Enchanting Pleasures (36 page)

Nothing happened. Silk remained firmly anchored over her nipples.

“Gabby?” Quill’s voice had taken on a sardonic tone.

“It was tedious upstairs, by myself,” she said quickly. She surreptitiously wriggled her shoulders again.

Quill’s eyes softened. “You know we cannot have a public life yet, Gabby. But in a very few months our mourning period will be over and we can go into society.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Unfortunately, the funeral and my illness put me far behind in my work. I cannot entertain you this evening.” He took Gabby’s elbow and turned her about.

“But I haven’t even finished my sherry!” she protested.

“Please forgive me,” Quill said. His tone was oddly angry, Gabby thought. She drank her second glass of sherry.

“All right,” she said reluctantly. She thought of wiggling again, but she was afraid he might think she was suffering from an itch. And he looked so very, very uninterested.

Quill marched her over to the door of the study, but Gabby stopped there. She felt like a naughty child being ejected from the schoolroom.

“Surely you are not too busy to escort me to my chamber?” She managed to turn the question into a delicate reference to his manners.

There was a second’s pause and then he answered evenly, “Naturally, I would be most pleased to do so.” They walked silently beside each other up the curving staircase. Gabby trailed her fingertips on the satiny rail, trying desperately to think of another tactic.

Her heart was sinking. It seemed that Quill truly was busy. And she was the one who had banished him from her bed. Perhaps he’d put the whole business out of his mind, and that was why he was treating her like a nuisance. She was so dispirited that she didn’t even dip and sway as she walked before him down the hallway.

As they paused at her bedchamber, Gabby reached toward the door a fraction of a second after Quill leaned around from behind her. Since Quill had already pushed the door open, she lurched through the entrance and stumbled into the room. She caught her toe on the edge of the carpet and plummeted to the floor, landing on her left shoulder.

For a second the only sound in the room was Gabby’s heartfelt “Bloody blistering botheration!”

Only when she rolled to her back and gripped her sore shoulder—her
bare
shoulder—did she realize that her dress had given up its fight midway to the ground.

And only when she looked up and met her husband’s eyes as he stood frozen in the doorway did Gabby realize that she had inadvertently scored all the points necessary to win this particular round of marital chess.

She propped herself up on her elbows, quite enjoying the fact that she had, to quote Quill on their wedding night, truly magnificent breasts.

“Well,” she said, grinning shamelessly at her husband.

He cleared his throat. His eyes had gone quite black, she noted with satisfaction.

“I believe I’ve changed my mind about nudity in the confines of my bedchamber,” Gabby explained. Really, the man looked moonstruck. As if the very sight of her had turned him into a want-wit.

She was able to cherish that notion for all of two seconds. Then Quill walked into the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

H
E KNELT BESIDE HER
in one swift movement. “Am I to understand that you have changed your mind?”

Gabby swallowed. “Yes,” she said, rather faintly. “That is, I have an idea, Quill.”

“An idea?” He reached out and caressed her sore elbow. Then he brushed her hair back over her shoulder.

“Perhaps your migraines are related to your hip injury,” she said, trying to ignore the way she was sitting half-clothed on the floor.

“My doctors have concluded that they are the result of a concussion I received in the accident.” Quill was definitely not listening to her.

A honey-dark hand rounded the curve of her breast. His thumb trailed across her nipple and Gabby shuddered inside, excitement and nervousness beating a double rhythm.

“Luscious Gabby,” he murmured. He looked at her with his wicked smile. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

“Quill, did you hear what I said? If the migraines were connected to your hip injury rather than to your concussion, then—”

He stretched himself out on the carpet next to her and began kissing her shoulder, little nipping kisses.

She started over. “Perhaps the migraines are the result of your hip injury.”

Quill shook his head and answered patiently. “I exercise my hip frequently, Gabby. I never suffer migraines as a result. And concussions are known to cause headaches.”

She pushed his head away from her breast. “Please listen to me!”

“I don’t want to,” Quill whispered against her skin. “Gabby, I exercise daily, and don’t suffer headaches as a consequence. The only activities that give me migraines are sexual intercourse and riding horses.”

“Riding horses?” Gabby tried to pull her rational self together. One of Quill’s hands drifted to her stomach and was making little teasing circles, pushing at the crumpled gauze of her dress, threatening to go lower.

Abruptly he suckled her. When he finally raised his head, his breath had become a flame in his chest, an erotic hymn in his throat. “There’s no escape from migraines, love. My doctors have all agreed that motion exacerbates the old head injury. There’s no mystery about it.”

“You walk all the time,” she protested. “Obviously, not all motion causes problems.”

“True. But this is not a good time for conversing, Gabby,” he added, lowering his mouth to her breast again.

She couldn’t help it; she gasped as he roughly pulled a nipple into his mouth. Her body involuntarily turned toward his, asking for his weight, his pressure, again.

“Mmmm,” Quill muttered, his hand sliding seductively down her back. He pushed it under the drape of her gown.

Gabby squirmed and her breath came harshly. He cupped her bottom and swung her toward him, picking her up in one smooth motion.

“You shouldn’t!” Gabby said, panic in her voice. “If your hip is the cause of your headaches, you shouldn’t pick me up.”

He shook his head, teasingly running his lips across hers. “No, sweetheart. That’s not a logical conclusion. Besides, I don’t mind a migraine now and then.”

And she could tell he
didn’t
mind, that he wouldn’t begrudge a moment of pain for the time in her arms.

Quill lay her on the bed and then slowly, slowly pulled the infamous gown from her body, letting it fall to the floor. She was wearing silk stockings and shoes, nothing else. “You’re so beautiful.” His voice was a caress.

Gabby took a deep breath and resisted the impulse to dive under the covers. “I would like to try to make love without straining your hip, please,” she said, forcing her voice to sound authoritative. He may not care about the headaches, but she did.

“An experiment?” Quill’s eyebrows arched. “I have a good deal more experience than you do, Gabby. I honestly feel that you will be more comfortable with old-fashioned methods.”

He was trembling with the effort of standing casually before her. He was fighting off an overpowering urge to fall on her and push himself inside without grace or forethought. He let his eyes range from the delicate bend of her knee to her shining, tangled hair. Slowly he drew off her slippers, his fingers lingering on the arches of her feet.

“What happened to you, wife?” His voice was thick in his throat. Willy-nilly he leaned forward and curved a hand possessively around Gabby’s creamy breast. “You’re naked in the open, as if you never protested nudity.”

She glanced down at her uncovered breast, at his hand on her bare skin, and didn’t bother replying. If he thought she had turned into a wanton who didn’t realize that her dress was on the floor, so be it. Her eyes sought his. “Do you have any ideas, Quill?”

He had no idea what she was talking about. “Ideas?” He came onto the bed and his large body loomed over hers. He pulled a rosy nipple into his mouth again.

Her hands clutched his shoulders. “A plan,” she gasped.

“Plan?”

Gabby bit back a moan. “For this,” she insisted.

Quill raised his head. “What are you talking about, Gabby? I didn’t need a plan the last time I took you to bed, I can assure you.”

Her breath was catching in her chest. “How—how—you didn’t listen to me!” She pushed at the knee wedged between her legs.

Quill shook his head. Then he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m listening. What are you trying to say?”

“You put weight on your hip,” she said, pointing. “That’s your scarred hip, isn’t it?”

Quill closed his eyes for a moment. “I
told
you what the doctors said.” But from the depths of his lust-driven body, a silent voice spoke. Do whatever she wants, advised the voice. Otherwise she might exile you from the bedchamber again.

“Right,” he said, smiling down at his wife. “We will spare my hip.” He stroked her stomach as if he were caressing a cat. Shivers followed in the wake of his fingers. Suddenly he rubbed his thumb across silky damp curls, pulling her trembling thighs apart with his other hand.

Gabby gave a funny, half-strangled gulp. Quill withdrew his hand and moved backward, swinging his legs off the bed. He left her shaking, with a fluid burning heat between her legs. “Quill?” She reached her arms out to him. Her eyes were a dusky golden color and hazy with desire.

Obviously his wife had abruptly found herself in the throes of the same lamentable lust that had plagued him for the last fortnight. Suddenly Quill started thoroughly enjoying himself. “You know,” he said lazily, “I think we should outline our plan. So that we’re both clear about our duties.”

Gabby read the challenge in his voice and responded instinctively. “That sounds like a good idea,” she said airily.

“Well?” He stood in front of her, large and imposing, his legs spread, an amused smirk in his eyes that told her of secret laughter. “Why don’t you detail the first step?”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Will you remove your clothing, please? I would prefer not to be in this state alone.” She registered the even tone of her own voice with a sense of gratitude.

At that, Quill smiled a crooked, sensual smile that didn’t reveal his surprise, if he felt any. “I think not, Gabby. What if I strain my hip? You had better do it for me.”

She sat up and came to her feet. Her heart was pounding unevenly. “Of course,” she responded, quite as if he’d asked for a second cup of tea.

She began to untie his neckcloth.

“If we are to spare my hip,” Quill remarked, “you shall have to do most of the work.”

“Of course,” she murmured.

He grinned. “Gabby, how much do you remember of our wedding night?”

Gabby pulled his neckcloth from around his neck and dropped it neatly over a chair. “I remember everything, of course.” She avoided his eyes as she began unbuttoning his shirt.

“If I am to put no weight on my hip,” Quill said, tone soft as a devil’s, “you will have to be more…forthright than you were that night, my dear.”

Gabby swallowed. “Naturally,” she replied without expression. She reached the last button and eased the shirt off his shoulders. His chest was a smooth sun-brown, without a single hair. Bewitched, she drew her fingers uncertainly over his taut muscles.

“Do you understand what I just told you?” Now it was Quill who was having trouble keeping his voice even.

“Mmmm,” she replied. True, Gabby didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant to be forthright in the bed, but she didn’t feel like fussing about it. She brought her hands up to his neck and let them slide down his chest again. Little shudders followed in her wake. Daringly, she leaned forward and kissed the heated skin her hands had just caressed.

Quill cleared his throat. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep up this civil air. He was throbbing so hard that his trousers might not even be able to slide down his hips. “The rest of my clothes, Gabby?”

In fact, he’d lost his urbane tone and his voice burst with hungry violence.

But she fumbled with his trouser buttons, and in the end he shucked the remainder of his clothing himself.

In a lightning-quick lunge, he grabbed her and fell backward onto the bed, pulling Gabby on top of him. Her eyes were dreamy, cheeks flushed as she straddled him. Then her eyes widened with shock and a glimmer of understanding came into them.

“Do you think?”

Quill didn’t, couldn’t, answer. In reply he clasped her hips and lifted her into position.

Gabby choked and instinctively pressed forward.

“Yes!” Quill whispered fiercely. “Come to me.”

Gabby trembled, caught on a wave of embarrassment so acute she couldn’t move. She was poised above him unclothed. She quivered with mortification. Naked in the open. It was depraved! At least before she had been hidden underneath him.

But then she looked down and there was Quill—his beautiful gray-green eyes asking desperately for something only she could give. She forgot her exposed flesh and leaned forward, kissing him gently as she nudged downward against his heat and demand.

He groaned against her lips and forced them open, possessing her sigh with his mouth, taking her breath into his lungs.

“You’re making me forget,” Gabby whispered when his lips moved from her mouth to her neck, leaving a scorching trail behind. Hands tightened on her hips as if he was about to pull her down.

“Gabby …” His voice was a plea.

Despite herself, a little squeak broke from her lips as she pushed down again. And pulled back. And fell downward again—deeper and sweeter. The breath was burning in her chest. She tried again, and again. Deeper each time. Quill’s face was agonized.

“Gabby!” he said roughly, and she knew that in a moment his self-control would break and he would pull her hard onto his body.

“Yes?” she whispered sweetly, and sank down until they were joined together like puzzle pieces made by a master.

A harsh cry broke from Quill’s lips and he arched his hips off the bed, holding her hips tightly against him.

Now it was her turn to cry out. But then: “Stop that,” she gasped. “You are not allowed to move your hip!”

For a moment a ravishing smile lit Quill’s eyes. “You drive a hard bargain, love.” His voice was husky, taut with control. A hand found its way to the front of her thighs and tried to distract her.

Gabby fell silent, intent on learning the rhythm of the rise and fall. She rocked awkwardly. She rose quickly and sank too slowly. She drove him half to distraction…. Quill ground his teeth and stroked his wife’s back. He rediscovered the delights of having a breast temptingly near his mouth. He counseled himself in patience and tried to keep in mind the fact that awkward lovemaking with Gabby was ecstasy compared to lying in a bed without Gabby.

He learned patience and then abruptly lost that hard-won virtue. His muscular body arched roughly upward, a thumping rise that sent a bolt of lightning through his body.

Reprimanded, he regained patience and whispered loving words he never meant to speak again.