Redeemed By His Stolen Bride

‘Come here, Leonora.’

She took her gaze off the bed and looked at Gabriel. She sucked in a breath. He filled the space. She pushed down her trepidation and walked the couple of feet over to where he stood. He was taking his cufflinks out of his shirt and placing them on top of a chest of drawers. She stood before him.

‘Take off your jewellery.’

She didn’t think. She obeyed. Giving herself up to this night and this man with total commitment. She took out her earrings and placed them down next to his cufflinks. Then she removed the matching bracelet. He’d probably already guessed they weren’t real, but she didn’t care any more.

‘Take off my shirt.’

Leonora stepped closer, some of her bravado faltering as she reached for his buttons and started undoing them, revealing his impressive chest. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the faint tremor in her hands. When it was open, she pushed it back and looked. Her mouth went dry. He was more like a warrior than a civilised businessman. Hard muscles. Hair curling over his pectorals and descending in a dark line at the centre of a six-pack to disappear under the waistband of his trousers.

He tugged his shirt off completely, letting it drop to the floor. ‘Now you. I want to see you.’

No one had ever seen Leonora naked. Not since she was a child. When she was a teenager, fooling around with boys at after-school parties, it had always been an awkward fumbling in the dark, under clothes. Not this stark ‘I want to see you’ while standing in the golden glow of a lamp in front of the most intimidating man in the world. A connoisseur of women, by all accounts.

Before Leonora could overthink it she turned around, presenting Gabriel with her back and the zip to her dress. She pulled her hair over one shoulder and steeled herself for the moment she would feel his hands at her zip. But instead of going there first, his hands landed on her shoulders, and then she felt his breath at the back of her neck, before he pressed his mouth there, the moist tip of his tongue flicking out to taste her skin.

Her legs nearly gave way completely.

She was dealing with a consummate seducer—not an over-eager boy.

His hands trailed over her skin as if he had all the time in the world to learn her shape. Goosebumps popped up even though she was warm. Hot. Melting…

Then his hands moved to the top of her dress and he started to pull her zip down, all the way, until it stopped just above the curve of her buttocks. His knuckles brushed her skin there and it felt as intimate as if he’d kissed her.

The dress was loosened around her chest but she brought her arms up, stopping it from falling down.

‘Turn around.’

Her heart pounding, Leonora turned. After a moment she looked up and saw Gabriel’s face. It was…stark. Hungry. She shivered.

He put his hands on her arms and slowly pulled them apart. The dress stayed up for a moment and then, under its own weight, fell down to her waist. She wore a matching strapless bra. Red lace.

Gabriel let her arms go and reached behind her to undo her bra. It fell away to the floor before she could worry about him noticing how frayed and worn it was.

He looked at her for a long moment. Saying nothing. And then, ‘You are more beautiful than anything I’ve ever imagined.’

Gabriel reached out and reverently cupped her breasts. Leonora had always felt self-conscious about their size, but they fitted Gabriel’s palms perfectly. He rubbed his thumbs across her nipples and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from moaning out loud as they stiffened under his touch, almost to the point of pain.

He stopped for a moment, bringing his hands up to cup her face before seeking her mouth again and drawing her deep into a drugging kiss. Her hand clasped his wrist, needing something, anything, to root herself in this dream.

The friction of her bare breasts against his chest was sensory overload. But that was nothing… He stopped kissing her and trailed his mouth across her jaw and down the side of her neck to her shoulder, and then down to her breast. He cupped the plump flesh again and lifted it to his mouth, teasing her stiffened flesh with his tongue and teeth.

She couldn’t stop the moan this time. It came out like a guttural plea to stop…never to stop…to keep going. Her hands were on his head, her fingers in his thick hair as he lavished the same torture on her other breast until they were both tingling and wet from his mouth.

When he stopped and lifted his head Leonora could barely keep standing. Gabriel pushed her dress down the rest of the way, over her hips. It fell to the floor with a barely audible swish of silk.

Now she wore only panties and stockings. Her shoes. She kicked them off, dropping a few inches in height. It made Gabriel seem even taller, more impressive.

Then, before she could worry about how to stay standing on her wobbly legs, she was lifted into the air against his chest and carried over to the bed, where he lay her down as reverently as if she was made of spun glass…

CHAPTER THREE (#u7c338b08-1f6f-5286-9e86-86b4e0de250a)

GABRIEL WASN’T SURE how he’d managed not to ravish Leonora before now, but he knew something was holding him back. Her reticence—which he felt sure had to be an act—was having an effect on him.

For a man who had slept with some of the world’s most beautiful women, and who’d been sexually active since he was a teenager, he was finding lately that sexual liaisons had become merely satisfactory. More often than not disappointing. But here, now, he hadn’t done much more than kiss Leonora and already he was having the most erotic experience he’d had in a long time. If ever.

His instincts about her had been right. She was exquisite. Every line of her body sleek and perfect. Her skin was like silk. Her breasts were perfectly shaped. And her nipples—His mouth watered again, just at the thought of how they’d tasted and stiffened against his tongue.

She was looking at him with huge eyes. As if she’d never seen a man before. Part of him was irritated that she could get to him with such a rudimentary act—was he so jaded that faux innocence turned him on?

Enough playacting.

Gabriel divested himself of the rest of his clothes.

Leonora watched as Gabriel efficiently undressed, revealing a body honed and densely muscled. And hard. She couldn’t stop her eyes widening on his arousal, thick and long.

He came down on the bed, resting over her on both hands. She suddenly felt trepidatious. What if he noticed straight away how inexperienced she was? What if it hurt? What if he was too—?

‘You don’t have to do this, you know…’

He bent down and surrounded one still sensitised nipple in the hot wet heat of his mouth. Leonora’s back arched.

She panted, ‘What…? Do what…?’

He lifted his head, a sexy smile playing around his wicked mouth. ‘Put on the innocent act. You don’t have to play games to entice me, Leonora. I’m enticed.’

Before she could respond to that he was ministering the same exquisite torture to her other breast. Act? What act? She couldn’t think straight. Not when he was massaging one breast with his fingers and nipping at the other with his teeth before soothing it with his tongue.

His tongue trailed down under her breasts to her belly, dipping into her navel before moving further. Leonora tensed as he came close to the juncture of her legs. He tucked his fingers under her panties and tugged. She lifted her bottom off the bed in silent acquiescence. He pulled them down her legs and off completely. Then one stocking and the other followed them to the floor.

Now she was totally naked—like him. And yet she didn’t feel self-conscious. Just…hungry. Aching. Empty inside. As if something was missing.

He was looking at her, his eyes roving over her body, and her self-consciousness returned. She was suddenly acutely aware that she didn’t conform to current beauty trends by waxing every inch of her body. But Gabriel wasn’t looking remotely repulsed.

He came down beside her, his hand resting on the cluster of dark curls between her legs. ‘I like a woman to look like a woman.’

He kissed her then, stopping any words or more coherent thoughts. The feeling of pleasure that he liked her as she was quickly became something far more urgent as he pushed her legs apart and his hand explored further, through those tight curls to the secret place where she ached for his touch.

She gasped into his mouth when his seeking fingers found her, wet and ready. He massaged her, stroking her with expert fingers into a level of excitement that had her arching off the bed, pleading incoherently for something just out of reach, a shimmering promise of ecstasy she could almost taste.

He was relentless, teasing her to the point where she thought she would die if he didn’t just—

But then, with one deep thrust and a twist of his fingers, Leonora was finally released from the tension, and she soared high on a wave of pleasure so exquisite she cried out, her hands instinctively reaching for Gabriel’s wrist to stop his movements, her throbbing flesh over-sensitised.