Page 115 of The Wallflower Takes All

“Gabriel,” she whispered.

“That is it, Poppy. Let me see you come undone.”

His mouth brushed her cheek, then the corner of her lips, while his hand continued its slow, devastating work. Poppy’s fingers tightened in his coat. Every breath came quicker than the last. The pressure inside her grew sharper, sweeter, until she was shaking with it, balanced on the edge and unable to do anything but yield.

Then the pleasure broke over her all at once. She buried her face against his shoulder to smother the cry that rose from her throat, her whole body going taut in his arms before the shudders took her. Gabriel held her fast through it, his hand gentling only when she began to soften and sag against him, breathless.

Poppy had not known a body could feel at once so spent and so keenly alive. A delicious languor had stolen through her limbs, leaving every part of her soft and unsteady. She suspected she would never again hear Gabriel Ashby’s name in quite the same way.

Freddie leapt onto the sofa directly between them.

Gabriel jerked back as the spaniel planted two paws on his chest and licked his chin with enthusiastic judgment.

Poppy jumped.

Then she began to laugh. She quickly righted her skirts, moved off Gabriel’s lap, and sat beside him.

Gabriel closed his eyes while Freddie attempted to climb his waistcoat. “I begin to understand the ducks,” he groaned.

That only made her laugh harder.

Freddie, delighted by the response, barked and settled on Poppy’s skirts, claiming victory over both propriety and romance.

For a moment, laughter saved them.

Then it faded.

Gabriel sat back. His cravat was loose. His hair was disturbed. His breathing had yet to steady. Even so, she saw the change come over him, the shutters closing, the careful, controlled solicitor returning in the place of the man who had kissed her and…touched her.

“I should not have done that,” he said, turning to her and tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. “But I cannot seem to stop myself where you are concerned.”

Poppy closed her eyes. “I fail to see why it is a problem.”

“Because I cannot?—”

“You cannot what?” Anger rose in her chest, and she turned to face him, glaring at him with eyes that no doubt flashed fire. “Be the man I need instead of the man who, every time he touches me, remembers all the reasons he should not?”

“Poppy.”

“Perhaps you are right.” Her voice remained calm. That felt like its own small triumph. “Perhaps desire does not alter anything. Perhaps wanting is not enough.”

Hurt crossed his features. “I did not mean?—”

“No. I know what you meant. You meant you should not have risked my trust, or my reputation, or whatever legal phrase one might use for kissing a woman senseless upon a sofa.” She rose carefully, lifting Freddie from the cushion beside her. “But that is not what I hear.”

Gabriel stood too. “What do you hear?”

“That I am something you must recover from.”

Pain slashed across his face again before he could hide it. The sight nearly undid her. But Poppy had spent too long living inside decisions other people made around her. Algernon deciding when she must leave her home. Lord Ketterham deciding whether she came with too many complications. Society deciding whether she was acceptable. Gabriel deciding whether wanting her was a mistake.

The cottage wasn’t the life she’d dreamed of, but at least it was a decision she could claim.

She lowered Freddie to the floor, crossed to the escritoire, picked up the cottage list, and held it out.

Gabriel looked at the paper, then at her. “What is this?”

“My requirements for the cottage.”