Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) (33 page)

Gideon made of her a new-rising star, coaxing her to soar, encouraging her to sparkle, then allowing her to float glistening to rest.

Then he rekindled her spark, till she blazed and reached heaven once more.

He plied her with sweet, soft touches, with tantalizing tongue-licking kisses, stopping to stroke and suckle.

As he feasted on her, he gloried in her expressions, from impatient need to overwhelming amazement, to satisfaction and contentment.

She trusted him and he rewarded her trust. She allowed him to weave a spell along her every hollow and curve, and with her generous blessing, he made magic within her.

At a point where Sabrina thought she must stop or swoon, her rogue denied her request and flew her past bearing to a place so high, they fractured the sun.

Stars rained a sparkling cascade all about them. And he sustained the sunburst with practiced hands until he, too, thought she might expire, then he lowered her slowly back to earth and the realization of his arms encircling her.

Gideon rose above her only then and he watched her as he made to enter her. “You are mine,” he shouted as he slipped inside her.

“Mine,” he said as she closed about him, milking him with her pulsing need.

“Mine,” he whispered, moving within her, arching her, riding her, until she wept with her release.

“Mine,” she whispered on a sob.

Then the rogue carried his wife to heaven again, and when she reached it, and the stars singed them with their sparkling tips, Gideon gave her his seed, shouting at the last, “Mine,” as did she.

They kissed, and kissed again, more ravenous than even in the melding. Touching, confirming, settling arms and legs, bodies, to meet and touch, unable to get close enough.

Never enough.

Hours or minutes later, Sabrina awoke to a crying babe and aching, milk-full breasts. She rose to feed Juliana, and Gideon never woke.

When she returned, a staff of moonlight crossed the bed. She slipped into her husband’s possessive embrace and remembered that she had not given him her prize.

“Gideon,” she whispered. “Gideon, wake up.”

He moaned and turned into her embrace, hard on the instant. She could feel his grin grow against her breast. “Again, my greedy wife?”

She laughed. “Not quite.”

He moaned. “Oh do not burst my fantasy.”

“I want to give you something first.”

“As I want to give you something...more.”

Sabrina chuckled at the promise in his voice, at his playfulness, as she rose from their bed and sought the purse she had dropped upon entering the bedchamber.

When she returned to the bed, she sat, looking down at him, prone, half asleep, one wide-awake portion of his anatomy tenting the bedclothes. With a finger, she stroked his erection through the sheet and he lunged and wrapped himself around her, making her scream in surprise.

“Shh,” he said. “You will bring the house down around us.”

Sabrina sought and found the purse then she lifted it and placed it on his chest.

“Oomph. What is that?”

“The race purse, plus my winnings from a wager. Eighty five hundred pounds. All yours.”

Gideon pulled away from her and she heard the purse thunk when it hit the floor as he rose.

She raised herself to kneel on the bed, and watched her rankled husband light candles, one by one, his movements severe, until he bathed the bedchamber in light nearly as bright as day.

Fury shadowed his brow and chiseled his hawk-like features to harder angles, until he stood before her, an arrogant rogue once more, handsome and wicked, and all but threatening in stance.

“Gideon?”

“What do you take me for? Do you think I am the kind of man would send my wife out to make my fortune. Damn you, if you do. Damn you for a fool.”

“I do not understand.”

“Money is nothing to your safety. Nothing do you hear?”

“But you need—”

“I need you safe. What would I— What would the children do, if something happened to you?”

That was when Sabrina knew that there would be no flight this time for her, because if she ran now, she would leave her heart, her very
self
behind.

She was his and he was hers.

She loved him. God help her, she did. With a love, the likes of which, she never imagined could be hers. Pray God, such a vulnerable love would not destroy them both.

Sabrina rose from the bed, took the purse and threw it in the corner. Neither of them turned, even when the cloth bag split and coins scattered and rolled to every corner.

He cared for her, Gideon thought.

He cared for her, but all she cared about was that he should have enough money to keep her.

That broke him. Always for the money with her. He had almost forgotten that everything she did was for money. He wanted to ask if she had finally taken his seed for the money as well. But he could not, for he could not bear her answer.

It might destroy his last thread of hope.

It almost did destroy his pride, because, God help him, in that moment, he did not even care. He wanted her any way he could have her, as he had from the first.

He cared only that she was safe, and here, and his.

His.

He took in the picture of her then, almost defeated as she moved to the chiffonier, where he had left her hairpins. She bent to the side, to cascade her hair in that direction, her profile perfect. She took the fall of hair, twined it and set it atop her head, slipping hairpins into it, before turning to regard him.

In the full glow of candlelight, her breasts were high and heavy, proud and free. Sabrina. His wife, the woman he loved, the most beautiful—

The candle’s flame flickered and brightened in the breeze he stirred, as he moved toward her. Light danced off...a scar, clarifying it, bringing it into stark relief.

The closer he got, the more such imperfections did he notice. Another and another, too many of a sudden. Scars slashed her shoulders, a breast.

Gideon grasped those fine shoulders and turned her so he could examine each desecration marking her porcelain skin.

Her scars, Gideon thought absurdly, were all on the outside.

Other scars marked the nape of her neck, the back of an arm.

Rage, and an abounding tenderness, filled him, to the point that he feared he must crush her in his embrace, beat on her tormentor, or smash something.

Taking his hands from her, lest he leave bruises of his own, Gideon fingered one particularly thick white blemish along the back of a shoulder. “Tell me about this one.”

“I...fell against a hot poker.”

“He attacked you with a hot poker.”

Sabrina regarded the floor.

“And this one?” He kissed the circular scar at her nape.

“A nail.”

“A bloody, huge nail,” he snapped.

“Sticking out of the wall, and I got...pushed...more than once, against it.”

She had been pinned, literally, to the wall. Gideon’s stomach churned, his throat closed. Something constricted his chest. “I want to kill him.”

“You cannot. Someone else already did.”

“Would that I could end his despicable life a second time.”

“You would have to wait your turn. He was much despised.” Sabrina wanted to tell Gideon then, that she feared she knew Brian’s murderer, and that Lowick must even now be looking for her. But she could not.

“Why, Sabrina? Why did you marry him?”

“I was seventeen when my father sold me to Brian. I believed Brian must be an improvement over my father. In such cases, one always assumes that the unknown must be better.”

She shrugged. “As it turned out, they were two of a kind.”

Dear God, Gideon thought. How many men had she been wronged by, passed to? Her father gave her to her first husband, whom she must have fled, to go to Hawksworth, who passed her to Gideon. Lord, this could end badly.

Or had it already done so?

“Did you kill your husband?”

“No.”

“More’s the pity.”

“I am a coward.”

“You have more strength than ten of the best men who fought Boney beside me.”

“I endured.”

“You survived.”

“I did not remove my children soon enough from danger

“You got your children to safety.”

She had not. Oh she had not. “I got them to you, which is as close to safety as they can get.”

“But not complete safety.”

Long moments of silence passed during which time Gideon became more and more agitated. “I had thought that we were beyond secrets, you and I.”

She shivered. “I am afraid.”

He grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her. “Of me?”

“Not so much anymore.”

“The day you become certain that I will not hurt you, is the day I pray for and will celebrate.”

“Celebrate now. I am certain you will not hurt me.”

“Then why are you afraid?”

“I am not even certain why. Not quite.”

“You do not think me strong enough, or enough yours, to stand with you?”

“I think you the most wonderful man it has ever been my privilege to know. I thank God daily for your presence in our lives.”

“But?”

“You are human, and only a man, after all.”

“After all.” Frustration ate at Gideon, fury, but over what, precisely, he did not know. “The danger you fear is from an outside source?”

“Yes, and no.”

“Damn it, Sabrina!” Gideon turned away in anger, and came back as fast. “Damn, damn. Damn! You must trust me enough to tell me.”

“If I did, I would place you in danger.”

“To hell with your lack of faith in me. Tell me, damn it!”

She turned away from him, instead. “I cannot.”

Crushed, almost broken, Gideon regarded her steadily. “Tell me, at least, if I must set the runners to watching the house day and night.”

“You must.”

“Can you give me a description of your enemy?”

“Satan’s worst nightmare.”

Gideon ran both hands through his hair. “Veronica must be one you see as your enemy?”

“Yes, but not only her.”

“A man, too, you see as dangerous?”

Sabrina nodded.