A Forbidden Love (24 page)

He reached out and grazed her hair, whispering, “Dry your eyes.”

She stiffened at his touch. “I can’t. The tears won’t stop.”

He didn’t pull his hand away from her cool and silky locks. If his touch was disturbing her, she would have smacked his hand away. And so, he continued to stroke her hair idly. It wasn’t long before he noted the tension fade from her muscles.

“I miss my family.” She sniffed, and slowly turned around to face him.

He settled both knees on the floor and propped his elbows on the mattress. His fingers lazily flicked at the ebony fleece of her hair, strewn across the pillow in a wild, silky wave.

He gazed into her shadowed eyes, so doleful, and thought about his own family and how fortunate he was. Whatever scandal he had instigated in the past, he had never been shunned by his family for it. There was great comfort in that security. A security Sabrina now lacked in her own life.

“I can’t change the past,” he said in a somber voice, “but I can try to make your future a better one.”

It was dark inside the room, but not so dark that he couldn’t see her brow furrow. “How?”

“I’ll buy you a house.”

It was his protective instinct that had prompted him to admit that. He hadn’t really thought too much about what he was going to do with her, now that she had nowhere else to go. His first priority was to her welfare, and with Gillingham still searching for her, her welfare was not yet secure.

But his gypsy had no real fear of Gillingham, he realized. She had never met the man. He was just a name to her. But the predicament of finding herself homeless and alone was very real to her, and he should have addressed that issue sooner.

But the ad hoc solution he’d just come up with seemed to be as reasonable as any. With all the money he possessed, why shouldn’t he give her a new home? She would be safe and he could always look after her.

“You’ll buy me a house?” she said in confusion.

“A little cottage,” he clarified, the idea taking firmer root. “Anywhere in England. It’ll be yours. Always. No one will ever make you leave it. And you’ll be safe. Far away from Gillingham and his prying eyes.”

She propped herself up on one elbow, so their eyes were level. “A cottage without a family isn’t a home.”

He heard the plaintive note in her voice. It made his next suggestion all the more vehement. “I’ll visit you often. You won’t have to be alone.”

“Often? Will your future wife and children let you visit with a gypsy?”

“I don’t intend to marry anytime soon,” he was swift to refute.

“But when you do, I’ll be alone. You’re not going to spend your time with me when you have a family to look after.”

He could hear her quickness of breath as she tried to fight back her despair, and he took her face, already wet with tears, between his hands. “Sabrina, I won’t abandon you.”

“Yes, you will.” Her voice was trembling. “I’ll lose you one day, just like I lost everyone else in my life.”

“No, you won’t!” His lips took hers in a passionate vow of assurance. He could taste the salty tears still lingering on those supple lips, and he drank in her sorrow, determined to quell all remnants of her grief. Grief he had helped to cause. And he knew of no other way to deal with her briny tears except to kiss them away.

But the longer his lips moved over hers, the harder her breathing grew and the more her tears fell, dripping onto the backs of his hands and drizzling down his wrists.

He pulled away from her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely, still holding her moist cheeks between his palms. “I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean to hurt you even more.”

“D-don’t.”

“I won’t touch you again,” he promised, furious with himself for letting his passion overtake his sense of reason yet again.

He let go of her tear-stained face and rocked back on his heels, prepared to move away from the bedside, when her hand reached out and circled his wrist.

“No,” she said in a small, hesitant voice. “Don’t stop. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

He looked down at the feminine fingers gently pressing his skin, then up to the glossy wet eyes staring at him through the hazy darkness.

He couldn’t have heard her correctly, he thought. She couldn’t have said to him what he’d been dreaming about since the day he’d met her. She couldn’t
want
him to make love to her after everything they’d been through. Could she?

Not about to misinterpret her actions—again—and end up doing or saying something he’d later regret, Anthony took her hand in his and asked carefully, “Sabrina, do you want me to—”

He never finished what he was going to say. She leaned into him and kissed him softly—giving him all the answer he needed.

It was instant, the heat that spilled through his veins. Drinking in her salty tears, his lips moved over hers with all the passion that was ransacking his soul.

He sensed what she wanted from him. Solace. A way to forget about every dreadful thing that had happened to her. And giving in to their frustrated passions was certainly one way to forget. And he would make sure she did forget—for a time, at least. He was going to take away her pain and make her feel every exhilarating emotion he was experiencing.

Anthony peeled back the blanket and joined Sabrina on the bed. As much as he wanted her, as much as his muscles ached for her, he restrained what he was truly feeling. He wouldn’t take her in a bout of hard lust. He wouldn’t let the moment whisk by them in an unfulfilled burst of instinct. Sabrina wasn’t one of his licentious mistresses. She was an innocent. No other man had ever touched her. And he was going to take his time caressing her, lulling her senses, giving her that solace he knew she wanted.

But first he had to ease her jitters. She quivered beneath him, and he wanted her to quiver with desire—and only desire—the very same desire that was tearing him apart inside.

“Don’t be frightened, Sabrina.”

“I’m not,” was her stout reply, but when his fingers closed around her breast, she inhaled sharply, amending her earlier claim in a soft and shaky voice, “Perhaps I’m a little frightened.”

But he didn’t want her to be scared, even a little. He wanted her to trust him, to let go of her fears and doubts, to let him love her as she deserved to be loved—reverently.

“I won’t let you be afraid,” he whispered, lips moving over hers in slow and deft exploration.

To soothe her anxiety, he would tantalize a most sensitive part of her. A part he himself adored. A part that was cushioned beneath him, causing him to give a heavenly sigh.

Anthony could just imagine her sensitive breasts chafe from rubbing up against the coarse confines of her wool chemise, and with a sudden urge to free those beautiful mounds, he slipped a hand between their meshed bodies and slowly unfastened the laces of her undergarment.

Her breathing deepened. His fingers worked neatly to loosen the lace bindings of her chemise, and expose more fully the sweet globes of flesh he so longed to savor.

God, how he loved her breasts. They were full and proud, and he wanted to feel them against his hand, to taste them deep in his mouth.

The laces came free, the chemise parted enough to expose one of the generous mounds to the chilly night air.

His hand went to the breast.

She gasped against his lips.

He felt her nipple shrink and tighten in the brisk night air, and he rubbed the flesh back and forth, massaging her, warming her skin, evoking a low, whimpering moan from the depth of her throat.

“Oh, Sabrina, what you do to me…I am the one who should be frightened.”

“But I haven’t done anything.”

It was a husky retort. An innocent retort. The girl really believed she’d done nothing to arouse him. But her very touch, the very warmth of her skin, the scent of her hair, the feel of her lush lips on his own, was more than he could bear. The temptation she provoked tore at his resolve. And he would need all his strength to maintain control of his lust.

The firm and bountiful breasts wiggling beneath his chest were like irons branding his skin. He had to taste them, and he kissed a path of sleek wetness down her neck to the protruding tip of one plump breast.

Anthony licked the taut nipple before he took the generous mound into his mouth and suckled.

Fingers digging deep into his hair, Sabrina whimpered and arched her body forward, sending her breast even deeper into his mouth.

He groaned at the exquisite feel of her, and locked his arm under the small of her back to hold her in place, his other hand cupping her breast, keeping it to his mouth as he sucked and kissed the rosy tip, feeling as though he would never have enough of her.

He was already hard and ready for her, but she was only at the start of what promised to be a very divine experience, and he wasn’t going to rush her. He would bring his gypsy to the very summit of her desire before he’d join her on that peak.

But the feel of her satiny breast in his mouth had a riotous effect on him, making it a grueling challenge to hold in his passion. His lips took in more of the thrusting peak, teasing the coral tip with his swirling tongue, tearing a deep-rooted moan from her throat.

Those wanton sounds of need had his cock throbbing for her comfort. She was slowly unleashing her every pent-up emotion, and he was burning up inside as a result. She’d have him scorched to a heap of cinder in no time at all, he was sure of it.

Sabrina was moving beneath him, twisting, arching, silently demanding that he give her more. And he intended to. With a swift movement, he whisked both straps of her chemise off her shoulders and pulled the garment down to her waist, so their bodies touched, flesh to flesh.

She dragged him back down and his lips instantly sought out her other breast, clamping over her nipple in avid hunger, whirling his tongue over the coral tip in slow, sensual caresses.

Her passionate whimpers grew louder and longer. Her hands held his head tight, so tight, he sensed his hair curling around her fingers in taut tension.

He let her breast slip free between his teeth. She wasn’t appreciative of that, if the protesting moan she gave was any indication. And he smiled to know her desire was as great as his.

“I want you so much,” he said in a ragged whisper, giving her a long and intense kiss. “I’ve wanted you since the day we met.”

“And I want you,” she breathed weakly, her breasts rising high to meet his chest with each labored breath she inhaled.

That brief, honest admission brought him a burst of satisfaction. “I’m going to love you tonight.” He kissed her tenderly. “Like I’ve dreamed of doing for so long.”

His mouth went back over hers, his tongue thrusting and flicking over her own in deft and eager strokes. He gingerly slipped his hand down her silken belly and rounded her hip, only his fingertips grazing the softness of her warm skin.

Gradually, he moved downward, reaching for the hem of her chemise, tangled around her knees. He grabbed a fistful of the fabric and began the steady ascent, gliding the thick material up along her thighs, pushing it higher and higher, exposing more and more of her body to him, until the dark patch of curls at her apex was bare to his touch.

She was trembling. He was going to make sure she quivered with desire and not fear. He shoved her chemise up to her hips and then braced his hand between her legs.

“Let me show you true pleasure, Sabrina.”

Sabrina shivered at his whispered words, at the husky timbre of his voice wound tight with desire.

It felt so good to be touched by Anthony again. Too good, perhaps. It was pure chaos in her heart to feel the power of his strength surging through his brawny arms, to inhale the familiar musk of his hair, stirring her senses into a whirling fit.

But she was glad for the distraction from all her woe. She was glad to give in to the desire that had haunted her for so long without worry of the consequences anymore.

There was a burning, twisting need inside her now, stoked by the slow, sensual movements of Anthony’s fingers between her legs. It was a feathery touch, but a determined one, stroking over and over again, teasing her sensitive skin, making her pulse sprint and her body throb and her breathing quicken.

She abandoned herself to the pleasure of the experience, wishing it could last a lifetime and beyond. But her thoughts were soon shot into blissful disarray as one powerful finger slipped inside her.

She cried out, her whole body shuddering. Her hips arched forward to meet his touch in an instinctual cry for more. And he gave it to her. A second finger joined the first, and plunged deep inside her sleek passage, slow at first, then he hastened the pace, and the faster he thrust, the more the heat swelled in her loins, and the more she cried out in want.

Her hips were moving up to meet each thrust of his fingers. He was making her feel so much and with such intensity, she thought she would lose her senses.

“Anthony,” she gasped.

His lips crushed hers, hot and possessive in their movements. It thrilled her to be caressed in such a way by him. It made her tremble to know that he wanted her, that he had longed for her since the day they’d first met. Her heart beat faster at the thought. Her arms folded tighter around his shoulders to keep him even closer to her.