Page 153 of The Wallflower Takes All

Lists, bills, and the effort to appear cheerful while the world tipped sideways around her all fell away.

Only Gabriel remained, his body in hers, his breath breaking, his restraint ruined by wanting her.

“You feel perfect,” he said, the words rough against her skin. “Do you know that? Do you know what it is to be inside you after trying so long to do the honorable thing?”

Poppy clung to him. “Tell me.”

His rhythm faltered.

“Tell me,” she whispered again, bolder now because he had made her bold.

He lifted his head, his eyes dark and undone. “It is agony. It is relief. It is every sensible part of me burning down at once.”

Pleasure tightened inside her.

“And you like that?” she asked.

His mouth found hers in a hard kiss. “I love it.”

His hand slipped between their bodies and found the place that had already yielded so sweetly to his touch.

Poppy gasped. “Gabriel.”

“I know.” His fingers moved with devastating precision. “Come for me again. I want to feel it this time.”

The pleasure rose quickly, tightening through her until every muscle drew taut. Gabriel’s rhythm faltered as she clenched around him, and the last of his control broke with hers.

Poppy cried out into his shoulder as release swept through her.

Gabriel thrust once more, then drew free abruptly and spilled against her thigh with a low groan, his face pressed into the curve of her neck.

For several moments, neither of them moved.

Poppy lay breathless and dazed, more content than she had known a person could feel while the practical structure of her life remained on the verge of collapse.

Gabriel lifted his head. Concern entered his face. “Did I hurt you?”

“A little.”

His mouth tightened.

“Not enough to make that expression,” she said.

“What expression?”

“The one suggesting you intend to prosecute yourself.”

He let out a breath that might have become a laugh under less serious circumstances. “I should have been gentler.”

“You were gentle.”

“I lost control.”

Poppy touched the hair fallen across his forehead. “I liked it.”

Gabriel smiled then, a happy smile, and Poppy felt it as keenly as any kiss.

He shifted carefully, reached for the linen cloth on her washstand, and tended to her with quiet consideration. The intimacy of the gesture made her chest ache more than she expected.