Page 40 of Gabriela and His Grace (The Luna Sisters #3)
Her cheeks heated, and Gabby prayed the duke could not tell. That telltale sign alone would make him insufferable. “I’m sure you’ve never wanted for praise.”
The duke dragged the hand wrapped around her back to her chin, and he smoothed his thumb along her jawbone. “And yet I wanted your good opinion, Ella.”
This was the Duke of Whitfield at his most powerful.
Not when he lounged in his club, a glass of whisky dangling from his long fingers, surrounded by sycophants, or when he commanded the attention of a ballroom simply by stepping into it.
Rather it was when he focused his blue eyes on you, murmured a dry quip, and smirked while he watched you melt.
Even now, molten heat coalesced low in her core.
But Gabby had always prided herself on not being swayed by pretty words from a pretty face, and she was not about to fall prey now.
Meeting his gaze, she tsked. “Whitfield, why do you deserve my praise?”
“It’s Sebastian,” he said, his voice gravelly and clipped, “and it seems I should remind you of what I’m capable of.”
And after searching her eyes for a heartbeat, he lowered his head and kissed her.
Gabby shivered as white-hot sparks of desire licked up her spine. “Sebastian,” she sighed.
Faith, but his name tasted delicious on her tongue. Gabby twined an arm around his back and sank her nails into his skin.
He smiled against her lips. “Christ, darling, that is the best compliment I’ve ever received. Shall I give you more reasons to sigh my name?”
Sucking his bottom lip into her mouth, Gabby nibbled on it. “I’m willing to see if the whispers I’ve heard are true.”
Whitfield—Sebastian—shifted, until he loomed over her, his pelvis nestled in the valley between her legs.
Her nightdress had hitched about her thighs, and suddenly Sebastian’s warm palm slid under the hem, his thumb smoothing across her skin and leaving tingles in its wake.
Gabby had never been in such an intimate position before but she wasn’t afraid.
Wasn’t apprehensive. This was the duke, after all.
The man who had verbally tangled and tussled with her for the better part of four years, who’d seen her at her worst, at her most vulnerable, and had held her in his arms while she fell apart.
Staring into his glacial eyes now, Gabby finally understood that Sebastian was the only man she’d ever truly been herself with because he made her safe to do so.
In this moment, though, with her life in turmoil and her future uncertain, Gabby craved an escape. She longed to put her worries aside and simply be. Simply feel .
He must have read something in her gaze, some sort of decision she’d unconsciously made, because Sebastian dropped his head to her chest, his breath coming in pants. The gesture made her heart lodge in her throat.
“Ella love, I didn’t invite you to share this cabin with me because I expected anything”—his shoulders rose and fell on another great exhale—“ physical to occur between us. I understand you’re in a precarious position, and I’m not trying to take advantage of it.”
“Perhaps I’m trying to take advantage of you.”
Sebastian pulled his head up, a sardonic tilt to his mouth. “You are ruthless, darling.”
Gabby laughed, but the sound tapered off when she spied his expression. Her arms tightened around him. “I know this situation is not a result of your machinations. You certainly weren’t encouraging my father to auction my hand off to the highest bidder.”
Dragging his knuckles along her cheek, Sebastian whispered, “I’m sorry you were made to feel that your worth was based not on who you are but on what others could gain from you.”
“A woman’s worth is always weighed by what she can give…”
The words were shaded with a bitterness she couldn’t— wouldn’t —hide.
Sebastian pressed his lips to her jaw, and surprised a laugh out of her when he nipped at it. “Darling, surely you know the thing I value most about you is your sharp tongue.”
She grinned. “Is that so?”
He nodded solemnly, but his blue eyes burned. “Shall we try putting it to a different kind of use?”
A powerful wave of heat surged through her, and Gabby pulled him down until they shared the same breath. “Will you show me?”
“God, yes,” Sebastian groaned, crashing his mouth down on hers.
Gabby couldn’t fathom how Sebastian could be so gentle while he trembled with desire.
Even as his tongue leisurely explored the recesses of her mouth, his hands content to coast along the contours of her face, his shoulders shook with barely restrained fire.
Gabby was certain she would vibrate out of her skin if she didn’t feel more friction in that molten hot place between her legs that only her fingers had ever touched.
Unwilling to submit to Sebastian’s torturous pace any longer, and with a primal instinct urging her to move, Gabby tilted her hips up and ground against his thigh. A whimper slipped from her mouth when she could get no purchase.
Sebastian froze above her, his pupils blown wide. He stared at her for a heartbeat before he rasped a “Goddamn it” and reached up to tug his nightshirt from his shoulders.
Any rational thought still pinging about in Gabby’s mind vaporized like mist when her eyes landed on Sebastian’s naked torso.
In the wisps of light peeking through the drapes, he appeared otherworldly.
Like a dark lord intent on absconding with her to the underworld.
His skin was pale and smooth like marble, with a scattering of moles and dark hair.
But when Gabby dared to reach out and touch him, he was warm and very much alive.
Her hungry gaze followed the trek her fingers took mapping the muscles of his chest, down the bands of his abdomen to the trail of black hair that disappeared into his sleep trousers.
When her questing hands made to follow it, Sebastian captured her wrist.
“Darling, if you do that, this will be over before we’ve begun.” He kissed her knuckles. “Now do I have leave to see you, explore you, just as you did me?”
“But I wasn’t done,” she complained, scowling. Her objections died, however, when she met his deep arctic gaze.
Holding her stare, as if searching for any sign of fear, Sebastian reached for the hem of her nightdress and dragged it up and over her head.
The cool air of the room swept over her skin, but when Sebastian finally lowered his eyes to her body, fire burned through Gabby’s limbs at the look of awe that bloomed across his face.
“Exquisite,” he breathed, shaking his head. “But of course you are. It’s you .”
Flooded with that unknown emotion, Gabby surged up to snag his lips with her own.
In that moment, with her bare breasts pressed to his torso, every one of her senses was aflame.
The soft hairs on his chest abraded her tender flesh.
The luscious flavor of his lips danced along her tongue.
His excited breaths teased her ears. Gabby held him tighter, desperate to crawl into his skin.
When Sebastian released her lips, she blinked her eyes open in confusion.
“Ella love,” he murmured, his hair mussed and his cheeks flushed, “let me look at you.”
Willing herself to relax, Gabby lay back on the mattress. A pair of drawers were the only item of clothing she wore. Knitting her fingers in the sheets, Gabby allowed Sebastian to look his fill.
And look he did. His smoldering perusal went from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head.
However, it wasn’t until his fingertips trailed a meandering path across her skin that Gabby began to squirm.
His touch, the fervent light in his eyes, sent liquid heat coursing through her veins, coalescing once again in the juncture between her thighs.
Gabby thought she might scream from the heavenly torture of it.
Sebastian seemed oblivious to her discomfort, for his focus had become her breasts. Skating his fingers up her rib cage, he gathered one in each hand, his thumbs raking over the sensitive tips.
“If you only knew the amount of times I imagined these beauties. The moments I’d glimpse you across a ballroom, your smiles for everyone but me, some fashionable confection hugging every one of your curves in the most sinful manner.
” His brow arched as he met her eyes. “And I’d think of you when I stroked my cock at night. ”
Gabby didn’t have time to do more than gasp because Sebastian leaned forward and closed his lips around one puckered nipple.
Blistering bolts of pleasure radiated through her limbs, and Gabby cried out as she arched her back into the sensation.
“But the reality of you is so much more than I could’ve ever dreamed up in my simple mind.” Sebastian blew a warm breath across her wet, throbbing flesh. “ You’re a dream,” he purred, dipping his head to lick a stripe across her other nipple.
Thrashing about in the sheets, Gabby alternated between clenching her eyes closed as she struggled to maintain her composure or watching Sebastian suck, nibble, and tug at her flesh, inching her ever closer to losing control.
Gabby had no notion she was undulating her hips in response to his ministrations until he lifted his head and chuckled.
“My darling girl, am I not giving you what you need?” Sebastian danced his sinful fingers down her stomach to the secret place that had been begging for his attention.
The first caress of his fingers through her folds left her moaning and canting her pelvis to chase his touch.
“Christ, Ella, you’re so wet,” he crooned, tugging her drawers down and off her legs. Tossing them over his shoulder, Sebastian grasped her thighs and spread them wide, his gaze hooded as he stared down at her. “Grab the headboard, love. I want a taste.”
Coherent thoughts evaporated into the ether when Sebastian settled between her legs and swiped his tongue through her folds.