Page 2 of Murder in Disguise (Mary and Bright #5)

“I’m not certain, and there is a risqué thrill knowing we could be interrupted, so perhaps we should see what happens.” Already, she worked on unraveling the knot of his cravat.

“How brazen you’ve become since we married.”

She snorted. “I’d say since well before that.”

“True.” It was one of the things that had drawn him to her, that unquenchable spirit and her thirst to connect with him in all the ways that mattered.

With a glance to the closed door, Gabriel pushed lingering caution aside.

She was his wife, damn it, and if he chose to bedevil the hell out of her in his own study, he should be able to do exactly that. “You tempt me beyond measure, Mary.”

“I’m glad to still be able to do that.” When she looped her arms about his shoulders, common sense fled, for she felt all too right in his embrace.

It took very little coaxing for her lips to part.

The second his tongue touched hers and the glide of satin and silk made the connection with his brain, Gabriel was lost. Repeatedly, he fenced with her, explored her mouth, tangled with her tongue as if he were but a green youth who’d encouraged a girl to finally kiss him.

Mary gave him as good as she got; she’d always had an affinity for carnal play.

Needing so much more, he claimed her mouth again and again until he didn’t know which way was up or down.

There was only her. As his shaft grew and tightened, the insistent pulse of that organ pressed into the front of his breeches, and desperate to alleviate the tension, he ground his hips into hers.

That provided only a modicum of relief, and if anything sent more intense need pinwheeling through the length.

As a tiny mewl escaped her, followed by a barely audible moan, the last vestiges of his sanity fled. She nibbled and nipped at his bottom lip then left his mouth entirely to press featherweight kisses beneath his jaw. When she found a particularly sensitive spot, desire exploded through his body.

“Ah, Mary,” he whispered against her lips.

Dear God, he was consumed with heat and passion and want.

How she managed to do that to him after nearly two years together, he’d never know, but he was far too glad for it.

Gabriel planted her arse more firmly upon his desk.

A ledger and his papers tumbled to the thick carpeting in a flurry of parchment.

He didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered to look.

As he encouraged her backward over his desk and settled himself between her splayed thighs, he dragged his lips down the side of her silky throat.

“Gabriel, please.”

The plea bounced through his mind. “I’m trying, but I don’t want to just devour you as if I’m a beast.” Yet he manipulated the laces at the back of her day dress until the bodice gaped and he tugged it down to bare her exquisite breasts.

Mary was quite a willing participant, for she had his cravat undone in a thrice.

Her lips were at the hollow of his throat, her breath steaming the skin of his chest she’d uncovered, and the sensations worked to drive him toward the brink.

“We haven’t had issue coming together frantically in the past,” she countered in a barely audible whisper.

“I thought to have a bit of variety…”

Desire guided him; he no longer thought with caution.

It was all too easy to cup her breasts, knead the soft flesh, and when a moan pulled from her throat, he grinned against her mouth and brushed the pads of his thumbs over the rapidly hardening nipples.

Damn but the pebbled surface of those tips tempted him beyond measure.

As her back arched the longer he played, Gabriel took one of those buds into his mouth.

And it was the closest thing to heaven he could find just now.

“Oh, yes!”

The low-pitched utterance spurred him onward.

While he continued to torment the nipple with his lips and teeth, he teased the other with his thumb.

Would that he could lay her out on the desk and divest her of the clothes to better kiss every centimeter of her skin, feel the heat of her on his fingers, yet knowing their luck, even if the house was more or less empty, they’d be interrupted.

“I need more…” Her words dissolved beneath another moan of pleasure. “Ah, oh yes, do that again.”

How much did he adore how responsive she was, how she found enjoyment from the smallest things?

A chuckle escaped as he again flicked his tongue over that taut, pebbled tip.

Urgency tingled through his hardened length as well as his stones.

Mary writhed from the attention. As he moved to take her other nipple into his mouth, she shivered and pulled him closer with a hand fisted in the front of his lawn shirt.

“Would that we were afforded more time than this,” he whispered against the side of her neck before moving back to one of her nipples.

“Then make the best of the time we do have, hmm?” She slipped a hand to his nape and urged him to where she wanted him.

“Minx.” How had he ever gotten on before meeting her? The woman had easily changed his life, and he couldn’t be more grateful, kept that in mind every damned day of his life.

With a hand at her back to cushion her on the desk, he continued to pleasure her breasts, sucking the hard nubs of her nipples as if his life depended on it.

Her soft cries of enjoyment spurred him onward, and by the time she reached for his frontfalls, his length was engorged to the point of pain.

As his member sprang from his breeches, he paused long enough to appreciate Mary as she looked just now.

Skin flushed, thighs parted, skirting rucked up to her hips, eyes shining, she looked the part of a woman far gone in desire, but it was the love light in those blue pools that nearly had him on his knees in gratitude.

His heart squeezed from the image, for damn, he adored her.

Mary frowned. “Why do you pause? I’ve never bid you nay, Bright.” She only called him by his surname when she was annoyed with him or wanted to tease him.

Perhaps it was both in this moment.

“Just admiring the woman who is my wife.” He shoved up yards of her skirting, and when she was bared to his gaze, he gripped her hips and brought her forward until she balanced on the edge of the desk.

“Damn, but I wish we had time for me to explore every inch of your naked body and make you scream.”

“There will be other times,” she said with a smile that was slightly frayed at the edges.

“Mmm.” As passion drove him, he kissed her once more, found her center with the tip of his member, and then thrust swiftly in until he was fully seated in her honeyed heat. “Oh, God,” he whispered against her lips. “You always feel so good.”

“I love this moment.” Mary clutched at his forearms as she moaned. Need mirrored in her eyes. “Don’t hold back. I’ve missed sharing this sort of intimacy with you.”

“As have I.” Not that he would change anything in his life as it was currently, but he did wish he had more time with his wife.

Then he moved within her body.

His thrusts were frantic, hard, and deep.

At one point, he paused merely to enjoy the blissful sensations she created within him.

But Mary didn’t want the surcease in action.

She held his head between her hands, brought his forehead to hers, and kissed him like a woman desperate for the very air he breathed.

Gabriel kissed her back, for the connection between them had never been as strong as it was these days.

They were truly equal partners in every way.

Then, he straightened as urgency compelled him to finish. He held her hips, the outside of her thighs in an effort to go as deep as he could into her passage, stroking again and again into this woman who’d managed to upend his life in the best ways.

“I never last as long as I want when we come together.” All too soon his stones drew tight and hot pleasure rushed through his length.

Quicker and faster he thrust as Mary held onto him as if he would fly away from her, but he couldn’t end things without teasing the swollen button at her center.

Experimenting with various degrees of friction had her writhing on the desk, and a few moments more brought her hurtling over that edge into bliss.

When she broke with a cry upon her lips and tears in her eyes, he kissed her, taking some of the sound into himself as he reached his own intense release which left him shattered and sated.

He ground his pelvis into hers to prolong the joy, but the act was over, and he wasn’t ready to let her go.

“I will never tire of this, even if I am an old man.” In fact, he was nearly forty-four years old, but being with Mary made him feel as if he’d somehow gained years on his life.

“Age means nothing, especially when you continue to defy the odds, Bright.” The fact she continued to cling to him as residual shivers of sensation shot down his spine spoke volumes. Obviously, the same sentiment rested with her.

“I appreciate that.” Gabriel removed them both to one of the chairs that faced his desk. After he sank into the leather, he cradled her on his lap, her legs on either side of him. “You truly are my greatest adventure.”

“And your greatest weakness?”

If that meant seeing her in danger brought him to his knees, then yes. But in reality, it was difficult to say. “More like my greatest support.”

“As you are mine.”

“Ah, Mary.” In the aftermath, when his pulse pounded and he felt the flutter of hers beneath his fingertips and their frantic breathing slowly calmed, gratitude snuck in once more.

How was this his life? Everything he currently enjoyed would never have been possible unless he’d met her, and even then, that had been a simple quirk of fate.

She laid her head on his shoulder and nuzzled into its curve. “You never disappoint.” The brush of her lips against his neck above his collar sent renewed awareness through him. “They way you know what I need and how to send me there is amazing. It has been that way since the first.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Fate, nothing more.”

“No, dogged determination and willingness to compromise as well as work as a team.” When she pulled away, she found his gaze with hers. “A prince among men, I think.”

“Do hush, woman.” But he was extraordinarily pleased with her words.