Gwen Hayes Read online

  "Thank you, John. I adore those, as you know."

  Gideon stared at the chocolate in his brother's hand as if it were a large insect. He looked at me, and then at John, and furrowed his brow before he walked away.

  "Where is Phillip?" I asked. "Surely he should be down by now."

  "Phillip doesn't come to this gathering."

  For the second time in so many minutes, my jaw dropped. "Why ever not? It's Christmas. This is his family. Though not Lady Leanna. Is she?"

  "No. Her father is close friends with mine. The two of them come to many of our gatherings."

  I shook my head to get back on the correct line of thought. "Regardless, Phillip should be here."

  "Violet, nobody wants to be here. We certainly don't want to subject a boy to it."

  The honesty of his answer shook some of my righteousness off. "How likely is it that claiming a headache will get me out of this dinner? I'd much rather eat with Phillip."

  John smiled and offered my treat again. "That's a capital idea. However, if I must remain, you must remain."

  The warmth of his smile reached around and pulled at my heart like a magnet to steel. "Let's sneak him dessert then."

  An inner light of mischief came alive in his eyes. "Consider it done."

  Dinner was a somber affair, especially for a Christmas party. Even the mock parties we held for practice at the academy were more spirited.

  Lady Leanna made sure the conversation never strayed far from Lady Leanna. Gideon pushed food around his plate but kept his glass refilled several times a course. The Colonel spent the meal complaining about the Juniper Society. And John squeezed my hand under the table.

  My eyes widened in surprise. Was he trying to be supportive or was he flirting? I didn't know how to handle myself in the situations John and Gideon kept putting me in.

  As if my straying thoughts tapped his shoulder, Gideon raised his eyes to mine.

  Maintaining what suddenly seemed liked intimate eye contact with me, Gideon leaned his head towards Lady Leanna so she could whisper something in his ear. Jealousy tasted bitter and rancid as the bile of it bubbled inside of me.

  He was trying to make me jealous.

  It was working.

  John poured more wine in my glass and I thanked him, grateful for a reprieve from Gideon's games. As I touched the glass to my lips, Gideon raised his to me as if in toast. As if to say touché.

  Did he think I was using John to compete with Lady Leanna? Perhaps a part of me was. No, no I liked John. I liked him very much, and I never led him to believe that I was interested in more than the camaraderie of friendship.

  John had never stolen liberties with me. I doubt he'd even think of disrespecting me by visiting my bed chambers in the still of night. He'd never push me against a wall to kiss me, or undress me, or do just about any of the things Gideon had done. I blushed thinking about those things. How I'd wanted them. How I wanted them again.

  I looked to Gideon again and found him staring at me with a hunger he should have reserved for his uneaten dinner.

  Lady Leanna noticed it as well.

  "Miss Merriweather, hadn't you better check on Phillip at some point?" Lady Leanna asked, reminding everyone, in case they'd forgotten, that I was staff and not guest.

  "Yes, of course." I stood, glad of the excuse to leave the miserable party.

  "Violet-" John stood, embarrassed for me.

  "Please, stay. Enjoy your supper." To the table I said, "Christmas tidings everyone. I must go see to my charge."

  The men stood. All but Gideon.

  "WHAT ARE you doing here?"

  Perhaps it would have been a question better asked while he was still outside my bedroom door, before I'd stepped aside and let him in.

  While I was becoming quite used to conversing with Gideon in my bed chambers, it seemed ever so much more illicit when he came in through the door, rather than the wall. My heart kicked at my ribs violently, sending my blood on a hot, strange new course through my veins.

  I leaned heavily on my door, the solidness of it grounding my spirits some, but kept my hand firmly on the knob for instant escape. He shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have let him in. I don't know why I ceased being practical whenever I was alone with Gideon. Or perhaps, I knew exactly why, which was the much more frightening prospect.

  I wanted to be alone with him. Part of me craved it. Even as angry as I was with him, and I was plenty angry.

  He hadn't answered yet. Instead he stared at me. Glowered, more like. His gaze was like smoke, obscuring everything but the heat that kindled in his eyes. "You know why I'm here."

  I suppose I did.

  My hand was damp with sweat and slipped off the brass knob I'd been holding in a terror grip.

  "Why don't you go visit Lady Leanna?"

  "I've had more than enough of the pleasure of her company."

  "Well, she certainly seems to enjoy yours."

  "Jealous, sprite?"

  I shrugged. "She's the perfect match for you. You're each just as pleasant to be around as the other."

  Gideon laughed. "Your claws are sharp tonight."

  He took a step towards me, and I held my hand out as a halt."You should go."

  "Leanna means nothing to me. She's not the one I dream about at night."

  "You should go," I repeated, though my voice shook more this time.

  "Is that what you want?"

  I closed my eyes, hoping to find the strength there to say yes.

  Or perhaps no.

  Gideon stepped closer, his scent wrapping around me. He'd been riding. The smell of horse and leather and midnight combined with the trace of bourbon and his shaving soap. Growing up in an all-girls academy didn't prepare me at all for the sensations so much masculinity brought with it. It permeated every cell, tinged every one of my thoughts until I was no longer just me without him.

  I opened my eyes with no discernible change in my temerity.

  He was close enough to touch me, but I don't think I'd ever felt further away from him. We stood on opposite cliffs, the valley between us promising a dangerous fall. Who would be first to jump?

  "You're frightened of me. Of this," Gideon said. I didn't have to ask what he meant by this.

  "Of course, I am." I ignored his look of hurt. "Oh Gideon, we both know you're going to hurt me."

  He drew his brows down, unable to find the lie to make me feel better. I swallowed hard around the lump lodged in my throat.

  "I should go," he said, but made no move to do so.

  He drew unsteady breaths. Was he nervous too? No. Of course not. Gideon had nothing to lose.

  "It isn't fair," I said, reacting to my own realization.

  "What isn't fair, sprite?"

  "You have no consequences. If you stay or go-you lose nothing. If you're found here, you lose nothing. Who would even slap your hand? My ability to provide for myself--my reputation, my livelihood--everything can be taken from me just by you standing there. Even if I say no to you, if someone sees you here, I'm done."

  Gideon reached into the abyss between us first. Using only his finger, he brushed a lock of hair from my cheek. "I'm a cad. I don't have to tell you that. But you know I would never take unnecessary chances with your reputation."

  "You are right now."

  "No, Violet. I said unnecessary chances. I couldn't stand one more minute without this chance, this night. It's wholly necessary." He became enamored with the jumping pulse point on my throat. "I can't give you the things you want, Vi. Stability, a home, a husband, a family--none of that is within my power."

  "I don't want a husband."

  "Yes, you do."

  "You barely know me, Gideon. You don't know what I want."

  He chuckled, low in his throat. The sound pulled at something in my center, loosening me from my moorings. He cupped my cheek, his palm warm and sure. I felt hot and cold and full and empty all at the same time.

  "I know you, all right. I know you like I'm lookin
g into a mirror at my own soul. I see the things you hide, and I feel the things you want. And you want the husband and the house, Vi. But more than that, you want me."

  I inhaled sharply, like I'd come out of dream. He stared into my eyes, waiting. Waiting for me to invite further advance or turn him away. God help me, I couldn't do either.

  "I may be a bad man, Violet, but I won't take what isn't freely offered."

  I couldn't say the words. I couldn't say any words. I stared at his mouth, letting time stretch taut between us. But Gideon was no gentleman. He may not take me against my will, but he had no compunction about removing my will altogether. He brushed the hair completely off my shoulder and pressed a kiss at the edge where my skin met the neckline of my bedclothes. "Tell me to go," he warned, his breath so hot on my neck. He zeroed in on my pulse point and I gasped his name. "Tell me to go," he repeated, his voice tightened with barely repressed fervor.

  "I can't."

  "Then tell me to stay." He pulled back and the cool air misted my skin where his mouth had just been. "I can't tell you about love, but I can teach you about passion. It's inside you. Right now it's screaming to me. I've heard it since the day I met you, Violet. Tell me to stay."

  "I can't," I cried. Trapped between a longing I didn't understand and the need to protect myself, my station. I couldn't win. "I'm not strong enough."

  His mouth twisted into a grin that was neither happy nor cruel. "Now you're lying. I've never met a stronger person than Miss Violet Merriweather." Gideon stepped back. "I should leave."

  My future flashed before me. Gideon would not be in it. And neither would this tumultuous frenzy, this dance with danger that made my blood sing. If I wanted a taste of passion, this was my chance. I grabbed his arm as he made to walk past me. "Stay."

  Without a word, Gideon swooped me into his arms and carried me to the bed. Once again, the storm in his eyes thrashed me about like a pebble in the rolling sea. There was nothing for me to hold to that wouldn't send me under the waves. I wanted to drown in the way he made me feel until there was nothing left of me to wring out.

  He didn't ask if I was sure, if I understood what was to happen. He trusted that I knew my own mind, my own body, and that made him even more irresistible to me. That he assumed I had agency over my own decisions, not doubting that I knew what was best for myself, turned up the flame under my skin, so that when he laid me down on the mattress I immediately reached back up and drew him into the first kiss ever initiated by me.

  Gideon didn't waste a second on surprise, but returned the press of my lips with his own ardor, ardor built up the long weeks we'd been denying this night. Our tongues met in a sweet duel from which we would both perish and then be transformed. I needed him closer, needed to feel the rush of his skin beneath my hands. I was too far gone to be shocked at my desire as I yanked his shirt from his trousers to get at the hot flesh beneath it. He sensed my urgency, pushing my greedy hands away to pull the shirt over his head.

  Suddenly unsure, a moment of shyness made me pause with my hand a scant inch from his chest. I looked to Gideon for encouragement. He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it before placing in over his heart. I flattened my palm against him, the dark curls crinkling under my palm, and closed my eyes, letting the host of new sensations have their way as I was hopeless to do naught but allow them their due.

  "Sprite, you undo me." He pulled me into an embrace, an embrace that felt more intimate than all the open mouthed kisses we'd shared. He surrounded me, his arms, his scent, his heartbeat.

  I tasted the skin of his neck, his groan signifying a tender spot behind his ear, so I spent more time on it until he shivered and began gathering my nightgown in tight fistfuls. Fascinating. That I had so much control over him with my untried passion was very empowering, so I kissed his mouth again, taking the whisper of my name from his lips to my own. We maneuvered together in an unpracticed waltz to unfurl the gown from my limbs without breaking our kiss. And then, he pulled it over my head.

  Though I was naked, Gideon's eyes didn't roam but stayed firmly locked with mine. The intensity of his stare was more effective than the peeling of my clothes. He stripped me bare of all the things I thought I needed to cling to. It wasn't my skin he exposed, but the woman inside of it.

  He began with a soft kiss on my temple. Moving slowly, he pressed another towards my jaw, stopping for a quick nibble on my earlobe. I shivered mindlessly when he suckled my neck.

  I didn't know there were so many places on my body directly connected to the place where my womanhood clenched, but Gideon knew. He mapped each nerve ending with his tongue and his lips and an occasional light scrape of teeth. His busy fingers traced soft whorls onto the sensitive skin of my torso as his kisses marauded south. He spent eons of time kissing me until I was a slave to need.

  "Please," I begged.

  "Please what, Vi?" He nipped at my earlobe, and I cried out, so he took my mouth in an intimate kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. I met him push for push, sliding my hips in a primal rhythm that matched our kisses.

  And then he went back to my neck.

  He was going to kill me with painful, painful pleasure.

  "Please what?" he repeated. His hand finally cupped me below and I shamelessly rocked against him. "Tell me what you want."

  Though he was happy to take my virginity, he didn't want a passive lamb led to slaughter. But how could I tell him what I wanted when I wasn't sure myself? "I don't know."

  "You know."

  Bastard. "For God's sake, Gideon. Take off your pants."

  He chuckled and rolled away to sit at the edge of the bed and remove his boots. He was too far away, so I crawled across the bedcovers and allowed myself the bold pleasure of kissing his back.

  His skin was hot and I let my hands roam, enjoying the hot planes of his muscles and the way he shivered under my administrations. I craved to know everything about his body. Gideon was perfectly formed for my pleasure. He was seducing me by sitting still, of all things.

  Overwhelmed, suddenly, by the intensity of all that I was feeling for him, I wrapped my arms around him and laid my chin against his shoulder. We were skin on skin, my chest pressed against his back. For a moment, I thought he might end the embrace, but he dropped his head back so we were cheek to cheek and held my arms tightly to him.

  In that moment, I was closer to Gideon than I'd ever been to another person my entire life. Not just physically. A bond had formed whether I wanted it or not. I had thought maybe I could give him my body and nothing else, but I was wrong. So wrong.

  The prim governess and the reckless playboy. Who'd have guessed they would understand the other so perfectly, if only for one night?

  Even as I knew better, I allowed the moment to proceed. I breathed him in, let him settle into my soul as if he belonged there.

  It was going to hurt when this affair had run its course. It was going to hurt badly.

  Gideon sighed. "You feel entirely too good."

  "I was just thinking the same."

  "I'm going to do the most wonderful, terrible things to you very soon. I'm going to make you so hot you'll burn out the sun. In just a few moments, that is." And he tightened his grip.

  "So far, I am enjoying being debauched."

  We remained silently holding each other for a few minutes more. And it wasn't until my hand began caressing the firm muscles of his abdomen that he reached around and pulled me into his lap. His hands grasped my hips, grinding me into him while he kissed me like I was the last drink of water on a planet gone to desert.

  I felt no shame in my nakedness, despite the fact that Gideon still wore his damned pants. I felt as if I'd been set free. I didn't have to be Miss Merriweather with Gideon. I was all the things he'd told me he seen in me from the start. I was in control of my body, my pleasure, and it felt delicious.

  I broke away from the kiss, ignoring his protest. "Take off your pants or I swear I'll kick you out of this room."

  H
e lifted one corner of his mouth in the grin that always undid me, and in one move flipped me onto my back. I rose to my elbows to watch as he stood and shucked off the last thing between us, and my bravado tempered at the sight.

  "Gideon…"

  "Relax, Violet."

  I pulled my legs beneath me and scooted up to the pillows. "Perhaps we can go back to embracing for a bit."

  He crawled over me to the other side of the bed. "I promise it will be fine."

  "It won't fit. It can't possibly."

  "Oh Violet, you've just increased my ego to ungodly proportions."

  "It's not your ego I'm worried about."

  He traced whorls over my skin with one finger again. "We were made to fit. You'll see."

  I wouldn't have believed him, but he began raining hot kisses over every inch of me until I was hot enough to put out the sun, just as he'd said. I was back to begging for him to fill the ache he'd put in me from that very first day.

  "What are you doing, Gideon?" I asked as he nuzzled the seam where my legs met my body. "Surely you don't mean to…"

  "Oh, I mean to. I definitely mean to." He presented me with an open mouth kiss and I nearly bucked us both off the bed. "Relax, sprite."

  "Relax, he says."

  He chuckled.

  No part of me was safe from his clever tongue. Not my breasts as they filled his mouth. Not the backs of my knees as he spelled my name by tracing each letter into my skin. And not the place where a woman hides all her secrets.

  He brought me to the edge of the world more than once. Setting me free to tumble in the stars over and again. When I no longer knew if I'd ever come back down, he entered me slowly though his body was wracked with uncontrollable shivers and it was clear that his patience was costing him dearly.

  He paused after breaching my maidenhead, waiting until my body became accustomed to him. "The moment I saw you, I knew you'd own me, Violet."

  But I never could. We'd have this night, but that was all. Our paths should never have crossed.

  He'd go on someday to marry a fine young virgin his father chose, and I'd drift away to another position in another house.