
"No, it's fine, really," she said, waving away the offer each time. "I thank you, but he'll want me as soon as he wakes up."
As the sun went down he finally stirred and opened his eyes. There was no mistaking the relief on Gabrielle's face, or the worry in her gaze.
"Where am I?" he asked dazedly. "What happened?"
"You had a fit, a bad one."
He tried to sit up, then grimaced. "God, it feels like I've been kicked by a horse."
Blake came in from the next room, where he had been looking over Lucinda and the baby. He examined Simon carefully, and a short time later, pronounced him fit enough, with no concussion, and said he would come back in an hour to check on him again.
The Avenels, on hand a short distance down the hall in Randall and Isolde's room, were completely relieved, and tiptoed out, leaving the couple alone.
"What day is this?" he asked, looking around, then squinting at her.
"Thursday."
He digested that for a moment in silence. "Weren't we supposed to be going to Bath today?"
Gabrielle stared. "No, darling, we went yesterday. How could you forget? The big storm, the castle?"
He shook his head. "I think I remember Bath, but no storm or castle."
She stared at him. "Do you remember anything about Lucinda and the baby?" she asked gently.
He immediately became agitated. "No. Is she all right? She hasn't miscarried or-"
"No, not at all. She has a fine healthy son." She stroked his brow until he calmed once more, and tried to hold back the tears.
"Oh, thank the gods."
She stared at him. Was his memory of the event of the previous evening all really gone, or had something wiped it away?
"Can you tell me what you remember about yesterday?"
He frowned in concentration. "We went to Bath. Bought everything it sight. We came home."
"What did we do when we got home?"
He laughed. "The usual thing we do when we're alone together." He ran his hands over her curves with a smile.
"Why, what's wrong?" he asked when she didn't smile back.
She shook her head. "No, it's nothing. Really. Everything is fine. Lucinda has a healthy baby boy, Christopher Simon Randall Howell."
"Wonderful news. The best, And that's very kind of her, the Simon part."
"And she wants you to be godfather, along with Randall, if that's all right."
She watched him closely for any signs of recollection, but felt heartbroken that there was none. What could have happened to have wiped his memory clean of such a remarkable event as the birth of a child he clearly adored and deemed his nephew?
"All right? I would be honored." He smiled happily, and stroked her cheek.
"Good, thank you."
"So, my love, now that that is all settled, do you suppose we can do that usual thing we do when we're alone together?" he asked, his eyes alight with hope.
She giggled despite herself, and managed a convincing smile. "Not now. You've had a nasty blow to the head when you fell and had one of your seizures. But in a couple of days, just you try to stop us."
"Oh, all right," he sighed. "I am awfully sleepy now." His deft fingers tweaked open the bodice of her gown, and he fell asleep with his face buried in her fragrant cleavage.
Gabrielle held him close. His loss of memory was something that she could bear. But the loss of him from her life was too dreadful to even contemplate, she loved him so. She wrapped her arms around him, and prayed with all her heart that his next terrible seizure wouldn't take him from her forever.
Chapter Thirty-one
After Simon's severe fit, he was subdued and tired for a couple of days, but took great delight in the new baby.
Gabrielle made sure he didn't overdo things, and had to admit there were some distinct advantages to having him in bed all the time.
He was certainly becoming an increasingly bold and inventive lover. Gabrielle couldn't seem to get enough of him as they did what they had agreed, and began to try for a baby of their own.
He was always coming up with the most thrilling surprises for her. One night about a week after the baby had been born, she came into the room to find all their pillows mounded up at the foot of the bed.
He came around behind her and began to undress her slowly, tenderly, with a kiss for each part of her body as it was laid bare to his gaze.
When they were finally both naked, he requested softly, "Lie on the edge of the bed with your hips on these bolsters."
Gabrielle perched as he suggested, so that her shoulders lay on the mattress and her legs spread wide, suspended over the floor.
"Now just relax and trust me."
"I do, you know I do."
He stood between her knees, staring at her most secret flesh as if memorising every detail. He began trailing his fingertips over her mound of soft curls in fascination until at last her blushes subsided and she began to actually enjoy his heated regard. He certainly knew how to make her feel like the centre of his whole universe.
Now Gabrielle closed her eyes and let her feminine core become the centre of her consciousness. For he began to massage her now with purposeful intent, teasing the delicate peaks and valleys from every angle and with every finger.
Knowing he was eager to learn all about her pleasure, she let out a soft pant or sigh whenever the bliss grew particularly acute.
Then he would concentrate there for a moment, building upon the joy until she would moan louder.
Even more devastating though was when Simon would deliberately move his finger a maddening millimetre away and evade all of her attempts to squirm and wriggle back to where he had been.
Finally he would touch the magical spot, and her senses would soar even higher than if he had just teased her there in the first place.
He was a true master of eroticism, bringing her so close, then letting her waft down, so that the next plateau she built up to was even higher and more compelling.
She throbbed with desire, yet was powerless to control the sensual cascade which tumbled through her, sweeping all reason and sense with it. Gabrielle could only wring the sheets and beg for release.
"It's all right, darling. It's only going to get better," he reassured her. "There's no need to be hasty or greedy. We have a lifetime."
He reached for one of her hands and interlaced his fingers with it for a brief moment, then slid them apart in a beguilingly sinuous manner which nearly set her soaring once more.
He now stroked those same fingers lightly over her belly using just the tips.
"Any part of your body can bring you the ultimate pleasure, with patience and understanding. But now I want to see you at your most extreme. Your upper limit of need, of climax. Then I want to take you even higher."
She could feel her taut body loosen at his words as she at last completely opened to him, flowing like a river, holding nothing back. There was no need for shame or reserve.
He loved her, would do anything to make her happy. She was no longer a
young girl; he had truly made her all woman, sensual, voluptuous, just as he had always said she was in all of his sweet, sexy whisperings whenever they made love.
In return her tenderness and trust nurtured, healed him, and gave him the most exquisite pleasure.
Having thoroughly massaged her lower abdomen and upper thighs, he now began to work the uniquely thrilling sensations only his adept tongue could provide.
He also moved the massage inward with one, two and finally three long fingers. By the time he had reached the third, combined with the slow maddening swirl of his tongue, she had already nearly shouted herself hoarse with her passionate cries and pleas.
Yet despite the numerous outpourings of feeling he continued on, with his second hand alternating between her breasts and also penetrating her navel, causing the most intense inner contractions.
"Please, Simon," she begged. "I need you inside me."
"Isn't this enjoyable?" he teased, his breath a puff against her pearl of pleasure.
"It's wonderful, truly, but I want to feel your huge length and width right up inside me. We belong together as one."
"Yes, yes, we do. But there are an infinite variety of positions. You need to relax, take a deep breath, and promise me not to drive it on. Just hold still or I'll have to stop."
He gave a wicked little smile and she quivered with desire.
She could see now that this had turned into one of his erotic games that she could never predict. All she knew was the ending would be pleasure like nothing she could ever imagine.
Her nipples hardened almost unbearably at the thought, and she could feel a fresh flood of moisture between her already saturated thighs.
"I promise, only please, now!"
"If it's too much you must tell me to stop and I will. Just be sure you really mean it."
She grew almost afraid of his seeming warning and her own clamorous need, but agreed. "I will, only hurry."
He stepped between her spread thighs and teased the distended flesh with his velvety tip before pressing further in. His moved his huge broad manhood into her vibrant tightness with infinite care, pressing deeply into her for an all too brief pulsing second.
As he began to withdraw she nearly howled in frustration, until he moved back and she sobbed with sheer relief.
"Easy, easy now. Deep breaths, and then I'm going to begin. Just breathe."
He placed one huge hand upon the lush glade between her arched hipbones and pressed down. He tilted his own hips upward and began to tease her whorl with both the ball and the trimmed fingernail of his thumb.
He glided in and out with minute movements so that his engorged head was riding against a small cushioned spot about two inches inside her and just under his hand. He caught her hips with his other hand as they began to cant upwards to try to receive his whole length.
"No, cherie, just let it happen. Easy, now." He gentled her with his hand, then pressed down on her belly even harder. His thumb began to circle her nub even faster, more firmly.
Combined with the maddening little strokes within, she could feel the pleasure curl her toes and climb upwards over her ankles and calves.
Wildly she wondered why the pleasure wasn't radiating outwards from her centre. But no, it was rushing up to meet her, until her ears began to ring.
"Simon, oh!" she gasped.
The tremors rocked her whole body, and as he stroked harder and faster but still shallowly, the sensation radiated outwards in climactic concentric circles which flooded her all the way down to the soles of her feet.
He kept her poised in this Elysium for what seemed hours, the movement of his thumb never ceasing but only increasing by degrees in pressure.
Likewise he kept stroking inside her, still titillating the same incredible spot until she was so wet with desire he could at last begin to penetrate deeper without fear of making her sore. Alternating shallow with deep thrusts, he set her to writhing in abandon anew.
He was still standing on the floor, and now repositioned himself, aiming at her lower back, about three to four inches inside her, still not taking full possession of her.
She roared out his name and tried to reach for him. This new position was terrifyingly exquisite, as addictive to her as opium had been to him.
Just when Gabrielle thought she could climax no more, he would change position or pressure, and she would be swept away once again. With her legs suspended and her shoulders flat to the bed, she was almost totally helpless.
And yet even more incredible than the things he did with his body and hands were his words, for Simon never ceased to praise her, tell her what she meant to him, how much he loved her.
And above all, he never stopped urging her to climax for him. He was never crude or vulgar, but made his feelings of arousal known and described the sensations, what she was doing to him, what he was about to do to her, in a voice laden with raw emotion.
He built her up to yet another climax, and finally she said she couldn't bear it any longer. He heaved a huge sigh and stilled, for it had been the hardest thing in his life to hold back from her vibrating caresses. Every line of his face was etched with need.
"But you haven't finished," she protested.
"I will in a moment," he reassured her, panting. "Tell me what you want."
"I want to be under you, all of your lean hard body as your hips pin me down and we match each other thrust after thrust. I love to feel you explode inside me, our bodies fusing into one."
"All of me?" he asked softly.
Sensing this was some sort of test, she nodded, her eyes glowing.
"Yes, please, Simon. All of you."
She almost wept as he withdrew slowly, teasingly, lifting her body from the bolsters and bringing her up to the top of the bed. He cradled her in his arms like a baby as he laid her down on the pillows and arranged the covers at the foot of the bed.
He got in beside her and kissed her until she felt so aroused she was sure she would erupt like a volcano. His massive hardness lay along her leg tantalisingly until his satiny helmet brushed against her delicate folds in a whisper-soft caress.
She grabbed onto his bottom and pulled him into her fiercely. They devoured each other with kisses, clinging onto one another as if they would never let go.
His tempo, slow and gentle at first, became a pounding she arched up to meet. Her whole body opened to him like a flower to the searing warmth of the sun, and as much as he was giving, she pleaded for more.
Simon's climax, when he finally gave in to it, tore through them both, searing their flesh inside and out.
His whole soul laid bare, she knew beyond the shadow of any doubt that their love was eternal, truly unique, and she need never fear his past again. Nothing could separate them, not even death.
At last they moved sleepily to settle intimately each other in their arms. She heard the words in the thrumming beat of his heart, and replied with her whole heart, "I love you too, Simon, always."
His finely etched lips curved into a carefree, boyish smile and at last they let sleep claim them.
Chapter Thirty-two
Gabrielle awakened slowly the following morning, unable to move. Every part of her body throbbed with desire and Simon's lovemaking. She felt as if she could barely even control her own limbs.
She smiled to herself. What a man. What an incredible lover. And what a wonderfully sensitive, perceptive and devoted partner.
She opened one eye to kiss him awake, but found him sitting up by her side instead. His huge weight sagged the edge of the mattress.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "Nothing, my sweet. We have no duties today, remember? I was just rousing myself to tend to your every practical need. I thought breakfast in bed first, a bath, and whatever else you'd like to do for the rest of the day."
"It sounds like heaven. You always seem to manage to read my mind." She pulled herself upwards on the pillows and gave a small grimace.
He was inst
antly concerned. "Did I hurt you last..."
"No, not at all. You really are a remarkable lover. I never knew a man could be so, well, empathic. You seem to know everything I'm feeling. Know exactly where and how to touch me, what I long to have before I'm even aware of it myself. And this continuous quest of yours to make me happy, well, it's marvelous. Just so long as you know I'd like to reciprocate."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection 6 Page 30
