by Kelly, Julia
“We agreed we wouldn’t do this.”
“It was an impossible promise to keep,” she said.
She knew she was being reckless. She couldn’t watch Gavin turn back into the quiet, retiring husband who’d avoided her company, but she couldn’t suppress her yearning for him either. She’d indulge and then figure out what to do with their odd marriage. Later.
He held her gaze and she thought he might object to this haphazard plan, but then he dipped his head to press a kiss against the heated skin at her neck and collarbone.
“Yes, it was,” he murmured.
Her head fell back and her fingers bunched his shirt. Gavin scooped her into his arms, rose to take her chair, and lifted her onto his lap. She ground her hips down into him, wanting to feel the thickening hardness of his erection, but her efforts were frustrated by the bulk of her clothes.
Less clothing. That’s what they needed.
Her fingers went to his neckcloth, blindly pulling the knot loose. It fell free in her hands, and she swiftly undid the button at the top of his shirt.
Skin. At last she could press skin against heated skin. She pushed at the V of his shirt, grateful that he’d divested himself of his jacket as soon as they sat down to their picnic.
His hands ran up the sculpted lines of her waist while she flicked open the buttons of his waistcoat. “I want this off.”
He let her ease the garment down his arms, and he threw it aside, not looking to see where it landed.
“And your shirt,” she said, feeling a little surge of power that she could make her husband acquiesce to her wishes with a few short words.
“I’ll need to stand.”
She nodded, and they rose together. Her fingers lingered on the edge of his trousers as he untucked his shirt and pulled it off over his head in one smooth motion. Then, without her asking, he shed boots and trousers and stood before her naked.
He was beautiful. As sculpted as one of her statues but pulsing with a vitality stone could never match.
Her hand traced up the center of his chest, following the ridges of his muscles through a patch of blond hair. He shook under her touch, his hands clenching into fists at his sides as he attempted to restrain himself. She took her time tracing over his clavicle and up to his neck. Her fingers brushed the edge of his hair, but he caught her wrist before they could twine in the strands and pull him into another kiss.
She stilled, holding her breath as she waited for what it was he wanted.
“Now you,” he said, pressing a kiss into the palm of her hand. “I want to see you.”
He turned her to undo the hooks and buttons at the back of her bodice. When the loosened garment gaped forward, she caught it in her hands as he made quick work of the closures on her skirt. He pressed up against her back as he smoothed his hands down the length of her arms, setting her skin on fire before he removed the bodice entirely.
Gavin helped her step out of her skirt. Then came her crinoline, corset cover, corset, and stockings. The time it took to undress her should’ve been awkward, but he moved with reverence, unwrapping her until her whole body ached.
Finally he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her back to face him. His lips caught hers in a kiss, and his hands played over her loose shift, seeking out the curves of her body.
He groaned when he cupped the soft swell of her breasts. She pushed into his hands shamelessly, and his thumbs flicked over her nipples. Desire shot straight to the spot between her legs. Again, his thumbs stroked over her, dragging the soft fabric over the sensitive buds, and then he whipped the shift off and undid the strings holding her drawers around her waist.
Gavin sank into the chair again, dragging her down so that she straddled him. He leaned forward and his mouth closed over one of her nipples. He sucked, firing her blood, and then roughed it gently with his teeth.
“Gavin,” she managed between pants.
His fingers brushed the curls between her legs. Her head fell back and her hips canted up and forward, inviting him to give her more.
He let go of her breast while he spread her legs wider with one hand. The other gently pinched and rolled her clit between his fingers.
Her whole body shuddered.
“Again.” She was nearly begging, but she no longer cared. All that mattered was that Gavin do that very same thing again. And again. And again, until she fell to pieces.
“Eager?” She could almost hear the smug smile in his voice.
Her hand slipped between them to wrap around his cock. When she squeezed, he dropped his forehead to her shoulder with a groan. “Aren’t you?” she asked.
Again his fingers rolled and stroked at her until her inner muscles clenched and a little desperate noise escaped her throat.
“Like that?” he asked, rolling his fingers over her now to bring another wave of pleasure.
“Yes.” She moved her hand up and down the length of him. “Like this?”
“Yes,” he ground out before kissing her deeply.
He kissed her neck and nipped at her ear, sometimes whispering nonsense against her heated skin. His hips ground into her hand as she writhed against his, each of them finding the rhythm they needed. Then, all of her pleasure concentrated into one brilliant point and exploded. She had to let go of him just to cling to his shoulders while he kept pulling every last bit of pleasure out of her.
When he drew his hand away, she whimpered. He pulled her into a kiss—a slow, sweet one—but she wasn’t ready to bank this fire yet. She didn’t want this to stop.
Her hand snaked down between them again, but before she could encircle his cock he took his erection in his own hand and guided it to her slit. Their foreheads touched, eyes locked in passion, and he pushed into her.
Ina’s mouth opened but she could find no words. He’d felt good stretching her when they’d laid on his bed, but this was different. More. Better. It was as though the world had fallen away and all she could feel was the intensity of this moment.
“Are you—?”
“No,” she managed. “God, Gavin.”
He grunted, his fingers digging into her hips to help her raise up and back down again. He sank in deeper, and she spread her legs wider to take even more of him.
Again. The slide of his cock against her made the muscles of her thighs shake.
Again. The sensation of fullness gripped her.
He set the rhythm, for although she might be on top, he was completely in control and focused. On her. Over and over he drove into her, pushing them both higher. The pulse of her first orgasm intensified from the delicious throb to an ache of clenching muscles.
“Please,” she whispered, her lips pressed against his neck.
One of his hands loosed on her hip, and he angled her back slightly so he could reach between them. He found her still-sensitive clit and began circling it in rhythm with their thrusts.
Ina came hard, her head cast back and her hips pulsing faster, trying to drive him into her harder. She cried out his name over and over as she shattered above him.
Gavin’s breath quickened and his thrusts became shorter and faster, and then he grunted low and pulled her off of him in one smooth move, spilling himself onto her leg. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
Ina couldn’t be sure how long they stayed like that. Gradually she became aware of the rise and fall of his chest and the coolness in the air. The fire must have begun to burn out while they weren’t looking.
When she started to move off of his lap, he tightened his grip. “Not yet.”
She relaxed into the arms of her husband and tried her hardest not to worry about what would happen next.
Chapter Fourteen
GAVIN STARED DOWN at the floor of the abbey’s great hall, unable to help the slow grin that crossed his face.
When he’d proposed a night toge
ther, he’d known taking Ina to Daldour would be romantic. Rowing across the firth, slipping away to an abandoned ruin, sharing a picnic and wine—it all seemed perfect. He’d hoped that, if she was willing, he might even be able to steal one of the kisses he’d been holding himself back from taking, or even more. He just hadn’t expected it all to be quite like this.
Her appetite thrilled him even as it knocked him off of his feet. He’d loved her from afar for too long, idolizing her. For years, she’d been the passionate artist and untouchable friend. Tonight she’d been real and raw and human. Tonight he’d loved her as a man loves the woman who sees him at his very best and his very worst.
She stirred against him, stretching her beautiful body up over his and sliding her arms around his neck.
She smiled at him through the happy haze of sleep. “I think I drifted off.”
“You did,” he said.
He gently tugged at one of her hands and brought it up to press a kiss to her inside wrist. He burned for her, but he was far from ready to show her the intensity of his feelings for her. For now, they’d both have to be satisfied with sex punctuated with sweet gestures and reassurances and hope that some subconscious part of her would one day understand them.
She looked around the room, her eyes falling on the dying fire. “I could stir the embers.”
Delicately, he placed one finger to her jaw and turned her chin to him. “Don’t worry about the fire.”
“But you must be cold,” she protested.
Doubt flooded her expression. She was thinking far too much, her mind jumping forward to one hundred different scenarios as she tried to guess how he would act.
“What I’d like most in the world is for you to stay here with me, just like this,” he said.
That wasn’t true. What he truly wanted was for Ina to confess she’d loved him for years. Then they could put the whole awkward, damaging last month behind them. But he couldn’t say any of that. Yet.
“Will you do that for me?” he asked quietly. “Stay just a little while longer like this?”
He watched her toy with the hair on his chest before spreading all five fingers out as though reassuring herself that this was all real.
“If that’s what you want,” she said.
He swallowed and took the first little step into his future with her. “I’d rather it be what you want as well.”
She caught his eyes and nodded.
“Perhaps we should use this,” he said, pulling free her cloak from the bundle of clothing on the floor. With one arm, he tried to cast it out over them, succeeding only in half covering her right shoulder and his left toes.
A little laugh bubbled up on Ina’s lips. “Can I help?”
He nodded, and she scrambled to turn sideways on his lap, grabbing the other end of the coat and pulling it over them. Then she settled back against his chest.
He began to stroke a hand up and down her arm as his thoughts crept in. There were things she needed to know. Things he’d waited too long to tell her so that they’d grown into unavoidable monsters lurking just below the surface. Now was the time.
“You’ve asked me several times before about my family,” he said.
She didn’t move, but he could feel her become alert under his touch. “I’m curious about where you came from. Will you tell me about them?” she asked, looking up at him.
He absentmindedly brushed some of her hair over her shoulder. “I think it’s time you know. I’ve waited too long to tell you things you should’ve known long ago because . . . you’re important to me.”
“You know so much about my life and my family,” she said. “I just wanted a little bit of that part of you too.”
“And you deserve it. No one else has ever believed in me the way that you do, Ina.”
She lifted her head to press a kiss to the underside of his chin.
“You do yourself a disservice,” she said.
“My family doesn’t share your confidence in me.”
“Why?” she demanded. His heart clenched at the defensiveness in her voice.
“You know that I’m the second son,” he said. “I’ve certainly told enough stories about Richard today for you to have guessed that our brotherhood wasn’t always an amicable one.”
“I’d assumed as much,” she said, “although I must confess I’ve always been envious that you have a sibling at all.”
“Sometimes it was a joy to have a brother. I always had someone to make mischief with, and together we were a team against the tutors and nurses that my parents hired in our childhood years. However, when Richard went off to school, he began to change. Our bickering became full-on fighting. He once hit me so hard in the back of the head during an argument that I lost consciousness before I hit the ground.”
“Oh, Gavin,” she gasped. “But that’s just cruel.”
“Richard can be cruel. When I joined him at school, I was the focus of him and his group of friends when they needed a scapegoat. Kier was one of them,” he added.
“That ass,” she growled with a protectiveness he found intensely satisfying.
“The older we got, the clearer it became that Richard thought me nothing but a spare heir in case he were to die unexpectedly. I daresay my father encouraged that belief.”
“Whyever would you say that?” she asked.
“I overheard them once when I was walking by my father’s study during a summer holiday. He and my brother were speaking about the land and responsibility that would one day be Richard’s. When my brother inquired what I was expected to do during all of this, my father said, ‘Clergy. Army. Navy. He has three choices, and whether he likes them is of little consequence to me.’ ”
“Gavin, that’s terrible.”
He shrugged. “That’s what my family is like, and it’s not uncommon, as you know. My mother is mostly concerned with climbing her way to the top of the local gentry and my father is worried only about the acquisition of land to grow the Barrett fortune. Since Richard will inherit the entailed estate, he’s the one who receives my father’s attention. I was meant to find a profession where I earned a good enough income that I’d never bother him again.”
“But you became a writer.”
“Precisely. I was left largely on my own until I left school. I was allowed to enroll in Cambridge only because my father assumed I would make my living as a member of the clergy. I studied theology and philosophy, but I began to devour novels on the side. One day I began to write one and finally found what I wanted to do with my life. When I told my father I planned to live by my pen and perhaps teach, he cut me off.”
He cleared his throat, preparing for the part of his confession that made him most uncomfortable. “A few months before I met your father, when I was at my lowest point, my mother unexpectedly appeared in my rooms. She took one look at me and told me she would instruct my father to give me an income. A small one, but an income nonetheless. I didn’t want it and tried to argue with her, but I lost. It’s difficult to convince my mother of anything but what she wants, and in the end I was too cold from saving on coal to turn down an allowance.”
“You should never have had to make that choice,” said Ina.
“And yet I did. I took my father’s money, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t stop writing. I wasn’t going to bend to him.”
“I’m glad that your mother supported you,” she said.
He snorted. “Don’t let yourself be fooled into believing it was my mother’s kind heart that led her to make her offer. A friend had told her I’d been spotted at a party in a threadbare coat. I was bringing shame upon the family with my poverty. It was her pride in her own status that forced her to come, not maternal love. I’m not entirely sure she’s capable of such emotion.”
“I can see now why you weren’t particularly upset your family didn’t attend our weddi
ng,” she said quietly.
He hesitated. He’d already told her so much. She didn’t need to hear the whole story of his heartbreak, nor did he wish to tell it.
“I didn’t find their lack of attendance a hindrance,” he said.
“Nonetheless, I’m sorry, Gavin,” she said, her hand stroking the arm that wrapped around her waist. He had to hold himself back from leaning into her touch and seeking comfort. The fight to win Ina would be won through little victories rather than grand battles.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “You’re my family now.”
When she stilled, he held his breath, wondering if perhaps he’d gone too far, but then a full smile broke out over her features.
“We’re each other’s, aren’t we?” she said.
“In the eyes of the law and God.”
“And since we’re husband and wife there should be no secrets between us,” she said.
“No secrets?”
Oh, there were secrets. Huge, earth-shattering secrets that he would never let another person know.
I’ve wanted you for years.
I don’t know how to be the husband you deserve.
I love you.
He couldn’t say any of this to her. It was still too soon and his heart was too raw.
“You weren’t the only one who worried after our wedding night,” she said.
His stomach twisted.
“I thought there was something wrong with me,” she continued, tracing a finger over his chest as she avoiding eye contact. “I feared you regretted marrying me or hated me for pushing you into this.”
“I could never regret that. You needed me, and the protection of a married name—my name—was the only thing I could offer.”
He’d have fought duels, crossed the earth, and moved mountains to make her happy. Instead, he’d stood at the altar and said the words so many other men before him had uttered.
“I want more than your name, Gavin,” she said.
“What are you saying?” he asked around the lump that had formed in his throat.
“I don’t want to wonder whether I’m allowed to touch you or kiss you. I’d like to not fear that if I come to your room at night you’ll turn me away. I didn’t understand what I was agreeing to give up when I told you we’d have a marriage without intimacy.”
