The Widow Wager (24 page)

He took Gemma’s hand and raised it to his lips, and Gemma could have sworn she heard a few sighs from the crowd that was now not even trying to pretend they weren’t listening in.

Lady Winterhaven glared at her, but then shrugged. “Well, many felicitations to you. You deserve each other.”

She turned to go, but to Gemma’s surprise, Crispin stepped forward to stop her. “You know, Lady Winterhaven, I have been trying to place where I know you since you approached, but I have finally determined it.”

Gemma watched as her husband leaned in close to Margaret. Her heart pounded as he whispered something in the other lady’s ear. But it obviously wasn’t something sweet, for Margaret’s cheeks went deathly pale and she jerked away from Crispin.

“I declare, I do not know what you are talking about,” she snapped, her angry tone breaking before she skittered away with only a panicky glance over her shoulder at Crispin.

He turned back to Gemma and his smile was broad and proud and so delectable that she wanted to kiss him right then and there, despite the impropriety of the action. He held out a hand to her, looking every inch the fairytale prince as he said, “May I have this dance, Mrs. Flynn?”

And though her mind was buzzing with questions about what had just transpired, she could do nothing but take his offering and follow his lead.

Crispin couldn’t take his eyes off his wife as they spun into the first steps of the waltz. She looked dazzlingly beautiful under the soft lights of the ballroom, and it was almost an irresistible temptation to have her in his arms.

She smiled up at him as they slowly made their turns. “What did you say to Lady Winterhaven to make her look that way?”

He grinned. Turning that bitch’s tail beneath her legs and sending her running in fear had been the highlight of his month, not just his night. After the way she had treated Gemma, she deserved far worse.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked.

She nodded. “I do. When you first leaned toward her, I thought you might be flirting with her and my stomach lurched.”

He almost faltered in his steps at that admission. “Gemma, I would not betray you like that, but certainly never with someone who had been so abjectly cruel to you. Your enemies are my enemies.”

“I hardly know what to do with such loyalty,” she murmured, her cheeks growing pink.

“You deserve it,” he reassured her. “And what I said to
Lady
Winterhaven was that I recognized her from Marcus’s club and I wondered if her husband and her sewing circle would get as much of a laugh out of that fact as they had about you.”

Gemma blinked. “Margaret has been to an undergrounding gaming hell?”

He smiled. “It’s a bit more than just that, I assure you.” He watched her for a moment, thinking of her unrestrained passion and trying not to get hard as steel at the memories. “Actually, you would like it. I will take you some night. When Marcus is
not
working.”

Oh, the things he could do with her there…share with her there. It was almost too perfect.

She obviously still didn’t understand, for she shrugged delicately, as to not interrupt the dance. “Well, I appreciate your putting her in her place. And for the other things you said.”

He looked into her eyes and saw the pain there. The rejection she had suffered, the loneliness she had endured. He had known her story about her first husband and guessed how terrible her life with her father had been through both her stories and the bastard’s actions.

But he had never put those things together with how abandoned that must have made Gemma feel. To never be good enough, to never be cared for just because she was her own wonderful self.

“Why did you tell the lie to her about how we met and married?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“Not all of it was a lie,” he said, just as soft.

The moment he said it, he wished he could take it back. He didn’t want her to know how enamored he had been of her since the moment he woke to find her in his bed. It felt wrong to do so.

She tilted her head. “Which parts were true?”

He swallowed. He could dismiss what he said entirely, but he knew that would cut her down. So he settled for a compromise.

“I have thought you incredibly beautiful from almost the first moment we met. I would have thought it from the first moment, but I don’t recall that moment, of course.”

She shook her head with a low laugh just for him that hit him in the gut like a punch. It faded and she tilted her head. “If I accept your tale that the moment you were sober enough to recognize I was another human and female that you found me attractive in some way, the rest of the lie you spun still stands.”

He motioned around the room as the music came to an end. “They were watching, weren’t they? And to make your sister’s life easier…to make your life more bearable, I thought it was better to leave them believing that we fell suddenly and irretrievably in love. Even if it is…” He found himself hesitating, though he didn’t know why. “…not true.”

“So you said it for her benefit.” Her tone was very neutral, as was her expression. “And theirs.”

He nodded. “But here is what is not for their benefit. I want you, Gemma. So much that I’m not sure I will be able to wait the entire carriage ride home to have you. Will you leave with me now?”

She nodded without hesitation, but then her logic seemed to intrude upon her desires. “But it is still early—”

“After the story I just told, us sneaking out together will only cement the tale of our passionate love,” he said, hoping he would strike on something that would make her agree once and for all.

It seemed he had, for she nodded again. “If it is for the good of the lie, how can I say no?”

She took his hand and let him lead her from the dance floor, from the ballroom and eventually to their carriage. He felt eyes follow them and didn’t care. All he cared about was having her alone. Having her at all.

The moment the vehicle door closed and they were moving, he launched himself to her side of the carriage and covered her mouth with his. She lifted to him hungrily, answering his need with one of her own, as sweet and hot as anything he had ever experienced with any woman.

Any
woman.

He pushed that thought from his mind and focused on Gemma. Gemma’s little moans as he tucked his arms around her hips and pulled her against him. Gemma’s arching back as he thrust against her and let her feel the hardness of his cock through all the frustrating layers of clothing.

“There’s…too much separating us,” she said, her tone filled with desperation.

“Not any more than the last time we did this,” he teased, loving how her cheeks darkened at the reminder that they had surrendered to pleasures in their carriage before. He certainly hoped they would do so again. Over and over.

She met his gaze, and there was a sudden, unexpected wickedness. “Well, my ball gown is more intricate, but you…” She found the length of him through his trousers. “You could be easily freed, couldn’t you?”

His eyes went wide as he watched her caress him, her fingers light and teasing. “Gemma,” he breathed, a word that begged as well as warned.

She unfastened the flap on his trouser front with a slowness that could only be deliberate and lowered the bib to reveal him, naked and proud, thrusting to greet her.

“Mmmm,” she murmured. “Do you know how much I like it when you put your mouth on me?”

He jolted as she took him in her fist and stroked him with confidence. Once, twice, until a droplet of moisture pooled on the tip of him.

“I can do that,” he said, though at that moment he would have told her he could procure the crown jewels if it meant she would continue to touch him.

“Perhaps later,” she purred, watching his face as she stroked him. “I am actually wondering if you would like the same.”

He jerked in her hand. He had not asked her for that pleasure. Not because he didn’t want it, not because her full lips, her hot mouth wasn’t made for it. But because not all ladies liked it and pushing her didn’t seem fair.

But now she offered him heaven without so much as a hesitation.

“I would very much like it,” he growled. “I have dreamt of it since the first time I felt your mouth on mine.”

“Denying you this dream would be very uncaring of your wife,” she teased as she shifted on the carriage seat so that she could bend over him. “For your pleasure, Mr. Flynn, and mine.”

Her lips brushed him and he grunted out a sound of surrender. She glided them over the head, chaste, closed mouth caresses of exploration. Down his shaft, she kissed, over his tight, full balls. He wanted to bark at her to open her mouth, to lick him, suck him, but he didn’t. He let her take her time, find her way.

And she did. As she made her way back up his shaft, those closed-mouth caresses became wanton licks, her hot tongue stroking his every inch, swirling around his girth until she returned to the head.

She lifted her face, looked up at him with a smile of possessive, female power and then took him into her mouth. Slowly she lowered over him, taking inch by inch, lower and lower until he just touched her throat. The sight of her red head descending over his swollen one was enough to make him spend, but he held back, leaning against the carriage seat with a guttural groan of pure pleasure.

She began to thrust over him in earnest, mimicking the way she would ride him if she was astride, sucking him on the descent and swirling her tongue around his girth as she withdrew. It was a wild, animal rhythm she set, and he placed his hand on her back to feel her hips undulate in time, as if this act gave her pleasure.

He felt his seed galloping to be freed, the pressure in his balls mounting until he could no longer control it.

“Gemma, I’m going to spend,” he managed to croak out, gripping the seat edge with enough force that he feared he would tear the leather in pieces. “You must stop—”

She ignored him, lifting just her eyes to watch him, wicked pleasure in their gray depths as she took him to the edge and then sucked him over.

He roared out his pleasure and felt his seed pump free into her mouth. She took every drop, continuing the onslaught of her tongue until he went soft inside of her and she gently removed him with a pop.

He stared at her, this wild woman who had overtaken his passionate, but always proper wife. Her hair was tangled now, her face flushed with pleasure and triumph.

“That was incredible,” he gasped, trying to find enough air to refill his empty lungs.

She smiled. “I am learning, I think, how to make you quake.”

He laughed as he watched her tuck him back in place and fasten his trousers. “Learning? If you are not already an expert, I fear I may expire.”

She tensed at the words and he turned his face with a curse. “I’m sorry, Gemma, that was a foolish thing to say.”

She shook her head, though she did not look at him. “You didn’t mean anything by it. I know you were only teasing.”

Still, he saw the pain on her face. The embarrassment and the guilt. He placed a finger beneath her chin and forced her to look at him.

“No one should blame you for what happened to Laurelcross,” he said. “I think I’ve proven that I will go to battle with anyone who dares. And that includes you, wife.”

“You would go to battle with me?” she asked, a wavering smile returning to her face.

The carriage slowed as they reached their home, and he nodded slowly. “I will torture you, with pleasure, until you admit you have done no wrong.”

Her eyes lit up and desire washed away the other feelings that had been placed there. “Then I think we should go to war,” she said, trying to pretend seriousness even as a smile trembling at her lips. “And I shall not surrender easily.”

He drew her closer and grinned. “I certainly hope not.”

Gemma lifted an arm as the seamstress had told her and held very still as the woman pinned a few places here and there. The final fitting of her gown for Serafina and Rafe’s ball had been going on for half an hour, but it felt like an eternity. Still, as the woman turned her so Serafina could look at her, Gemma couldn’t help but smile. The duchess held Little Crispin in her arms, a beautiful Madonna who almost shone with the love for her child, her husband…her life.