“Leave matters to me,” he growled against her silken skin, his hand skimming down her back to clutch the curve of her hip. “I am exactly certain what to do.”
Her lips parted, but Gabriel was beyond coherent conversation.
Besides, he had no words to assuage her virginal unease. The only means to allay her fears was to demonstrate the marriage bed could offer more than sacrifice.
Dismissing the taunting voice that assured him his impatience had nothing to do with comforting his bride, and everything to do with the desire that had escalated to an unrelenting need, Gabriel claimed her mouth in a kiss that demanded utter surrender.
She briefly stiffened, floundering beneath his raw hunger. Hardly surprising, he instantly chastised himself. Hadn’t he just told himself that Talia was a timid virgin in need of coaxing? Christ, in another moment he would be tumbling her like a two-bit whore.
The damned female might have trapped him into marriage, but, by God, he intended to have her begging for release before the night was over.
With grim determination he gentled his touch, his hand brushing down her naked thigh while his mouth teased at her lips until they slowly parted. Murmuring soft encouragement, he dipped his tongue into the moist heat of her mouth.
She again stiffened, and he swallowed a hiss of frustration. Surely she could not be frightened of a kiss?
Then, just when he was trying to convince himself to pull back, she gave a tiny sigh of pleasure, and her arms lifted to wrap around his neck.
Pure male satisfaction surged through him at her unspoken surrender.
He hadn’t been deceiving himself. She wanted him.
Continuing to stroke his fingers in a lazy pattern along her thigh, Gabriel nipped at her full lower lip before blazing a path of kisses down her throat and over the curve of her breasts. She tasted of heat and sunshine that reminded him of lazy summer days at his childhood home in Devonshire.
Days before the heavy duties of his title had stolen his untroubled existence.
Her fingers clutched at his hair, her body arching with an unspoken plea.
His cock twitched in anticipation at the feel of her soft curves brushing against him. For all her inexperience she was a natural-born siren.
And for tonight she was his.
Sweeping his mouth downward, Gabriel captured the tip of her hardened nipple between his lips, savoring the sound of her soft gasps. The sweetest music.
“My lord,” she rasped. “Gabriel.”
“Shh,” he whispered, subtly pressing a hand between her thighs. “Trust me.”
She shivered, her hands shifting to run an impatient path down his back.
“You have given me little reason to trust…” Her breath caught as his finger dipped through the moist cleft between her legs. “Oh.”
He laughed softly, circling the hard tip of her nipple with his tongue.
“Your first lesson as a wife is to accept your husband always knows best.”
She muttered something beneath her breath at his smug words, but she was swift to cry out in wonderment as his finger slid with gentle insistence into her welcoming body. Gabriel pulled back to watch her delicate face flush with sensual heat, her thick tangle of lashes lowering and her lips parting as he stroked his finger in a slow, tantalizing tempo.
Christ, he had never seen anything so beautiful.
It was absurd.
He had been pleasured by the most talented courtesans in all of England. Hell, his last mistress had caused riots when she had first appeared on the stage.
So why then was this inexperienced wallflower making him tremble with savage hunger?
Refusing to contemplate the dangerous question, Gabriel instead reclaimed her lips in a kiss of fierce anticipation. A flare of triumph raced through him as she willingly met the thrust of his tongue with her own, her nails biting into his lower back as her body sought relief from her swelling tension.
He had done what he could to ease her maidenly fears. Now he was through with waiting. If he didn’t have her soon, he was fairly certain he would go mad.