Invitation to Ruin (6 page)

How much I would have protested the thought
of such a meeting even a week ago. But I did not have his avowal of
love and devotion then. Now, the secrecy of it only heightens my
arousal.

April 22, 1787

How can the body know this much joy and
pleasure and not burst into flames?

Again, our appointment was late, long after
the family had gone to bed. Worn out from a day’s anticipation of
the night, I fell asleep almost immediately after returning to my
room and changing into no more than the robe that should have
covered my modest sleeping gown. It was only upon hearing the creak
of the bedroom door as it slowly opened inward that I awoke.

Footsteps sounded across the floorboards only
to be muffled as he reached the bed’s carpeted perimeter. The
curtains to the room were drawn and no candles had been lit in the
hall. I had only my sense of smell and the muffled sound of his
voice to know that it was Sebastian.

“Gabrielle…”

So quiet, so tentative. Did he doubt that I
would come? “Here, my love.” I reached out to find and clasp his
hand.

He slid onto the mattress, the muted drop of
his boots and clothing on the carpet assuring me he did not intend
to leave anytime soon. His hands found the edge of the robe and I
heard his surprised intake of breath when he discovered that the
robe was all that covered me.

“Do you not approve?” I grabbed his hand and
placed it over my ripe breast, moaning my own approval when he gave
it a rough squeeze.

His lips found my ear and nuzzled my neck as
he whispered to me, “Vixen!”

“Ah, love, I wish to hear your voice, not
these whispers.” I let my body plead with him, moving beneath his
roaming hand as it played me.

“Shhh…” The admonishment came with caresses
as he rubbed at the sensitive button until I forgot myself and gave
an urgent moan that he might touch me more deeply.

“Then open the curtains that I might see
you,” I said even as I pulled one knee up high to ease the entrance
of his fingers into my wet slit.

He moved down the bed, stopping halfway. “I
want nothing more than to make love to you by moonlight,
Gabrielle.” He kissed my thighs further apart. “And by sunlight…by
any light. But I would not risk compromising your name…having
anyone think that I married you for anything other than love.”

“You are right,” I relented. “It is just that
I so miss the sight of you, I cannot help but argue a little.”

“When we are married, we will make love in
the day and by candlelight at night.” His lips brushed across the
hair covering my sex as he made his promise. “Your passion-filled
screams will wake the servants. They will think the devil has
invaded the house!”

“You forget your father,” I moaned, barely
able to form the words as his tongue punctuated his claim with a
long swipe against my lower lips. “What would he think of such a
daughter-in-law?”

Sebastian stilled. “Do not worry about that,”
he said, his words low and clipped.

I sat up, my fingers curling in the blond
locks I could not see. “But I do worry, my love. What if he
objects?”

I could feel the day’s whiskers on his cheek
and chin brush against the sensitive skin of my thighs as he shook
his head. I collapsed back against the mattress, waiting for him to
either answer or to kiss and lick the question away.

“The only impediment to our marriage will be
your feelings for me…if you cannot promise that you will love me
and no other.”

I sat up again, drawing his face to mine.
“Never think there can be such an impediment!”

I kissed him, thrusting my tongue into his
mouth, tasting my own juices. I broke from him breathless and flung
myself back onto the bed, opening myself entirely to his desires.
“There will be no other, my love. Claim me now, thoroughly, until
you can name me wife!”

He fell on me then, ravishing my body. His
mouth covered my breasts, sucking at them, kneading their fullness
as the head of his rod massaged my wet entrance. I brought my knees
up along his hips, urging him to enter, but he would have none of
my impatience. He flicked his tongue across my nipples, bringing
them to hard points while his fingers teased the moist interiors of
my sex. Licking his way down to my navel, he tongued the small hole
there, too. The sensation was maddening…the thrust of his fingers,
the tickle of his hair on my abdomen. Nearly crying for his rod, I
tucked my knees up to my chest.

“Not until I have tasted your sweet nectar
properly,” he growled, his tongue moving lower as he added another
two fingers. All but his thumb was inside me. That he used to push
one of my lower lips to the side so that he could nibble at the
plumped bud of flesh. He took it firmly between his lips, rolling
it from side to side as he tongued at the small sheath and the
kernel of pleasure it hid.

I threaded my hands through his hair once
again, cresting against his mouth. Ecstasy forced my eyes shut so
tightly I saw lights dancing across the inside of my eyelids.

“Take me,” I urged, matching the thrust of
his fingers inside me. “Fill me with your manhood, my love!”

My demands undid him and he was quickly
poised over my center, hesitating only a second before ramming his
shaft into me. I felt the swollen sacs below his member slap
against my bottom, battering that other hole. This was passion,
abandon, and I could not think of what I had done to deserve it…to
deserve him!

His strokes lengthened even as his breathing
came more rapidly. Bracing himself against one of my thighs, he
reached between my legs with his other hand and rubbed the top of
my sex as his gyrating hips buried his shaft deeper inside me.

“This pleasures you, Gabrielle?”

“Pleasure pales, my love.” My words came too
fast. Gone was every pretense of being an elegant woman of rank.
“You take my breath away… my very soul would fly…could I not cling
to you.”

“Marry me and I promise you there will always
be such pleasure.”

“Yes,” I gasped, bright flames of climax
burning my flesh from the inside out.

He slowed, almost withdrawing, and I
whimpered from the loss of his fullness. He drove hard into me once
and I jerked across the mattress in ecstasy. “Promise you will
accept no cock but this one, Gabrielle.”

“Yes!” I cried out.

His hand worked the flesh surround my sex and
I shuddered beneath him.

“No hands but these.”

“Only you, only you,” I groaned, my heart
nearly bursting from my chest, my hearing all but gone. “I promise
on my life that I will not love or accept another!”

His body shuddered as I spoke, his climax
released into me to seal the vow I had made and proclaim me as his.
Collapsing against the bed, he rolled onto his back, bringing me
with him so that I was cradled against his chest, his rod still
pulsing inside me.

He stroked my back, smoothed away the happy
tears that fell from my cheek onto his chest. After a few quiet
moments, we started to speak and, again, I marveled that I had won
this man as my future husband.

“Did you think of me this week?” he asked,
withdrawing from me at last and rolling until we were on our sides
facing each other.

“Every day!” I answered.

Insatiable, he reached between my legs,
fingering me to the edge of another peak. “And did you touch
yourself when I was not there to touch you?”

“You do think I am wanton!” My accusation
lacked any genuine indignation. I knew he had every reason to think
me so, although my unexpected nature seemed to please him.

“Not so,” he assured me. “It is better, do
you not think, for a woman to pleasure herself when her husband is
away than to let the heat of her passions melt her reserve with
other men.”

“I would never do such a thing, Sebastian!”
Did he think I might seek another lover? He could not, but there
was caution in his voice and I rushed to reassure him. “Other men
are insignificant creatures compared to you.”

“But I must sometimes make long trips,
Gabrielle, to see to the entire estate’s needs.” His fingers found
their way into my core, their suggestive probing shocking me all
over again. “And now, you have no fear of injuring yourself should
you miss me.”

“Your father makes those trips.” I heard the
weakness of my argument in my voice. It was not that I lacked
conviction in what I said, but that he argued with his hands as
well as with words and logic. My mind felt wrapped in a warm, wet
blanket. I could only repeat myself as he brought me to climax so
easily. “Your father makes those trips.”

Stiffening beside me, he withdrew.

“Shhhh…love, what troubles you?” My voice
broke with concern.

“I will be absent. Show me how you will
survive the separation.”

I could feel my cheeks flush and I drew my
hands to my chest, unsure of how to respond.

“Roll onto your back, Gabrielle,” he ordered
and I obeyed. “Good,” he said and took my hand, placing it between
my legs. “Do you remember how I stroked this little button?” He
asked.

I nodded and then remembered that he couldn’t
see me. “Yes.”

“When I am gone, you can stroke it when you
find yourself missing me too much.” He held his hand over mine and
forced my index finger straight. Lightly, he made me stroke the
length of the button’s spine until I began to moan from the sweet
sensation of it. “Do not stop rubbing that sweet pussy, Gabrielle,”
he said and removed his hand from mine.

“How does it feel?” he asked, his breath warm
against my ear.

“Heaven,” I confessed, my strokes growing
more rapid, firmer.

Sebastian eased up the bed until his back was
against the frame. Spreading his legs wide, he told me to roll
over, onto my knees while I continued to touch myself.

When I was before him, like a cat, he
presented his rod to me. He was hard again, deliciously so, and I
took a tentative lick at the plump head that rested atop its thick
length. He was still coated with my juices, and I licked the length
of his shaft, groaning with need as my bottom pumped the air, my
fingers vigorously working my sex.

He knotted his hands in my hair, making sure
that, as my mouth covered him, I kept my strokes deep and
thorough.

“Sweet Gabrielle,” he groaned, his body
pressed tight against the bed’s headboard. “I will never forget how
sweet your mouth, how sweet your pussy. I will always worship your
taste and your body.”

His bold words drove me wild and I tightened
my mouth around his shaft, letting my saliva pool so that my lips
could work him at a faster pace, a pace that matched the hard
strokes I delivered to my own body. I felt his hands clench my hair
tighter, his whole frame stiffening.

“Ah, release me, Gabrielle, before it is too
late!”

A disobedient wanton, I only clamped his rod
more firmly in my mouth, stilling the strokes to the shaft that I
might suck his seed from him as my own pleasure flowed warm down my
thighs.

“Gabrielle…Gabrielle,” he cried, shuddering
against me, filling my mouth with the taste of his lust and love
for me. I sucked harder, abandoning my own exhausted pleasures to
grab his hips and keep him from pulling away until the last of his
desire rippled through his shaft.

He gathered me into his arms then, cooing my
name, kissing me, running his tongue along mine before sucking at
my lips. “Gabrielle, my treasure.”

I drifted into a light sleep, wrapped in his
arms. He roused me a short time before daybreak.

“I must leave, dearest.” He pushed my hair
back and kissed my cheek.

“When will I see you again?” It was shameful,
the need that trembled in my voice, but already I felt a great
weight settling on my chest.

“Soon.” He drew me to him and buried his face
in my hair. “By daylight, when I come to take you as my own
love.”

His hand found my cheek in the dark and he
wiped a tear away. “Does that not make the wait bearable?”

“Yes,” I whispered, but clung to him until he
had to kiss my hands away.

“It is almost light,” he said, sitting up and
feeling around the floor for his clothing. “Veronique and a trusted
servant are the only others who know I am here. I must leave
now.”

Hearing my quiet sobbing, he turned back to
me, cupping my head. “I would not leave you crying, Gabrielle. What
is the matter?”

“You are too good. I fear that you will
realize I am not worthy to be your wife.”

“Ah, part of me would tell you how silly you
are.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. “But the other
part, the selfish part, prays you will always think it so, that I
need never worry about losing you.”

“Then say that it will be this week,
Sebastian.” I was pleading, glad that, in the room’s darkness, he
could not see me now even if it meant I could not see him.

He stroked my hair one last time and then
moved quietly to the door. “I have every faith it will be this
week, sweet Gabrielle.” I heard his hand on the door, heard him
turn the knob. “Just remember your promise when I come to claim
you.”

He didn’t wait for my answer, quickly opening
the door and slipping out of the room. Wanting to catch a parting
glimpse, I rose from the bed, but only an empty hallway awaited me
on the other side of the door.

April 25, 1787

The week drags and I begin to despair. Each
morning I rise early, taking such pains with my attire for the day.
Each night I go to bed no closer to being Sebastian’s wife. What
does this delay mean?

April 26, 1787

Still no sign of Sebastian but some hope!
Papa, his manner so strange and his sentences so carefully phrased,
first inquired of my plans for the morrow (as I often go riding on
Friday) and then all but forbid me to go anywhere. But, perhaps
Sebastian has abandoned me and Papa, learning my true nature,
prepares to send me away!