“Did you really believe I’d stopped?”
Gabby itched to punch him again. “What was I supposed to believe when I didn’t hear from you for a month?”
“I was wrong, Gabby, and I’ll apologize for it forever if you want me to. But the truth is I couldn’t face you. If I came to you and you sent me away, if I knew for certain that you didn’t want me anymore … God in heaven, Gabriella Waverly, I’ve never been so bloody afraid of a lass before.”
Nolan’s mouth hovered over hers and she could see the fear bright in his eyes. She wanted to laugh. Nolan Quinn, a fierce swordsman who picked battles with Underneath demons on a regular basis, was afraid of her? But she couldn’t laugh. He was being completely serious, and for the first time Gabby felt the weight of what that meant. He was real and he made mistakes, but he loved her.
“Please forgive me,” he said, still worried she wouldn’t. He traced her scars with his thumb with such tenderness it made her ache.
Gabby was certain she kissed him first, but after a moment, it didn’t matter who had started it. Nolan had her against his chest and he was kissing her as if she were his air source.
She had the urge to pull him closer even though there wasn’t a single gap between their bodies. His hands were everywhere; raking through her hair and uncoiling her chignon, coasting down the curve of her spine and fanning out over her hips, his fingertips brushing dangerously lower. He murmured her name as he drew her hair aside and nuzzled her neck. He lifted her from the floor, spun around, and set her down again, this time on the edge of her bed.
He stood in front of her, breathing hard. His eyes traveled from her loose curls down the front of her dress, to her legs, and then back up again. He must have noticed the heat in her cheeks, but he didn’t tease her the way he normally would have. Nolan had gone acutely sober. Predatory. Gabby had seen something close to it in his eyes before, in her rectory bedroom when he had climbed through her window and asked her to lie beside him for a while. Nolan had promised to be a gentleman then. However, as he took a step closer to the bed and tilted her chin up, she understood that he no longer wished to be a gentleman.
Gabby couldn’t breathe. The room was too hot, the fire in the grate roaring. She closed her eyes when Nolan’s fingertips brushed down the curve of her throat. He leaned forward to trail kisses in their wake, and Gabby honestly believed her body might combust. Her back met the forgiving plush of the duvet and she opened her eyes to Nolan, holding himself on one elbow over her, the palm of his free hand flat against her stomach.
He said nothing as his hand grazed over her ribs, tightly cinched in a corset that Gabby suddenly despised more than ever. She hitched her breath when he continued his exploration, allowing his palm to shape around her breast. Nolan then took her mouth in the sort of kiss that said things. Things that would sound graceless if bound by words.
She twined her fingers through the silk of his hair, arching her back in an attempt to be closer to him. When he pulled away, Nolan stared down at her with an unexpected hint of trepidation in his eyes. He put on one of his half smiles.
“This isn’t very gentlemanlike, is it, lass?”
No witty comeback surfaced, and after a moment of simply staring up at him, her fingers running over his lips, she watched as Nolan pushed himself off of the bed.
She sat up, suddenly realizing with stark clarity what had just nearly happened.
“I have to go,” Nolan said, buttoning the top buttons of his shirt. Gabby blushed furiously. Had she undone them?
“Of course.” She averted her eyes and touched the side of her head and the mess of loose curls.
“I don’t want to go,” Nolan said, his husky voice rich with disappointment. “Someday I won’t.”
Gabby forgot her untidy hair. She fixed her eyes on his, heat coursing into her cheeks yet again.
“I love you, Gabby.”
Air. There wasn’t enough of it. Nolan stood a moment while Gabby stared up at him, stunned speechless, just as she’d been the first time he’d said the words to her.
He gestured to the silk screen. “The case with your sister’s blood is over there.”
Gabby blinked. He was just giving it to her?
“Will you come with me?” she asked.
“I thought you didn’t require my presence,” he said, quirking one brow.
Gabby smiled but looked down, thinking how haughty she must have sounded.
“I don’t require it,” she said. “But I want it. So will you come?”
He stayed back from the bed, though she knew he wanted to come closer. Instead, he cleared his throat and went to her door. She had no doubt he’d be able to sneak out of the house the same way he’d sneaked in.
“I’m at your service, as always, Miss Waverly,” he said, and with a playful bow, disappeared into the corridor.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN