Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) (10 page)

He felt a dip in the bed as his bride moved beside him. He felt her breath against his arm, sensed her concern.

“Your grace?” she queried. “Are you unwell?”

Almost warily, Gideon opened his eyes, and met the bright violet gaze of his tremulous bride. A single droplet of true remorse hung suspended from one long sable lash.

Gideon released his breath on a last fading glimmer of hope, bowing to another inevitable night of discomfort. “’Tis nothing a romp to the finish would not cure,” he said, but he knew better than to expect it.

“Oh.” His untouched bride took her full bottom lip between perfect, white teeth.

Gideon groaned inwardly as he watched, while he contemplated soothing the poor beleaguered lip by sacrificing his own for her nibbling pleasure. But he contented himself with gently prodding the abused lip free with his index finger. “Do not. You will hurt yourself.”

She bit down on his finger, tugged it playfully, and a shaft of white-hot lightening shot straight to his groin. Startled by the unexpected jolt, Gideon winced and moaned as if he had been struck.

“Your grace?” Sabrina’s face became a study in naive disquiet.

What spell had this frustrating mix of seductress and saint cast upon him that she could leave him in such terrible shape, hard and needy as all hell. And instead of getting upset at a teasing bride who halted him at the worst possible moment, he wanted to smile just for looking at her.

“Do you worry about me?” he asked, absolutely amazed that he could think as much.

Sabrina nodded, all wide, exotic eyes, and needy in her own right, except that he could not put his finger on her need, exactly. He could not name or imagine it. But he sensed its existence, keenly.

Twirling one of her thick raven curls around his finger, his hand hovering above her breast, just inches away, Gideon enjoyed the silken warmth of it, even as he was engulfed by a strong wave of serene possession. “Why did you stop me?”

For a minute, Sabrina seemed to consider her answer. From the multitude and diversity of expressions that marched across her rich, perfect features, he imagined her reaching a conclusion then pondering a choice somewhere between fabrication and truth.

Finally, she nodded. “I was testing you.”

Gideon could only gape and wonder what the devil he had gotten himself into. Then all thought fled when his bride leaned toward him, as if she would confide a secret, and the blanket fell from her breasts. Heavy with milk and ripe for suckling, her tantalizing nipples, with their dusky aureoles, stood proud and mouth-watering.

“Good God, woman,” he said, salivating at the sight, while heat pooled in his loins. “Forgive me for saying so, but I have this sudden and horrific fear that you will test me to my dying day.”

In self-preservation, he covered the enchantress up to her neck.

Wide-eyed with understanding, she grasped the blanket tight against herself.

“Did I frighten you badly?” He had to know.

The innocent siren licked her lips. “Almost.”

Gideon barked a laugh. “Almost, by God. Did I, at least, pass your test?”

A shrug, a nod, and a sidelong glance toward the location of his incessant throbbing. “I guess.”

“God’s teeth, woman. If you have another trial in mind, give it to me now, or watch me perish in a blaze of nervous anxiety.”

The sound she made was nearly a giggle, or a gurgle, he supposed he should say, and still she stared at his burgeoning erection. “Staring, will only make it worse, Sabrina.”

“Can I do anything to make it less … inconvenient? It seems to be getting huge.”

“Why thank you, Sweetheart. And yes. Touching it would help.”

Damned if she did not reach right out...and pull as swiftly back. “I am sorry. But I...cannot.”

Gideon released his breath. ‘Twas probably for the best that she did not touch him, for if she did, he would burst into flame and embarrass them both. Simple as that. Just the idea drove him about as close to the edge as a man could get.

“Come here,” he said and when she complied, innocent that she was, he settled her on her side in front of him, spoon-style. “If you can ignore the
inconvenience
for a while, we can just settle down to sleep. Comfortable?”

She nodded. He liked that she was using one of his arms for a pillow. His other, he rested against her belly, where her little one seemed totally unwilling to settle into rest.

Despite his hard discomfort, contentment stole over Gideon in slow, soothing measure, while the old emptiness, that had long been his companion, seemed somehow to be missing from the softening mist of drifting night-shadows.

He thought he just might be able to sleep then, until his bride did something wondrous. She turned in his arms, reached over and curled her hand around him.

Gideon sucked in his breath and moved, involuntarily, within the glove of her grasp. “God’s teeth, Bree, you try me to my limits.”

“Is that bad?”

“Bad can be good. Much too good.” He tried to pull away, but she would not allow it. Since coming was a near thing, Gideon stopped struggling, wondering how a woman about to deliver a child could be such an innocent, at one and the same time.

She began to move her hand along his length and he could barely breathe, so incredible did her touch transform him. “What?” He shuddered. “What are you … planning to do?” he bit out, determined not to embarrass himself with the release he craved.

“I think...I
might
be ready now to...do what you started.”

“The devil you say? All of it?”

Like a hot poker, she let him go. “All of what?” Suspicion, he read. Dread.

“I think you do not really wish to do this,” Gideon said fighting disappointment.

“Why do I not?” Sabrina asked, snuggling against him, relaxing, and taking him into her hand again.

Sweet, sweet torture.

“Could we not continue?” she asked.

“Like this you mean?” He could not keep from nudging her blanket away and taking her nipple into his mouth once more.

She gasped and she sighed, and her legs shifted and stirred, as if she were seeking something she could not, or dare not, name.

In answer to the need she failed to recognize, Gideon again tried to touch her, there, at her core, but, again, she would not have it, would not open for him.

She must have been frightened once, badly. Perhaps more than once. In that case, there was only one way to go about this seduction business—from the beginning.

After that, he touched her everywhere, almost. Never at her center, but nearly there. When finally she allowed him to cup her—legs still closed tight against him—she sighed and relaxed. And he thought that perhaps she floated at least.

She sought his chiseled mouth with her own.

Amazed at her boldness, Gideon complied and gave her his. He took command of the kiss, and to his shock and delight, she allowed him to use his tongue in such a way as to mimic the act he most wanted to perform.

She used him as her anchor then, her grip like a vise, a tourniquet, until he lost all feeling in his ill-used shaft. But never one to shy away from a challenge, Gideon became resolved to bestow a lightness of pleasure upon her, while denying his own need, and oddly enough, he barely minded at all.

“I could make you fly,” he whispered, when he sensed that she craved but fought his final touch with equal panic. “Let go, Sweetheart. Open for me,” he kept asking, but she would not.

Instead, she kissed him again.

“Let me touch you,” Gideon whispered at her ear a few minutes later.

“I cannot. I cannot. Do not make me,” she cried, but she did not let him go or push him away. Indeed, she seemed, for all the world, as if she were trying to climb inside his skin.

Even as he cupped her and allowed her to move against his hand, Gideon got as close as she seemed to want him. “You are a fine and beautiful woman, Sabrina—a wife, my wife—exquisite, precious. And I am the man destined to deliver you to a new and wondrous place. A place you have never journeyed, never imagined. Come with me to a summit higher than the clouds, and all the way to the stars.”

“I cannot,” she whispered.

Gideon let her set the pace, then, a gentle touch for a gentle rise. He would not ask her again, not this night.

Somehow, she must have sensed his surrender, for she seemed to relax and float, slowly, and more slowly, and he saw her smile just before she slipped into sleep.

And Gideon was left speechless, battered of pride, and hard as a pikestaff.

Minutes, or hours, later, Sabrina moaned and turned on her side, and Gideon woke.

She must be uncomfortable with such a burden to carry, he thought. Yet this might be her best night’s sleep in months, despite the fact that ultimate satisfaction had escaped her. Hell, it escaped them both, he could not seem to forget.

Imagine getting himself a pregnant, yet innocent, bride.

Imagine him failing to satisfy her.

Imagine waking on the day after his wedding with his marriage yet to be consummated.

Gideon groaned. His ego could not take much more of Sabrina St. Goddard. Till death do them part, be damned. Being married to this woman would surely kill him.

Why, then, did being married to her give him no end of satisfaction? A puzzle as intricate as Sabrina herself.

As enticing.

As exasperating.

Already, he ached to stroke her again, to bring her back into his arms, but he would forego that pleasure to allow her sleep. With her burden, comfort in sleep must be difficult enough to attain, without him disallowing her rest at his whim.

Even he was not so selfish as that. Not quite.

Gideon turned on his side to resettle himself...and came face to face with...a child?

“What?” He sat up and regarded the location by the bed where the boy had just stood, but it lay in shadows, empty and undisturbed.

While he tried to decide if he had been asleep or awake, seen or imagined a child, he heard the squeal of a door hinge, and then silence.

Could one of the servant’s children be sleep walking? He would inquire in the morning as to which child might have taken to wandering.

Ignoring his state of semi-arousal, yet absurdly content with his previous day’s work, considering the abysmal failure of his wedding night, Gideon curled himself around his bride and drifted back into sleep.

* * *

Sabrina awoke disoriented, surprised to find herself pinned to the mattress, and sought to identify her ravager.

Ah, yes, ‘twas the penniless wanderer who had charmed her...until she realized she had married him. The rogue who talked her out of her nightrail and seduced his way into her bed. Yon dragon with his prodding staff tucked against her backside even now...the staff, she discovered, to her surprise, that could be harmless, after all. For a time. Perhaps.

Such a slow sweet warmth had built inside her at his tender touch, she had thought she might burst into flame, almost hoped she would. But she did not. Instead, she simmered until the contented heaviness of half-sleep beckoned. She remembered smiling when she realized she was drifting, wrapped in her new husband’s gentle arms.

For the first time in a marriage bed, she had reveled in the gentleness of a husband.