He stopped, seated to the hilt. “Are you all right, lovely?”
“Yes, I’m quite wonderful,” she said, her tone a mix of pleasure and awe. She shifted beneath him, and he groaned, moving against her several times before retreating until nothing but the very tip of him remained inside her, and she thought the loss of him might make her mad.
“Gabriel,” she sighed. “Please.”
He rewarded her, filling her again, pushing her further, higher, shifting and moving until the angle of his movements was perfect, and she cried out.
He stopped, whispering in her ear teasingly, “Careful, Empress…you’ll get us caught.” Her eyes widened at his words, and he smiled. “It makes it even better, doesn’t it…the threat of discovery?”
As if to test her willpower, his fingers stroked just above where they were joined, skillfully playing in the nest of curls, finding the tight bud of pleasure there and stroking it until she was biting her lower lip to keep silent. And then he was moving again, building the sweet friction between them, coaxing her into abandon while whispering heated reminders to stay quiet. She couldn’t stop herself, and he captured her mouth in a soul-stealing kiss to keep her from calling out as she shattered beneath him, pulsing around him, giving him a taste of heaven.
And when she tore her lips from his to whisper “I love you,” over and over like a litany, he was lost, too, barely controlling his own cries of pleasure as he spilled inside of her.
After several long moments, he lifted his weight from her, and she gave a little sigh of protest at the loss of him. He lay next to her, immediately pulling her into his arms. When Callie rested her cheek upon his chest, she whispered her love one more time, so softly that he barely heard the words.
Gabriel lay there for a long time, watching her sleep, taking in her simple, powerful beauty and wondering at the intensity of the moment, of the evening. As he breathed her in, he was overcome with a ragged emotion—foreign and unsettling—and he wondered fleetingly what he had brought upon them.
Twenty-three
Callie woke to the sound of rustling paper.
She opened her eyes at the noise then, disoriented in the dim, gray light that marked the predawn hour, closed them once more. The fire in her room had gone out hours ago, and she cuddled closer to the source of heat next to her, stretching against the smooth, warm skin…before realizing precisely to whom the skin in question belonged.
Her eyes flew open, and she met Ralston’s bold, amused gaze.
“Good morning, Empress.” She felt more than heard the words as they rumbled in his chest, filled with sleep, and she blushed. After all, it wasn’t every day that she woke to a man in her bed. She wasn’t entirely sure how to respond, but she felt certain that ignoring him was highly improper. Pulling away from him in a desperate attempt to restore a semblance of ladylikeness to her person, she said, “Good morning. What time is it?”
“Just before five,” he answered, one arm snaking around her and pulling her back to her original position, pressed against his very warm, very hard, very naked body. “Altogether too early to leave this bed.”
“We shall be caught!” she whispered.
“I shall leave before that will happen, lovely,” he promised, “but first, I must return something to you.” He lifted his free hand and, in horror, she recognized the paper he held. Her list.
She lunged for it, and he easily held it away from her, forcing her to squirm across his chest, reaching for the parchment. She quickly realized that she was fighting a losing battle and stopped, turned accusing eyes on him. “You had it!”
“You needn’t look at me as though I stole it, lovely.” He spoke with mock affront. “You misplaced it. I merely rescued it for you.”
“Well,” she said, her voice sweet, “I am very lucky to have you as my savior, aren’t I?” She reached out for the paper. “I should like it back.”
“I shall be happy to oblige, of course,” he said, waving the paper idly in the air, “but don’t you think that, considering our new relationship, I should be let in on your little list? After all, I shouldn’t like to be taken unawares by your eccentric activities once we’re married.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “No! You can’t! You promised you wouldn’t look!” She wriggled against him again, resuming her quest to rescue her list from his clutches.
“Yes, well, that’s what you get for attaching yourself to a renowned cad,” he teased, groaning as her lush breasts pressed against his chest. He stilled her with one hand. “Be careful, Empress, or I shall have to prove myself a rogue once more.”