The muscles of her throat moved with the force of her swallow and she gave another nod. “Y-yes. Y-yes, that is just what I’d expect you to do.”
Was that what every other gentleman had done before him? Never had he resented his station in life more than he did in this moment. Those snide, hypocritical members of the ton who’d look down upon the Jane Munroe’s of the world, while lauding the late Marquess of Waverly, a man who beat his children, for no other reason than his status at birth.
Jane pressed her fingers against her temple and rubbed. “What are you doing?”
“I told you, I—”
“Not here,” she cut in on a soft cry. “With your Italian words and your—” A delicate, pink blush stained her cheeks.
“And my what?” he prodded. He’d have everything between them. The lies hinted at by Montclair. All of it.
“Your kiss,” she said on a harsh whisper.
Gabriel stilled. He opened and closed his mouth several times.
“And, not that you’ve kissed me of late.” Even as he’d dreamed of it, every day since. “Nor should I think of you as I do. I should forget your kiss and your touch.” And it would destroy part of him if those embraces meant nothing to her. Not when she’d been the first—“But…” Her spectacles fell from her grip and landed on the carpeted floor with a soft thump. She covered her face with her hands. “What are you doing to me? Why can’t you be the condescending, judgmental man you first showed yourself to be instead of this seductive, gentle person I do not know what to do with?”
Not once in the course of his thirty-two years had he been accused of being a rogue. He’d taken great pains to distance himself from the image crafted by his father and, in many ways, adopted by his brother. With gentleness, he encircled her wrists in his hands and lowered her arms to her side. “I was not seducing you.” Shame and embarrassment added a gruff quality to his tone. Guilt turned within his belly. “You likely see me no different than Montclair.” A man whose residence she’d shared, who should have respected her station within his father’s household, and had instead forced his attentions on her.
“You are nothing like Montclair,” she said tiredly. “If you were, it would be a good deal easier.”
Her words gave him pause. He should not press her for answers on that statement, but he could no sooner quell the question on his lips than he could shake free this link to his father’s blood. “What would be a good deal easier?”
Jane dropped her gaze to the floor. Why should he be shamed, when he’d been the one to take her lips under his? Why, when he still wanted her, now just a curtain away from a theatre full of potential witnesses to their scandalous actions?
He brushed the backs of his knuckles down her cheek and that gentle caress brought her lashes fluttering once more. “I am not a rogue, Jane,” Those grounded words brought her eyes open. “I am not a charming gentleman with easy words around ladies as my brother.” He’d prided himself on that for the better part of his life. Now he wished he possessed even a trace of Alex’s capabilities for then he’d have the words to muddle through this exchange. He brushed his knuckles along her jaw. “I would never force my attentions upon you or deliberately set to seduce you with words or actions.” I would want you because you desire me as I desire you. “When I shared Rossini’s words, it was so you might know everything about the opera you’d looked forward to.”
Jane leaned up on tiptoe and shrunk the distance between his tall, and her much shorter, frame and kissed him.
Gabriel stiffened and then with an agonized groan, he devoured her mouth with his. There was nothing gentle or sweet about the exchange. It was an explosive meeting of two people who both wanted one another and who’d fought that longing for too long. “I want you,” he whispered as he dragged his lips down her neck.
As he gently sucked at the sensitive skin, a moan slipped past her lips. “I w-want you, too.”
Her words had a maddening effect and a low moan rumbled from deep within his chest. He drew her close to him. Gabriel dropped his attention to the exposed flesh of her décolletage and of their own volition, her hands came up and she anchored him close.