Samantha James (20 page)

“My father would not agree, Yank. Yet despite everything, I still longed for nothing more than his approval. But there was never a kind word for me. I was naught but a troublesome nuisance. My mother tried to hide it from me, but I was not fooled. He did not love me. He did not love her. We were both just an encumbrance.”

An encumbrance
. Cassie cringed inside. Lord, but she was coming to hate that word!

Gabriel’s mouth twisted. “She married him thinking he would come to love her, you know. But it was as if he were blind. He could
not see her for his memories of his beloved Margaret.”

He said it as if it were a curse. Cassie was half-afraid to speak. “Your mother loved him then?”

His voice grew ever more brittle. “Yes. But she loved him from a distance, for he did not want her love. She thought I did not know, but I saw the yearning in her eyes that spoke of all she felt—all she could not withhold. But there was never a tender word for her from my father, never a tender touch. He tolerated her presence in his life as a necessity, no more. He cared nothing for her. Nothing!”

Cassie’s heart began to bleed, for all he had lost, for all he had witnessed, watching his mother in torment all those years. She thought of the portrait that hung in the gallery; now she understood the air of sadness that dwelled in the eyes of Caroline Sinclair.

“But she would not allow a single word to be said against him. She was sweet and kind and good. She would have done anything for him. I used to hear her weeping at night, but in the morning she greeted me as if naught were amiss. Day after day, year after year she went on loving him.” His mouth thinned. “And in the end, it was that very love which killed her.”

Cassie frowned. There was something rather vague about his statement, but before she could question him further, she heard his voice again.

“My father broke her heart,” he said harshly, moving toward her dresser. “He broke her spirit. For myself, I could have forgiven him the wrongs done me as a boy, but never will I forgive what he
did to my mother. I am no longer the naive, adoring young boy I once was, so do not ask me to be merciful or lenient. He spared none for my mother, and I will spare none for him. I have learned to live with his indifference—we do well to endure each other’s presence, but there can never be more.
He
cannot forget…nor can I.”

With that he left her, the lines of his back rigid and proud as he strode through the connecting door that led to his bedchamber.

Cassie’s eyes remained fixed on the door long after he had passed through it. Her heart ached for the lonely little boy he had once been. It ached just as much for the bitter man he had become. Though she no longer wondered what demons drove him, it saddened her to think that Gabriel and his father might remain forever distant and alienated—that there could never be a true measure of peace and forgiveness between them. She prayed that he was wrong—that it was not so. For if it was, then all was lost.

Perhaps it was already.

There was no sleep to be found that night. Though her body was weary, Cassie’s mind refused the balm of rest. She tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. But all at once a splintering sound rent the night. Her eyes flew wide. She bolted upright.

The sound had come from Gabriel’s room.

Slipping from her bed, she snatched up her dressing gown and pulled it on, already halfway across the floor. With no hesitation, she flung open the connecting door and rushed into his suite.

The room was lit by the yellow glow of a lamp in the corner. The full-length mirror mounted on the wall next to the tallboy had been shattered. Shards of shiny glass lay scattered on the thick Aubusson carpet. Cassie instinctively started toward the mess.

“What do you want, Yank?” His voice sliced the air as sharply as a knife blade.

Cassie froze. From the corner of her eye she saw Gabriel prop himself up on an elbow from where he’d been reclining on his bed. There was a glass in one hand.

The hold of his gaze was utterly commanding—and utterly relentless. Cassie was almost tempted to flee beneath the fierceness of his glare—almost, but not quite.

She moistened her lips. Her pose reflected her uncertainty, one small hand at the neck of her dressing gown. “I heard something…I thought perhaps you were hurt.”

“As you can see I am fine. I suggest you go back to bed.” He swung his legs to the floor. His shirt was unbuttoned and gaped wide, revealing the hair-matted roughness of his chest. Cassie’s mouth went dry, but she did not look away.

He paid her no heed, but strode toward the dresser—and a half-empty decanter of brandy.

Cassie had no recollection of moving until she found herself at his side. Gabriel continued to ignore her, but when he would have tipped the neck of the decanter into the glass, she thrust her palm over the rim. “Gabriel, please.” Her tone was breathless. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

He whirled on her, eyes afire with temper. “Have I, Yank? But you are right, there are other ways for a man to seek ease from his troubles. So tell me, would you offer more comfort?”

His gaze seared hotly into hers. Deliberately, boldly, he laid his hand on the upward thrust of her breast. Cassie could not still her instinctive leap of fear.

His lip curled. “You see? I thought not.” He removed his hand and turned back to the decanter.

Cassie was quaking inside but determined not to show it. She laid beseeching fingers on his arm.

“Gabriel, please. You accomplish nothing by drinking yourself into oblivion.”

“Why, Yank, I do believe you have no idea of the surcease to be found in a bottle of fine brandy. Amazing, to be sure, particularly for a former barmaid.”

Cassie had to stop herself from flinching. His mockery cut deep and she suspected he knew it.

“Since you will not join me in my bed, then perhaps you wish to join me in a drink?”

“No!”

His eyes narrowed. His features grew blacker by the heartbeat.

“Then I recommend, once more, that you return to your own bed.”

She shook her head. Cursing beneath his breath, Gabriel reached out to forcibly displace her touch. But Cassie’s other hand joined the first. She clung to his forearm; the muscles beneath her fingertips grew rock-hard and tense.

His jaw clenched. “Why are you here? Do you enjoy seeing me like this?”

“Of course not!” The words were a fervent denial.

He stared at her as if to lay bare all that she was. A part of her longed to flee as he demanded, for a heated blaze had begun to glow deep in the pure silver of his eyes—anger, frustration, and something else—something that frightened her. But she knew, in some strange, unfathomable way she could not explain, that Gabriel was only a heartbeat away from losing control. And yet she felt compelled beyond reason to remain where she was, for she could not banish the strangest sense that if she turned from him now, he would remain beyond her reach forever.

“I was glad we left London,” he said suddenly. “I hated all those young bucks watching you, wondering if your lips are as soft and sweet as they look.”

Her lips formed a wordless sound of surprise.

“Oh, come now, Yank.” His laugh was harsh. “Surely you knew. Surely you are not so green as all that. All the while they pretended to be gay and merry, ever the gentlemen, they were dying for a taste of you, stripping away your clothing with their eyes and imagining what lay beneath…Viscount Rayburn—he was the worst.”

Surprise widened her eyes. “But…I am a married woman—”

“That matters little to men like Rayburn. Surely you saw enough of London to know that gambling and lustful pursuits are the order of the day. Believe me, had you given him any sign you were willing, he would have been under your skirts in a thrice.” Gabriel’s eyes were hard and glittering.
Without warning he caught her against him, the movement so sudden she nearly cried out.

“Be glad that he did not, Yank, for I do not think your tender heart could withstand his death on your conscience.”

His possessiveness thrilled her, yet there was an aura of danger about him that sent a prickle of unease through her limbs. “Gabriel,” she said shakily. “You should not say such things—”

A mask of icy coldness descended over his features. “Why not? It’s true. So make no mistake. I’ll kill any man who dares to claim what is mine.”

Her breath caught halfway up her throat. “Gabriel, please, you—you don’t know what you’re saying. You’ve had too much brandy—”

“And what if I have?” His tone was fierce. “You drive me to drink, Yank. You drive me to madness. You drive me to
this
.”

H
is mouth crushed hers, a searing brand. There was no tenderness in his shackling embrace. There was nothing but sheer, male mastery as with his tongue he ruthlessly plundered the honeyed interior of her mouth, slick and warm. She twisted beneath his hands but his grip was relentless, his kiss rampant with the thunder of emotions gone wild and unchecked and wholly out of control. Whether he was goaded by drink or desire, she did not know. She knew only that there was no escaping him.

To Cassie it was just like before. She sensed no mercy in him, no softness. She did not know he was blind and deaf to her struggles, to all but the driving pulsebeat of desire pounding through his veins. Only when a low whimper broke from her throat did the punishing ferocity of his kiss lessen. The crimson haze of lusty passion which surrounded him began to subside. Gradually he became aware of the fragile span of her shoulders beneath his hands.

He broke away from her mouth and stared down at her. Her lashes were dark and damp, spiked with tears. She appeared dazed, her lips red and damp and swollen. The faintest glimmer of wounded
vulnerability shone in her beautiful golden eyes.

Gabriel stepped back, his breathing ragged and scraping. “Go,” he said roughly. “Just go.” He retreated to stand at the window, his back to her as he stared out at the moon-drenched sky.

Cassie remained where she was. Something painful caught at her heart. She could not identify the force which kept her there. It was as frail and fragile as a gossamer thread of hope…as powerful and potent as a blazing noonday sun.

Time stretched, dark and endless. Hearing no rustle of movement behind him, he turned. His mouth grew ominously thin as he beheld her standing there.

The set of his shoulders was rigid. “You need not look at me like that, Yank. My father taught me well, you see—I am undeserving of your compassion. And I most certainly do not need your pity.”

There was a stark, wrenching pain in the region of her heart. Oh, yes, she thought. He was too proud to accept pity. Too bitter to accept compassion. But like her, he knew what it was to feel truly alone…truly unworthy. A shattering realization washed over her then.

She could love him…if only he would let her.

“Dammit,” he growled, “didn’t you hear? Leave me alone!”

Slowly she raised her head. His regard was so blistering she was half-afraid to speak. “Is that what you want?” she asked faintly. “For me to leave?”

His eyes glittered. “You know what I want, Yank.”

Still she stood there, marveling that she had not the good sense to do as he commanded. Fear dragged at her insides, a fear that surpassed all other. If he rejected her now, her humiliation would be complete.

She shook her head, the muscles in her throat aching so that it hurt to speak. “No,” she whispered. “I am not certain that I do.” Something blazed across his features, something swiftly suppressed.

Deliberately he said, “I want you in my bed, Yank. Beneath me. Your legs wrapped tight around mine as I lay buried deep and hard inside you.” He watched as her face flamed crimson. He did not mean to be crude, just brutally frank, for he would have no misunderstandings between them this time.

Still she did not move. She stood before him, her gaze shying away, her hands clasped in a white-knuckled grip before her. Both betrayed her. Doubt? he wondered. Or fear?

With his eyes he pinioned her. His scouring gaze swept her from head to foot, lingering on the gentle upthrust of her breasts beneath her dressing gown. By the time his gaze returned to hers, Cassie was stunned to find his expression raw with undisguised passion. Her pulse was suddenly throbbing.

“Come here, Yank.”

She went, on legs that weren’t entirely steady. Only when she stood before him, so near he could feel the flutter of her breath, did she falter. Her lashes fanned dark and thick upon her cheeks; her gaze climbed no higher than the hollow of his throat.

Warm hands descended to her shoulders. He pushed aside her dressing gown, leaving her clad only in a nightgown that revealed far more than it concealed. Her nipples thrust pink and round against sheer white lawn. Further down the triangle of her womanhood shown dark and dusky.

He stroked her body with naught but the touch of his eyes.

“You’re beautiful, Yank.”

Her embarrassment at standing nearly naked in front of him fled as if it had never been. Cassie’s heart surely stopped in that moment. She held herself perfectly still, wishing it would last forever. She had never dared hope he would say such a thing—never. The words were like music to her heart, a healing balm to her soul.

A lean hand slid beneath the fall of her hair, cupping her nape. He pulled her head back slowly, so that she could not look away from the searing intensity of his gaze.

“I am tired of pretending I do not want you, Yank, when I have wanted you from the start—when I suddenly find that is
all
I want. Oh, I know I told myself I wanted revenge. I told myself I could handle it, that I could accept a marriage in name only—that you were beautiful but I’ve lain with other women just as beautiful. But I was wrong. For you are ever on my mind, ever and always.”

His eyes darkened. “But know this. If you come to me tonight, then that door will remain forever open. I will not be barred from your bed. If you cannot accept that, then I suggest you leave now. Either way, the choice is yours.”

Her eyes clung to his. The tension spun out endlessly. Just when he thought he could bear it no longer, first one small fist crept up to rest on his chest, and then the other.

It was all the encouragement he needed. He reached for her, eager to claim what she so temptingly offered. “So be it,” he muttered, “for I can wait no longer.”

He kissed her then, a wordless entreaty that spoke of desire long denied. Her lips quivered beneath his, then parted. He felt her response, sweet, warm, and clinging. The reins of control snapped within him.

With a groan he crushed her against him, lifting her full off her feet. The pressure of his mouth was no less fierce than before, yet there was a difference. He kissed her as a starving man consumed the most bounteous of feasts. The taste of brandy was heady on his tongue…but so was the tormented hunger, and Cassie exalted in it. She twined her arms around him and shamelessly pressed her body against his.

Her nightgown met the same fate as her dressing gown. Their lips still ardently fused in a long, unbroken kiss, he swung her up into his arms and laid her on the counterpane. Only then did he reluctantly release her mouth, shrugging his shirt from his shoulders. He straightened, his hands at the buttons of his breeches.

Though she could feel a heated tide of embarrassment coloring her entire body, Cassie could not tear her gaze away. As each straining button was released, hair that was darker and coarser than the wiry mat on his chest filled the ever-widening gap.

His manhood sprang taut and free. Deep inside her, it spun through her mind that she had been hoping—praying—that her imagination had played havoc with her memory of the night she had lost her virginity…

It had not.

He bent and freed his legs of his breeches, kicking them aside and turning to face her. Oh, she could not deny there was a wild, primitive beauty to his body. His shoulders were wide and sleek, his arms and legs long and lean, spare and tight. She tried to mask it, but her pulse skittered madly in alarm. Though she knew it was not so, it flashed through her mind that what he intended was not possible…between the corded stretch of muscled thighs his manhood stood stiffly, rigidly erect.

She turned her gaze to safer territory, focusing on the chiseled beauty of his mouth as he stretched out beside her. But Gabriel had heard the deep, shuddering breath she drew.

He spoke, his tone dangerously low and tense with frustration. “We’ve come too far for you to change your mind, Yank.”

Through some miracle, she whispered, “I have not.”

“What, then? Are you afraid of me?”

She shook her head, but her expression told him otherwise. Her eyes were wild and panicked.

He turned her in his arms, his hold loose but all-encompassing. His nearness was overwhelming. The scent of man and musk swirled all around, mingled with the cologne he used. His mouth hovered just above hers, so close her very breath seemed not her own.

Lean fingers brushed stray strands of honey-gold from her flaming cheeks. “If you are not,” he said softly, “then why do you tremble like a frightened bird?”

Her fingers curled and uncurled in the furry darkness on his chest. Her breath tumbled out in a shaky rush. “Because I…I want to please you…and…oh, ’tis not you…so much as—as what you will do…and what you will do it with…” She buried her head on his chest in abject shame.

Gabriel sucked in a harsh breath. Had she known what effect her confession would provoke, he felt certain she would never have made it. Though he’d have sworn it was not possible, his straining rod swelled to even greater proportions. The pulse in his shaft raced apace with the thudding of his heart.

With his thumb he traced the vein throbbing wildly in her throat. “I’ll not hurt you again,” he muttered. “That pain when I first took you…a woman has it but once, Cassie.”

She did not believe him. Though she did not outwardly deny it, her lips were tremulous, her struggle vivid in her eyes. Yet she did not tear herself away, as he suspected she wanted to. Some emotion that was almost painfully intense caught at his heart, knowing that despite her apprehensions, she would give herself over to him so completely. In an instant, his decision was made. He’d never been pretty with words, not really.

He could show her far better.

The suddenness of his movement wrung a gasp from her. His hand engulfed hers and dragged it down over the grid of his belly…still further.
With unyielding pressure he guided her, filling her palm with himself, curling cool fingers around his burning shaft.

Her innocent touch inflamed him almost past bearing. He gritted his teeth against the urge to tighten her grip and pump his hips—she clasped but half of him—to take his satisfaction in this way and spare her the invasion of her body. Yet he sensed that, too, would shock his untutored young bride to her very core.

Nor were his motives entirely unselfish. He wanted to possess her, to fill her with his pounding essence, for she was his…

His and no other’s.

“Feel,” he said thickly. “Feel how my body craves yours. But do not forget I am but flesh and blood.
This
is but flesh and blood—and more desire than my body can contain.” His words were heated and shattering, raw and undisguised. “Oh, yes, you please me, Yank. You please me more than you can know.” His eyes sheared into hers. “Now let me please you.”

His mouth captured hers. With a low moan, she caught his head in her hands and surrendered to her passion…and to his. God, but it felt so good to be held…to be touched. Her mouth was as sweetly clinging as his was greedy.

A shudder rippled through him as her tongue sparred tentatively with his. She reveled in it—and in the way his thumbs traced slow, maddening circles around the pouting tips of her breasts, teasing, skimming lightly back and forth. They seemed to peak and swell, springing tight and engorged.
She longed to clamp his hand there that she might capture that elusive pleasure.

Slowly he raised his head, his gaze dark and brilliant. She was irresistibly beautiful, her breasts round and delectably full, her nipples deep coral centers against pale, unblemished flesh. He kissed her there now, an odd little laugh escaping as her breathing hastened.

“You’re very sensitive there, aren’t you, sweet?”

He shifted suddenly, gently squeezing and filling his hands with ripe, jutting flesh. His tongue came out to touch the very tip of one deep rouge circle, leaving it shiny and wet and aching. A stab of sheer pleasure bolted through her.

She couldn’t look, and she gasped at the shocking sensation as he took the whole of her nipple deep in his mouth. The wanton lashing of his tongue was wild and erotic…an exquisite delight. Her head fell back as he licked and sucked first one dark nipple and then the other. She gave a breathless little cry of ecstasy.

His mouth came back to hers, devouring and consuming, his tongue plunging hotly between her lips in a blatantly evocative rhythm. Tormenting fingers skimmed a nerve-shattering path across the sensitive skin of her belly. But she gasped when those same fingertips embedded themselves in the tight gold curls at the apex of her thighs. Cassie cried out and sought to clamp her thighs tightly together. But his hand was already firmly entrenched there, undaunting as he staked his claim.

“Don’t fight me, Yank.” His whisper was low and strained. “I promise I’ll not fail you now.” He
kissed her with slow, seductive persuasion, letting her adjust to this intimacy until at last he felt her tension subside.

With the tips of his fingers he taunted and teased, lightly brushing, retreating, then returning ever bolder. She shuddered both inside and out as those devilish fingers parted tender pink folds of flesh, sliding sleek and bold and sure along each side of her furrowed cleft.

Blistering flames licked through her as his thumb joined the foray, brushing an achingly sensitive bud of flesh she had not known she possessed. Her body seemed to swell and throb and weep. She cried out softly as one long, strong finger flexed deep inside her, again and again. And all the while his thumb now worked its magic, circling and rubbing until there was a raging inferno blazing inside her.

Eyes closed as if to shut out the delicious torture, she began to whimper and writhe. He tore his mouth from hers and stared down at the tears her body wept, glistening and damp against his hand and her flesh. He groaned. His finger sank deeper, clear to his palm.

“Gabriel!” His name was a shivering cry. In it he heard all that he sought—all he had waited for. He levered himself up over her, scarcely able to breathe.

Her eyes were glazed, her expression dazed. The hardness of his belly pressed hers. With his knees he nudged her thighs apart. The sleek round crown of his shaft probed damp, dark curls, forcing her open, wider still. She clutched at him, certain she would be torn asunder by his straining entry.