Gabriel swallowed a curse. Trust Silas Dobson to send his daughter off to her wedding bed without giving her a hint what to expect. Bastard.
“Leave matters to me,” he growled against her silken skin, his hand skimming down her back to clutch the curve of her hip. “I am exactly certain what to do.”
Her lips parted, but Gabriel was beyond coherent conversation.
Besides, he had no words to assuage her virginal unease. The only means to allay her fears was to demonstrate the marriage bed could offer more than sacrifice.
Dismissing the taunting voice that assured him his impatience had nothing to do with comforting his bride, and everything to do with the desire that had escalated to an unrelenting need, Gabriel claimed her mouth in a kiss that demanded utter surrender.
She briefly stiffened, floundering beneath his raw hunger. Hardly surprising, he instantly chastised himself. Hadn’t he just told himself that Talia was a timid virgin in need of coaxing? Christ, in another moment he would be tumbling her like a two-bit whore.
The damned female might have trapped him into marriage, but, by God, he intended to have her begging for release before the night was over.
With grim determination he gentled his touch, his hand brushing down her naked thigh while his mouth teased at her lips until they slowly parted. Murmuring soft encouragement, he dipped his tongue into the moist heat of her mouth.
She again stiffened, and he swallowed a hiss of frustration. Surely she could not be frightened of a kiss?
Then, just when he was trying to convince himself to pull back, she gave a tiny sigh of pleasure, and her arms lifted to wrap around his neck.
Pure male satisfaction surged through him at her unspoken surrender.
He hadn’t been deceiving himself. She wanted him.
Continuing to stroke his fingers in a lazy pattern along her thigh, Gabriel nipped at her full lower lip before blazing a path of kisses down her throat and over the curve of her breasts. She tasted of heat and sunshine that reminded him of lazy summer days at his childhood home in Devonshire.
Days before the heavy duties of his title had stolen his untroubled existence.
Her fingers clutched at his hair, her body arching with an unspoken plea.
His cock twitched in anticipation at the feel of her soft curves brushing against him. For all her inexperience she was a natural-born siren.
And for tonight she was his.
Sweeping his mouth downward, Gabriel captured the tip of her hardened nipple between his lips, savoring the sound of her soft gasps. The sweetest music.
“My lord,” she rasped. “Gabriel.”
“Shh,” he whispered, subtly pressing a hand between her thighs. “Trust me.”
She shivered, her hands shifting to run an impatient path down his back.
“You have given me little reason to trust…” Her breath caught as his finger dipped through the moist cleft between her legs. “Oh.”
He laughed softly, circling the hard tip of her nipple with his tongue.
“Your first lesson as a wife is to accept your husband always knows best.”
She muttered something beneath her breath at his smug words, but she was swift to cry out in wonderment as his finger slid with gentle insistence into her welcoming body. Gabriel pulled back to watch her delicate face flush with sensual heat, her thick tangle of lashes lowering and her lips parting as he stroked his finger in a slow, tantalizing tempo.
Christ, he had never seen anything so beautiful.
It was absurd.
He had been pleasured by the most talented courtesans in all of England. Hell, his last mistress had caused riots when she had first appeared on the stage.
So why then was this inexperienced wallflower making him tremble with savage hunger?
Refusing to contemplate the dangerous question, Gabriel instead reclaimed her lips in a kiss of fierce anticipation. A flare of triumph raced through him as she willingly met the thrust of his tongue with her own, her nails biting into his lower back as her body sought relief from her swelling tension.
He had done what he could to ease her maidenly fears. Now he was through with waiting. If he didn’t have her soon, he was fairly certain he would go mad.
With one smooth motion he shifted on top of her body, settling between her legs with a groan of sheer relief. She gave a small gasp, but finding the tiny nub that made her squirm in bliss, Gabriel continued to pleasure her as he situated his cock into the opening of her body and entered her with one slow thrust.
A rasping moan tore from his throat. She was molten heat and exquisite tightness.
A perfect combination.
His heart forgot to beat as he drank deeply of the nectar of her mouth, waiting as Talia adjusted to his intimate invasion. Only when her muscles eased and he felt her hands running an impatient path up his back did he pull back his hips and plunge back into her slick warmth.
Brushing his lips down her cheek, Gabriel nipped at the lobe of her ear, relishing the crisp clean scent of her skin. Until this moment he did not realize how he disliked a female who drenched herself in perfume. Having his senses filled with the delectable woman in his arms, and not a choking cloud of flowers, only intensified his pleasure.
Lost in the urgency of his passion, he struggled to concentrate on the sounds of her soft moans and the rasp of her breath. He would not allow his searing need to overcome his determination for Talia to find her own release.
Burying his face in the curve of her neck, he kept his pace slow and steady, his hands shifting beneath her hips to angle them upward. Her nails bit into his flesh, her body arching as she neared her climax.
“Gabriel,” she groaned. “I cannot…”
“Yes, you can,” he coaxed in thick tones. “I will give you what you need.”
Scattering kisses down her collarbone, he lowered his head to suckle at the tip of her nipple, increasing his pace and urging her legs to wrap around his hips.
Gabriel heard Talia cry out in startled joy, the pulse of her release clutching at his cock. He clenched his teeth, his hips surging until he was buried deep inside her as a shattering climax slammed through him.
Time stopped as he rode out the storm of sensations that assaulted him. Then, with a low groan, he wrapped his arms around her quivering body and rolled to the side, pressing her against his chest.
A silence filled the room, broken only by their heavy breathing as they both struggled to recover from the explosive coupling.
It is time to walk away, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.
He had bedded his wife, ensuring their marriage was consummated and sating the unfathomable desire that had plagued him. Why would he linger?
But even as the thought of leaving passed through his mind, he dismissed it.
The uncomfortable truth was that he was not sated.
Despite the shockingly intense orgasm, he could already feel himself growing hard, and when she wiggled against him in an attempt to untangle herself from his arms, he instinctively tightened his grasp and growled in her ear.
“Do not move.”
“My lord…Gabriel…” She tilted back her head, her eyes revealing her stunned bemusement at what had just occurred between them. “Surely we should discuss…”
“No discussion,” he interrupted. Damnation, the last thing he desired was to discuss the cruel irony that the female who had so recently trapped him into marriage was capable of undermining ten years of self-discipline. He wanted to drown in the