Passion (35 page)

Hot, hard, lost, he let her take from him. He
gave to her amazed at the strength of her need, thrilled, at her
passion, her meeting his own all the way. They talked grit out
their pleasure, their need, burning and begging, praising and
whispering, hot in their passion, driving each other higher,
deeper, so connected on the most elemental level.

Eventually, he was against the headboard, the
sheet between his legs when she came from the bathing area. Pulling
on his cheroot, Raith eyed the flushed face, her plump lips, and
the sensual tilt to her eyes. That robe parted and slid off before
she sat slightly facing him, her gaze meeting his as they
acknowledged what had passed between them thus far.

He inwardly smiled at her expression—love, a
little sexual greed, and more sensuality than any man could
want.

Putting out the cheroot, he watched her hand
glide up his flank, touching him, rubbing, and feeling him. Raith
watched it next glide under the sheet, and raised his eyes.

Gabriella wet her lips. Her palm glided over
his thickening sex.

“Do you mind?”

“No,” he husked honestly, and tugged the
covering away. His body had answered more eloquently.

He covered her hand that fisted him. “Ask,
tell me, what you want. I enjoy your passion…I feel the same.”

She leaned up and kissed his stomach then
laved his ribs and played her mouth over him, so that he remembered
the feel of her full lips rimming him. His sex was hard as
stone.

After scraping her teeth on his hipbones, she
glanced up at him before taking him in her mouth.

This time Raith lifted her head, kissed her,
and then pulled her to her feet. He heard her gasp, her moan of
pleasure, and saw a flash of her dark eyes as he held her arms
above her head and took her against the wall, with much hard
breathing and terse sexual whispers. Her lush body was made for
his. His hard sinew could be both dominating and tempered. However,
she was aggressive too, and they were perfectly matched in
passions.

Their wedding night passed in that manner,
taking the edge off long held hungers, each giving, taking, each
expressing their emotions. They had many years and so much held
back between them, that it was at times intense, others deep and
soul touching, but each time forged them closer than the time
before.

They slept late and left the rooms after
taking their food on a tray. It was while they stood in the back
gardens, watching his brothers push the prams and walk with their
wives on the garden walkway, that they turned and eyed each other
in the autumn sun.

Gabriella saw her reflection in the softness
of his dark eyes, saw his passion, his sensuality, and his
strength. She felt him in her body, bones now, and too in her heart
and soul.

“I love you,” he murmured, clear, true,
profoundly. “I cared for her, felt for her, because of her
innocence and goodness, her sweetness, which I took for granted. I
was not honest with her. I was selfish—needing her for my own
reasons. Which is why, I felt such guilt. I loved her—and will, for
what she was and what she may have been had I not come into her
life.”

Gabriella husked. “I understand that.”

“What I’ve felt for you, once fought against,
has been intense, strong, and sometimes very dark. Nevertheless,
always real. I struggled, because I thought it would erase her and
take away such a life changing experience. I resisted too… because
it was so intense, so different, and it was there, present,
real.”

She nodded.

He released a breath and finished. “You are
so much like me, like a part I recognize. Your passions I succumb
to, because I feel the same way. I feel like I know them,
understand them, the dark and light and hungers.” He touched her
cheek. “Tonight is sweetness, slow passion—because we need that
too.”

Gabriella turned and kissed his palm and let
him take her hand. As they walked a bit she whispered, “I’ll weep
likely, I know I will.”

He laughed gruffly and flexed their fingers.
“I may also.”

Gabriella smiled. They would, likely.

* * * *

Jules was enjoying a cheroot as Harry left
him to take his son to the nursemaid for a nap. He had to smile
watching her with that brisk walk, her short hair gleaming under
the sun. He would not have gotten through his father’s sickness and
last days without Harry. She was his partner, his lover, his best
friend, and the mother of his heir.

Never in his life would he have imagined
Harry as his wife. Though she laughed when his father started
calling her Duchess, long before the title was his, he knew she and
Artis had their own friendship and bond—sharing many laughs and
many evenings arguing politics and what not.

She stopped to speak to Raith and Gabriella.
He eyed the lines of that plain black skirt, her silk blouse.
Underneath, Harry always wore something provocative to surprise
him. She was always finding ways to drive him a bit crazy for
her.

He did not tell her often enough, but he
would take her in rags, or in nothing at all. He loved her
trousers, loved when he went looking for her and he would find her
in some old robe, reading books, piled among notes and papers.

He loved it—when responsibility got the best
of him and out of the blue Harry would do something unexpected. She
was still not mad for society, and the ton was still reeling in
shock that he’d wed her—still not warming to her free thinking
opinions and lack of toad eating. Now she was richer, more titled,
more cynical. As he was. They made their appearances, but never
forwent something they enjoyed instead, to do so.

Jules strolled aimless awhile, and was just
on the other side of a going doormat vine twined in an arbor, when
he heard Caroline and Blaise.

They were apparently arguing. The nanny had
already fetched their heir for his nape too.

He had observed the changes in Caroline. Good
ones, as she became more relaxed and confident, and as she became a
mother. Blaise still did everything a sighted man would, and
Caroline never treated him differently. She did not do for him, and
most of the time, people did not realize he was blind.

In the past year, Caroline and Harry had kept
them both amused with their bickering, and friendship. Something
women did apparently, because they laughed as often as they
disagreed, and the men did not always know what was so hilarious,
but they enjoyed their wives high spirits.

In any event, he heard the sharpness as
Caroline cried, “You lied to me! You bloody well lied.”

“I did not, lie.”

“Yes. It is the same thing. I cannot believe
this. I thought you loved me.”

“Of course I do. What’s one got to do with
the other?” His brother growled. “I love you, I didn’t lie. Now,
can we go in and find a bed, a corner, anywhere to have sex, before
our son wakes up?”

“No. And why do you say it that way? I did
not put him in bed with us, you did. Now he is used to it. And it
hasn’t been that long…”

“Four bloody weeks. And, don’t you pretend it
is just me. I know you…”

“—
I didn’t. I am not. But
even if that’s true…”

“—
It is true, you want
me.

“Even if—and yes, I do. But not now. Now I
am…well, I am hurt and most disappointed. I am shocked that you
think so less of me.”

He could almost hear Blaise’s teeth grind. He
saw Caroline whirl to leave, and saw Blaise catch her hand and turn
her. Then his brother cupped her face, glaring down and husking, “I
didn’t tell you because I was afraid it was a fluke. Afraid I’d
wake up blind again.”

“Oh, Blaise. Oh, my love.”

However, Blaise dropped his hands and turned,
walking a few steps away.

Caroline went to him, her hands on the back
of his white shirt, smoothing. “I want you. Now. I want to see you
look at me, in the daylight.”

He turned. “Caroline, we—“

She kissed him, her hands going from his wavy
mane to his buttocks, all over him. “Please now. Here. I want you
now.”

Blaise groaned and cursed. Obviously taking
her kisses and trying to gain some control. “I can see you inside.
Well, I cannot see clear in both eyes but…”

She plucked off his glasses.

“I still need those.”

“I know, love. They will be fine, right here,
hanging on this vine.” She was plastered to him, her hands tugging
his hair. “I want you. Take me, now! Here.”

Jules suppressed a grin and turned from
looking, walking away as his brother groaned and uttered, “I can do
this better inside, Caroline.”

The lady husked, “You are good at it every
time, my love. However, I promise you, I will have Clara put your
son in his cradle tonight and you can have your way with me. Right
now, I do not think I can wait another second!”

Jules did not get away before he heard a
groan and Blaise uttering, “I think you provoked that argument on
purpose. You’re hot and wet.”

What Caroline said, he did not know, because
he sped his steps to give them privacy.

That evening they did not show up for dinner.
He saw Ry in the nursery, rocking his Godchild as he often did
Jules’s own heir. They shared a wink before Jules went to seek out
his own wife and some bed sport.

* * * *

I stand beside the bed, at dawn, gazing down
at her face in repose. Her sleep is as sweet to me as those moments
we made love—some second that our eyes met in the slow merge of our
bodies and rise of pleasure, when I felt the essence of life
gathering, and saw the echo in her shimmering gaze.

It released from me in a kind of white
quickening that brought a moan to her lips, a tremor in her frame.
She whispered “life” the same moment it went through my own
mind.

I see her, the vivid flush to her cheeks, the
richness of her hair and skin, the beauty of her. Yet I see her in
my mind’s eye, through time, through the past, and I wish I had
rescued her, healed her, and loved her, as I allow myself to
now.

I think of how she touches me, tastes me,
takes me, and I see the contrast between that pull towards death,
and the light and life she breathes from her soul to mine.

Those months I was away, I always sought a
quiet place to seek her, remember, imagine. When my mother asked, I
was unashamed to admit how I felt.

She understood. I knew it was love, right,
true, real. I knew by the look on her face when she spoke of my
father, of their passion, and her torment at giving me up, having
to leave him and rebuild her life. She understood.

I set on my haunches. My hand reaches out to
stroke Gabriella’s hair. Her exotic scent mingled with our joining,
teases me.

Slowly her lashes part and I realize that she
has sensed me for the time I have stood here.

Her hand captures mine and she lays it upon
her breast.

I mean to say, I love you, and yet she steals
it from my mind. A smile teases her lips. She knows, I think, that
it means everything—so much, things I cannot speak.

I rise and climb into bed. I must feel and
hold her, breathe her, and remind myself it is not a dream.

She turns in my arms, her own going around
me. I hear, just before sleep, the faint sigh, and whisper of my
name.

Her love is palpable, strong, as open, and
free as her passions. I drift into dreams. I see us as if looking
down, nude, wrapped in that colorful shawl, bodies twined, and
mouths tasting, arms holding. We are feeling life and creating it,
all the hues, and colors. The wind sings around us. We rise and
soar… on the wings of passion….

Raith LeClair, Lord Montovon.

THE END