All at once, without warning, the kisses stopped.
“You really want me to go,” he whispered. It wasn’t a question.
“I can’t,” she said, drawing the sheets tighter around her. “This just…it isn’t right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m the one who should apologize.”
She felt his weight lift away from her as he sat up.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Gabriella turned in place, rolling around so she could see his handsome face, alabaster as a gravestone by the light of the moon. It was a face she felt she could spend the rest of eternity staring. A face that now bore a long look of sorrow.
“I shouldn’t have…” he started, but paused, as if trying to gather his courage as well as his words.
“No, you shouldn’t have.” Unable to help herself, anxious to lay her hands on him, Gabriella reached out and caressed his face. Closing his eyes, Atom sat statue still as she ran her fingers along his cheek, tracing his strong jaw, his regal nose, his trembling lips. His skin was icy from the night chill. How long had he stood at her door before he worked up the courage to sneak inside?
Against her fingers, he whispered, in a weak voice, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I thought you desired me as much as I do you. I’m very sorry if I offended you.”
Gabriella sighed with frustration. He had misinterpreted her chasteness as frigidity. Where she was trying to be respectable, he read it as rejection. “I do desire you, Atom. I just don’t want you to think ill of me if we give in to those desires.”
Atom opened his eyes and stared at her in horror. “Gabriella, my angel. I could never think ill of you. You are the perfect example of…of… Why, I have never known a woman so gracious in all of my life.”
“Am I gracious?”
His face softened to a dreamy gaze. “Oh, yes. And beautiful. And chaste. And perfect.”
Gabriella was wooed by the simple sincerity of his words. Throwing away all propriety, she pulled Atom to her by the scruff of his neck and kissed him. She slipped her tongue past his lips, just for a brief moment. Atom seemed startled at first, but it wasn’t long before his wet tongue darted past her’s. The feel of him exploring her mouth was indescribable, a delight she never expected to enjoy. They wrestled like this for what seemed a long time before she broke the kiss to catch a much-needed breath. Shame settled on her in moments as she turned her head away. What would he think of her now?
To her delight, Atom took her by the chin, turning her face back to his as he announced, “I love you, Gabriella.” It was just what she wanted to hear, had waited to hear.
Her response was as natural as breathing. Sitting up to meet him eye to eye, she answered his ageless call. “And I love you, Atom. I really, really do!”
He laughed aloud, as if freed somehow by her proclamation. “By all that is good and right in this world, I swear to you, Gabriella Upstairs, that I will always love you. I have always been and will always be eternally devoted to you, my darling. I could never think of you as anything but my virtuous angel, no matter what you do.”
Gabriella pressed her thighs together to still her rising lust. Her heart beat a jackrabbit rhythm beneath her aching breast. She was on fire with hunger, with need, with want. And why shouldn’t she be aflame? She was a full-grown woman in love, and he a full-grown man in love. They should do what came naturally to a couple who cared for one another so deeply.
She seized both of his hands, warm and fleshy and so very large, into hers, and guided them to the fastening of her gown. He paused as he met her gaze with his own. Smiling, she nodded, assuring him that this was indeed what she wanted. With trembling hands, Atom pulled at the tie of her gown, parted the fabric in a gentle sweep, then slipped it past her shoulders until it came to a rest in the crook of her arms. Only then did he lower his eyes to her nude form. He stared at her nakedness for a moment, the sharp hiss of his appreciation forcing a blush of unease on her. Again a sudden shame surfaced. Here she sat, exposed to a male for the first time in her life, and without so much as even a hint of a proposal of marriage. What was she doing?
As if sensing her embarrassment, he held her face between his cool palms and assured her, “You’re beautiful. So beautiful. Just like a lady and an angel should be.” He kissed her, full and sweet, for just a brief moment. Then he pulled away, swallowed hard and asked, “May I…my angel…may I have the honor of being the first to touch your beautiful body?”
She shuddered at the tenderness of his request. What was she doing? She was about to make love with the man with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life, that’s what she was doing, and that was all right with her. With a soft groan, she begged him to feel her. “Yes. Yes, please, Atom. Touch me now, before I lose my mind with desire for you.”
Gabriella moaned as his fingertips brushed her beaded nipples, then gasped as he grabbed her breasts in his strong hands. Yes, this was what she longed for. This was what she needed. His hands on her body. She looked down to watch him touch her, to watch his hands move across what she had saved so long just for him.
His hands.
Gabriella narrowed her eyes at his hands. Something wasn’t right about them. She snatched his left hand away from her breast and held it up to her face. It was all flesh, all bone, as it should be. She pulled his right hand from her body, holding it to her face as she eyed it with worry. It, too, was all flesh, all bone. That wasn’t right.
Atom Loquacious’s right hand was made of clockworks, not flesh.
She raised her face to meet his. “Who are you?”
“I’m your one and only true love,” he answered.
Gabriella sighed as she recognized the words. They were the very same words she had longed her whole life to hear. Words she pretended her husband would say to her on their wedding night. They were fantasy words, which was fitting given the situation. She sighed. “You’re just a dream.”
As she spoke, the room filled with a bright light, as though the sun itself were rising from behind her dresser. In the background, somewhere, a deep pounding noise began. All the while, dream Atom nodded. “I’m afraid so, Guppy.”
She narrowed her eyes at him again. “What did you call me?”
The room around them grew brighter. The volume of the pounding increased. Dream Atom’s voice took on a southern twang and feminine falsetto as he shouted, “Wake up, Guppy!”
Gabriella awoke, alone, in the early morning brightness of her small room. Her sheets were bunched at the foot of her cot. Her gown lay open, exposing her nudity to anyone who cared to take a peek. It was the third time this week she’d had such a vivid dream. It was also the third time she’d been late for the morning meal.
The pounding was a steady beat on her door. Magpie’s muffled shouts bled through the wooden barrier between knocks. “Get up, girly! You’ve overslept. Again.”
“I’m awake,” Gabriella shouted in return. She sat up and pulled her gown closed, wondering if there were a ghost of a chance that Atom was dreaming of her too.
She smiled with the idea as she began her morning routines.
* * * *
Rose Madigan wasn’t a happy woman.
Not today. Not this morning. In the normal course of events, she liked to think of herself as a cheerful person, at least since her horrible husband had died. Life was better now that Bill was gone. Except for today. Today she was miserable. Even with Click lapping at her breasts like the frisky puppy he always was, she was hard-pressed to remember when she