“Fear of shame,” he countered relentlessly.
That was the crux of it, and it stopped her cold.
“You don’t under—” She stopped herself.
His temper stirred. “You know very well I understand. You wish you didn’t have to make a choice, and I wish you didn’t have to make a choice, but you do. Because whether you want to view it that way, you do have a choice. I am who I am, and you are who you are. I will give you the whole goddamn world. But I can’t change who I am.”
She half laughed, half groaned. “You’veruinedme, Gabriel. You’ve ruinedme. Not just because of this...” She gestured at the bed. “But for anyone who is... bearable.”
He laughed shortly. “Oh, have I now? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Miss Woodville, but you were ruined when I metyou. That is, maybe your sistersaredelicate and precious and your brother is sheltered, because you bravely bore the burdens that turned you into someone who could love only a man like me. Maybe you developed like whiskey in a barrel while your siblings remained chamomile tea. And maybe that isn’t fair. But when I met you, you were already meantonlyfor me.”
The possessive, claiming words had the ring of prophesy. They thrilled her to her core and yet scared her, too.
If he was right, what did it mean for their futures, if they remained apart?
The silence was long and fraught.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. His voice was frayed, aching.
She knew how much it cost him to risk saying that.
“I can’t.”
He squeezed his eyes closed as if a vise were clamping his heart.
“But I also can’t imagine never seeing you again,” she whispered.
He threw an arm over his eyes. “All right,” he said evenly, tightly. “Picture, if you will, this version of the future. You’ll marry the third son of a duke. I will secretly fuck you when you visit the ton because I am and always will be absolutely helpless to resist you until the end of my days, because I haveneverknown this kind of pleasure with a woman, and you will naturally be helpless to resist me. Because I will take from you, Ginny, anything you’re willing to give me. Whenever you want to give it. You will have his children. And you will think about me when he’s on top of you.”
She was appalled. “That’s horrible! You’re horrible!”
“Yes.And yet you love me, so what does that make you?”
She began to softly weep. Gabriel let her do it, even as every tear scored his heart like claws. Even as he half hated himself. Even though all of this pain had been expected. Neither one of them apparently knew how to suffer this in any noble and dignified sort of way.
“You’re not horrible,” she said finally, thickly, wearily. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to hurt you and I still don’t know what to do. I just know that I must leave for now.”
He stroked her damp hair away from her face. His throat was tight.
“No, I’m sorry, love. I fight dirty when I’m hurting or scared. But I don’t want to hurt or scare you.”
His voice was thick. He had never confessed such a thing to anyone else in his life, but that was because no one else had ever been able to strip away all of his defenses in such a way that he’d never felt safer.
“I know. I think you know that I can take it. At least we know how to apologize.”
He gave a soft laugh.
“I do understand why you need to leave. Please know that all I truly want is for you to have what you want, whatever you decide that may be. I will abide by it. Come back to me if you can.”
She kissed his forehead. She kissed his eyelids, one at a time. Then his temples. With each kiss she hoped to soothe a little more of his heartache.
When she finally laid her lips over his, he captured them with his own, greedily, latched his arm around her, and took the kiss deep, and searching, thoroughly claiming, until they were both restlessly aroused.
As he did, her hand wandered over his chest. Traced the gullies between the muscles, savored the powerful rise of them.
She took her lips away from him to drag her tongue down his throat, followed by her fingers. She traced her tongue around his nipple, then nipped. His legs shifted, stirred, at the sharp rush of pleasure. “Ginny,” he whispered. Mesmerized.
Never, ever had anyone made love to him this way. With devastating tenderness and innocently carnal abandon.