OnlyYou (8 page)

Kaitlyn inhaled deeply as she walked to the middle of the
room, proud that she had been able to face him and walk away with her dignity
intact instead of melting at his feet in a puddle of weak desire.

She stared at the fire burning brightly in the small
fireplace across from the desk, lost in her thoughts as she listened to the
crackling logs. A hand suddenly seized her waist and she gasped, her head
whipping around to find Gabriel’s face a few inches from hers.

Breathless, she turned back toward the fire, uncertain of
what to say.

He leaned his face against the side of her head, his lips
brushing against her hair. “You cannot sleep in your corset. Hell, I do not
know how you can even walk around in that thing,” he dryly commented, his
breath hot against her ear. “Let me help you.”

She laughed softly, her stomach fluttering nervously. “And
you know how to unlace it?”

His chuckle, deep and sensuous, tickled her ear as he backed
up a step and pulled her hair away from her neck to tuck it over her left
shoulder. “I am no stranger to unlacing stays.”

Somehow, she wasn’t surprised.

She shook her hands out nervously at her sides, determined
to relax. After all, he was only helping her get out of her outer clothing. She
would still be covered from head to toe by her chemise. No need to freak out
about her less than flat stomach or the ten extra pounds she never seemed able
to get rid of.

She could feel his fingers quickly working against her back
and she deliberately slowed her breathing as her heart began thumping wildly
against her chest. Before she knew it, he was pushing the sleeves of her bodice
down her tingling arms and unlacing her corset.

His hands grazed past her waist as he lifted the corset from
her abdomen and tossed it on the desk. She opened her mouth to thank him but
then felt him tugging at her skirt from behind, allowing it and her petticoat
to fall to the floor in a puddle around her feet.

Gabriel stepped toward her, leaving the barest space between
them. Kaitlyn could feel the heat from his body against her back. The crackle
of the fire roared in her ears as she froze, simultaneously wishing he would
leave and touch her at the same time.

She felt his hand slide up her back and pull the right strap
of her chemise down over her shoulder. She shivered as goose bumps spread over
her arms. Gabriel lowered his lips to her shoulder, drawing them slowly,
seductively up to her neck while he slid the backs of his fingers down her
trembling arm.

“Why can I not get you out of my mind?” he asked in a ragged
whisper against her neck.

She whimpered and her head spun as he slipped his warm hand
around her waist, caressing her abdomen. He slowly planted kisses up and down
her neck, effectively drugging her senses. The stiff linen of her chemise
rubbed against her nipples, causing them to grow taut and achy.

“Tell me, Katie,” he whispered as he turned her around in
his arms. He kissed her jaw, her cheek and dragged his lips to hers. “Tell me
how to get you out of my head.”

He cupped her face in his hands, his mouth covering hers
hungrily. His lips were hard and searching and she quivered as little jolts of
electricity radiated down her legs. She sighed into his mouth and parted her
lips, surrendering to his passionate onslaught.

Gabriel growled low in his throat and forced his tongue
between her parted lips. Emboldened, Kaitlyn thrust her tongue against his and
then languidly pulled it back, slowly drawing it across his bottom lip. He
dropped his hands from her face and quickly cupped her backside, hauling her up
against his chest and pressing his stiff shaft into her abdomen.

He moved backward toward the door but then unexpectedly ran
into the chest of drawers instead. Eileen stirred in the bed a few feet away
and he froze, tearing his lips from Kaitlyn’s.

Kaitlyn turned and watched Eileen carefully, afraid to
breathe. She felt herself slip down the length of Gabriel’s body and she looked
back up at him in a lustful daze.

He stared back at her and she tilted her head to the side in
confusion as she watched the feral look in his dark eyes quickly become
replaced by a look of horror.

He practically dropped her on the floor as he released her
from his arms and stepped back. “My apologies, madam.” He bowed his head
slightly and walked out the door.

Kaitlyn stared after him, her heart suddenly feeling frozen
and her body shivering with unquenched desire. Her nipples throbbed and her
pussy felt empty and unfulfilled.

She wasn’t certain why but she needed Gabriel to fuck her.
No man had ever made her feel like this before. Her desires were purely
primordial and she could think of little else other than sexual fulfillment at
his hands.

She had never thought of herself as drop-dead gorgeous but
she knew she wasn’t unattractive. She may not have had a ton of experience with
men but she knew good and well that the male half of the species would never
pass up an opportunity to have sex. She was obviously a willing woman, so why
did the guy not simply throw her over his shoulder and carry her into his room?
What man wouldn’t take advantage of that?

The longer she thought about it, the angrier she became. She
needed to know what it was he disliked about her so immensely that he couldn’t
bring himself to follow through with his sexual advances.

She padded across the room and quietly slipped out into the
hallway. Raising her hand to pound on the door directly opposite of her room,
she paused, considering how the sound might cause more than just Gabriel to
enter the corridor. The last thing she needed was an eighteenth-century
audience while she demanded to know why Gabriel refused to fuck her. Instead
she rapped softly on the door and then placed her hands on her hips, preparing
for her confrontation.

Her stomach fluttered nervously at the unfamiliar road she
now traveled. By no means a confrontational person, Kaitlyn usually just put up
with peoples’ behavior rather than calling them out on it. But now a primitive
female need propelled her beyond her comfort zone.

After a few seconds, the door opened. Gabriel stared down at
her, seemingly surprised to see her. His mahogany hair had been unbound and now
framed his face, softening the chiseled edges of his jaw. His white shirt, now
unbuttoned, hung open at his sides, providing her with her first glimpse of his
impossibly wide, bare chest.

“Why do you dislike me so much?” she demanded in a harsh
whisper, afraid she would lose her nerve if she didn’t come straight to the point.

He arched his brows in disbelief and leaned against the
doorframe as his eyes lazily roamed down her figure, lingering for a brief
moment on her breasts. “Do not tell me, Katie, that you have never felt just
how much I like you,” he drawled as he crossed his arms in front of his chest,
giving himself a devilish air.

Her nipples strained against her chemise and she resisted
the urge to cover her chest with her arms. Instead, she straightened her back,
unknowingly pushing her breasts forward.

He groaned audibly, his lips parting slightly and his eyes
growing hazy once again as he stared at her. “You do not know what you do to
me,” he insisted, his breathing ragged.

Kaitlyn licked her lips instinctively, both surprised and
pleased about Gabriel’s physical reaction to her. “You’re right, I don’t. I
also don’t know why you kiss me and then look at me like I disgust you,” she
replied, impressed by how low and sultry her voice sounded.

“You do not disgust me.”

She took a step forward and he dropped his arms to his sides
as he straightened his back. They stared into one another’s eyes for what
seemed like an eternity, though Kaitlyn was sure only a few seconds had passed.

He tentatively reached out and caressed the side of her face
with his hand. Eyeing her as though she were a silly child, he smiled gently.
“On the contrary, I find you most desirable. It is my own behavior that I find
appalling.”

Encouraged by his words, she took another step forward, her
erect nipples barely brushing his chest. Tilting her face up, she lightly
brushed her lips against the base of his neck, deeply inhaling the masculine
scent lingering on his skin. Her stomach fluttered and she exhaled, lightly
stroking his neck with the tip of her nose as she flattened her palms against
his rock-hard abdomen.

Gabriel closed his eyes for a brief moment, determined to
regain his composure. The woman was actually
trying
to seduce him and he
was convinced that she had no idea what she was getting herself into. He
grabbed her forearms in an attempt to draw them away from his stomach but she
slid one of her hands down toward his more than eager cock. Before he knew it,
she pressed her palm against the length of his rigid shaft, squeezing him
gently through his breeches.

He groaned and rubbed the side of his face against her hair
as he instinctively rotated his hips against her hand. “Katie, love, why do you
torture me thusly?”

“I can’t seem to help myself around you,” she admitted,
tracing his collarbone with the tip of her tongue.

He could feel her hardened nipples pressing insistently
against his chest. He moved his hands to her hips, digging his fingers into the
flesh of her backside and rubbing his thumbs up and down the crease between her
thighs and pubic bone.

It would be so easy to get lost in this woman and he quickly
found himself very close to teetering over the edge. His need to feel her soft
thighs wrapped around his waist as he pumped into her took over his mind. He
wanted to bring her to her climax, to watch her, to hear her scream his name.

Kaitlyn inhaled sharply, feeling the moisture gathering
between her thighs. Her head was swimming with the knowledge that Gabriel
wanted her. She rubbed his cock, marveling at its length and thickness. She
wanted it inside her, filling her pussy.

He hastily took a step back, yanking her hands away from
him. She groaned in frustration as he grabbed her forearms and took a step back
from her.

“You cannot know what it is you risk,” he whispered
fiercely.

“Then explain it to me,” she angrily insisted, twisting her
arms out of his grasp.

He rubbed his brow wearily. “I have thought of little more
than getting you into my bed from the moment I saw you.”

She took a step toward him and he stepped back.

A muscle quivered in his jaw and his expression grew hard.
“I am a soldier. My life could be taken at any time. If I took you to my bed, I
could get you with child. And then what would you do if I were gone?”

The guy certainly knew how to kill the mood.

What on earth was wrong with her? Though she knew he would
survive this war, she became appalled by her own lack of forethought. She was
an intelligent woman—she knew perfectly well how pregnancy occurred. Plus, the
whole idea of “safe sex” had been pounded into her head since high school. Why
on earth had the lack of birth control in the eighteenth century not entered
into her mind even once?

Goose bumps covered Kaitlyn’s arms and she rubbed them
briskly as the chill of the hallway began to make itself known. Gabriel reached
out and caressed her shoulder lightly.

“Go on to bed,” he gently whispered, “while I still have the
strength to let you.”

She nodded mutely and turned, pausing as she heard the click
of Gabriel’s door. Sighing, she silently resigned herself to going to bed a
sexually frustrated woman until a risqué thought popped into her head.

After all, there was more than one way to achieve an orgasm.

Her lips curved into a slow, secretive smile. Nervously
biting her lower lip, she quickly ran through different approaches in her head
before deciding to simply dive right in. She quietly tiptoed back to Gabriel’s
door and pressed her ear against it. She thought she could detect heavy
breathing but she wasn’t certain.

Kaitlyn slowly turned the doorknob and peeked inside the
dark chamber. Slipping in and closing the door, the heavy breathing became
louder. She peered through the darkness and saw Gabriel lying on his back in
bed, his hand firmly wrapped around his cock.

The thought that she could be capable of driving a man to
masturbation only moments after seeing her felt empowering. Her pussy swelled
and her nipples rose to stiff peaks.

All thoughts of modesty faded from her brain. She pulled her
chemise over her head and allowed it to drop to the floor. As she silently
walked to the bed, her eyes became glued to the scene before her. She slowly
moistened her lips with the tip her tongue, enthralled by the look of exquisite
pleasure on Gabriel’s strained face and the firm pumps of his hand up and down
his thick shaft.

She placed her hands on the side of the bed, her heart
pounding wildly as she began crawling on all fours toward him. He still had not
sensed her presence and she took the opportunity to gaze at him, her eyes
tracing every contour of his long, powerfully built body. The man was a wall of
solid muscle, seemingly sculpted by some master sculptor of ancient Rome.

She leaned down toward his ear and softly whispered his name
as she lightly touched his chest, running her fingers through the smattering of
hair that ran down his torso toward his cock.

As fast as a jungle cat pouncing on his prey, Gabriel
grabbed her and flipped her over onto her back, holding her hands against the
headboard above her head. Breathing heavily, he straddled her hips, trapping
her between his roped thighs.

He stared down at her in disbelief. “What the hell do you
think you are doing, woman?” he asked incredulously.

She arched her back, grinding her pelvis against him. His
eyes darkened wildly and a low, animalistic groan escaped from somewhere deep
in his chest. He exhaled audibly as he continued to stare at her, waiting for
her answer.