Bride for a Night(79)

Surely this could not be right?

Of course, the feel of his lips nuzzling at the curve of her neck was delectable, and his hands were expertly exploring her full breasts, tugging her nipples into full arousal before they were sliding down her body with wicked intent.

She swallowed a gasp as his fingers slid between her legs, parting her most intimate flesh. Then with exquisite slowness he pressed his erection deep into her moist channel.

“Oh…lord.”

She struggled to form her words only to have them evaporate entirely when his fingers discovered the center of her pleasure, and he stroked her in tempo with his shallow thrusts.

“Do you want more, Talia?”

More? She whimpered, not certain she could bear more without shattering into a thousand pieces. Then he shifted the angle of his thrusts, plunging deeper, and she reached backward to dig her nails into the muscles of his hip.

“Yes, please, yes.”

The rasp of their heavy breaths filled the air along with the scent of hay and passion. Talia squeezed her eyes shut, her body moving to meet his thrusts with increasing urgency.

“Talia,” he groaned, his hips slamming upward as his seed poured into her, triggering her own release.

She cried out in ecstasy, indifferent to their rough surroundings or the dangers that waited just outside the door.

For now nothing mattered beyond the feel of Gabriel’s arms wrapped around her and the wild beat of his heart against her back.

Keeping her eyes closed, Talia oddly thought of her grandmother, and how she would have assured Talia to live in the moment.

They were, after all, two people alone in the world, brought together by a quirk of fate and yet, somehow destined to have arrived at this precise place.

Why try to deny what was meant to be?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN



LEAVING TALIA TO wash and change into her clean gown, Gabriel crept through the countryside, not returning until he had managed to steal a horse from a small village not far from the main road.

Not that the plodding farm animal offered the speed he would have wished for, but the beast was sure-footed, and even with the burden of both Gabriel and Talia, he managed a steady pace that had them arriving at the coast just south of Calais well before dusk.

Halting long enough to vault to the ground, Gabriel took the reins and led the animal along the narrow path that led to the water.

“Are you certain your ship will be waiting?” Talia demanded, her face pale with weariness, although her spine remained stiff with the determination that made him smile.

His beautiful, courageous gypsy.

Of course, her newly exposed spirit was not entirely a blessing.

One might expect that after their breathtaking intimacy she would prove to be far more compliant and eager to please him. It was, after all, the behavior he had become accustomed to in his mistresses.

Talia, however, had spent the first of the journey chastising him for stealing a horse from a poor French family who were no doubt deeply suffering the loss and the second half sunk in her own thoughts, her manner so distant it made him long to drag her from the horse and crush her in his arms until she was once again moaning in eager anticipation of his touch.

He could not explain why, but it annoyed him that she was capable of putting a distance between them. She was his wife. She should belong to him completely.

Aggravated by his ridiculous thoughts, Gabriel forced himself to concentrate on far more important matters.

“Yes, it will be waiting,” he assured her. “Despite my commands that my crew return to England should I be captured, I am quite certain they will have refused to leave without me.”