Chapter Eighteen

Luc had been in his study a few hours, giving Isabelle some time to be alone with Gabriel. They were upstairs in his private apartments, and squeals of delight could be heard from the vestibule. He’d finalized further plans with his second-in-command for their departure in a month before dismissing the man and heading upstairs to the woman he could not wait to marry in three weeks.

But there was something bothering him.

He’d rehearsed his marriage proposal the entire night before and during the carriage ride to the court proceeding.

Yet it hadn’t been complete.

He’d left something out.

And it needed to be rectified. Though it wasn’t an easy task he’d set himself. They were words he’d never uttered in his life. Never thought he would.

Reaching the doors of his private rooms, he opened the door and strode across the antechamber to the bedchamber’s double doors. He could hear Isabelle and Gabriel talking and laughing, the joyful noise making him smile as he approached.

One of the bedchamber doors was ajar. He pushed it open.

Gabriel and Montague noticed him first. The boy let out a whoop and jumped from the bed at Luc. He caught the boy in his arms. Montague offered several booming barks.

“Gabriel!” Isabelle admonished. “You mustn’t do that. Montague, that’s quite enough.”

Luc laughed. “It’s all right.”

“Maman says you’re going to be my father.” He gave Luc an impish grin, then a quick tight hug, his arms circling Luc’s neck.

“That’s correct. And did your mother tell you that we are going on a great ship and sailing across an ocean?”

“She did! I have an aunt and an uncle and a cousin too!”

He smiled. “You do.”

“I will do my best to be a good son,” Gabriel promised. Those words tugged at Luc’s heart. It was something he’d tried to be as well. An impossible achievement with the man who’d sired him.

“You already are,” he told the boy who’d easily won his heart. “I promise that I will do my best to be a good father.”

Gabriel hugged him again. In his ear, he heard, “You already are.”

Smiling, he set the boy down. Unquestionably, he had his mother’s magic. Gabriel inspired the same tender emotions. “I need a private word with your mother.”

Isabelle stepped forward. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you lie down, and I will be back shortly.”

Gabriel nodded. “All right.” He ran and jumped onto the bed. “Come on, Montague.” He patted the spot beside him. And just like that, the giant dog plopped himself on Luc’s bed.

He was too preoccupied to say anything. He simply took Isabelle’s hand and led her to the antechamber, then closed the door.

“There is something I need to say.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I had meant to say it earlier. But I didn’t and I don’t want you to think I don’t wish to. Because I do.”

What the bloody hell? He sounded like a babbling idiot.

Her brow creased. “What is it?”

The most difficult thing I’ve ever tried to say.

“I know how to bed a woman. I know how to seduce her. Yet I don’t know how to love a woman—or anyone. I’ve never loved anyone in my life. But I wish to learn how to with you. And Gabriel. And even the horse-dog, Montague.”

She smiled at him. More of a beaming, take-his-breath-away sort of smile. Love shone in her eyes. And Jésus, how that melted him—each time. It was a feeling he’d grown to adore.

“I can assure you that you have done mightily fine thus far.”

“Not yet. Not until I declare my affections.” Dieu, why was this so damned difficult? Lord knows he’d read enough love sonnets to know what words to say, but they needed to be his words. Not another’s. Luc raked a hand through his hair. Damn it. Just say it.

“The author of those captivating journals made me laugh. She made me want her. She made me fall in love with her. Then I met a woman who was just as engaging. Alluring. Witty. And I fell in love with her too. It matters not what name you use, Juliette Carre, Isabelle Laurent—or Isabelle de Moutier, I love them all. I…love you.

He never thought he’d use those words in his life. They were foreign in his mouth.

Yet he’d never made an utterance that felt so good. And was so right.

A single tear slipped down her cheek, but her smile never lessened. She stepped closer and cupped his face tenderly. “As I’ve stated, I can assure you that you have done mightily fine thus far, Lord Seductive, my Fair Prince, Luc de Moutier, my soon-to-be husband. I love them all because they’re you.” Then she kissed him, her soft, warm mouth melding with his. Her tongue slipping past his lips. He gave it a suck. She gave him a sensuous little moan. It reverberated down his spine to his cock. He was stiff as a spike in an instant.

Her hand reached down and stroked along the contour of his erection through his breeches, all the way to the sensitive tip. And squeezed. It was his turn to moan.

“I need you,” she whispered in his ear.

“What about Gabriel?” Merde, he’d never had sex with a child under the same roof, much less in the other room.

She reached back and locked the door, then untied his cravat. It dangled from her hand as she held it out to him. Her breathing had already quickened, inciting his own. “You’ll have to be quick about it. Something hard and fast.”

The saucy little tilt to her head and the fire that burned in her dark eyes made the request impossible to refuse.

He took the cravat from her, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Leaning in, he said in her ear, “Take your clothes off before I tear them from your sweet form.” He bit her earlobe, enjoying her little shiver of excitement.

God, how he enjoyed playing with her in the boudoir.

Her hands flew to her clothing, pulling and unlacing, casting it off as fast as her eager fingers would allow. Luc watched as he removed his doublet, his shirt, breeches, and boots. Jésus-Christ, just watching her adorably frenzied method of undressing made his cock swell to painful proportions. His prick already felt as hard as iron.

Impatient, he stopped her, lifted her, and placed her bottom on the round table at the center of the room. He pulled off the balance of her clothing, shoes, stockings, caleçons, and the final veil covering her body, her knee-length chemise. He allowed himself to take in the vision before him. “You are so beautiful. Your nipples are so puckered and taut. They need to be sucked, don’t they?”

She bit down on her lip and nodded. The quick, awkward little jerks of her head that made him smile, even when he was so fucking aroused, his sac ached.

“Good. Now, on your back, arms above your head. Wrists together.”

Seeing her comply made his cock jerk with anticipation. He walked around, stopping beside her, and bound her wrists together. Not having any scarves in his personal antechamber, he improvised. Snagging one of the ribbons he’d tossed to the floor from around her stockings, he looped it into the cravat around her wrists, then secured it to the leg of his table.

A sudden pull and moist warmth closed around the crest of his cock, taking him by surprise. He darted his gaze downward. Her head was turned toward him, and she’d drawn the head of his prick into that incredible mouth.

Then she sucked.

He tossed his head back with a groan. He moved his hand to the back of her head, pulled her to him. And gave her slow, shallow pumps of his cock—despite the urgency bubbling in his blood. He took a brief moment to bask in the glory of her mouth before he withdrew.

Every nerve ending in his prick railed against his action.

He bent down and brushed an errant curl from her cheek. “Did you just improvise?”

“No, it wasn’t me,” was her cheeky response.

It drew a laugh from him. “I’m going to let this go for now as we are under some time restraints. So, unless you have any objections, I’m going to fuck you now, and I’m not going to pull out.” He walked around the table, stopping between her parted thighs, and gripped her hips. He rolled his hips, allowing his shaft to glide through the dewy folds of her sex, coating his cock with her warm, slick juices.

“No objections!” she said as he stroked his prick over her clit.

“Excellent, because I’m going to fill you with come,” he said, wedging his cock at her entrance. And drove his whole length into her with one solid thrust.

She bit down on her lip, muffling her cry of pleasure, and arched up off the table. His cock buried to the hilt, her exquisite sex squeezed around it, he waited for her body to relax. When she lowered her back onto the table, he reached between their bodies and captured her swollen little clit.

And lightly pinched it between his finger and thumb.

She gasped and lurched, but he held on, keeping the pressure on the bud strong enough for her to feel it. To allow the sensation to build. She wiggled and jerked her hips, her breathing turning into pants. His name rushed past her lips.

“I need to…” She squirmed. “I have to…”

“Come? No, you don’t. Not yet. Hold it back for me,” he told her, then leaned forward and sucked one of those delicious little nipples into his mouth, plying it with slow steady suckles, still holding her little clit captive. She mewled and writhed beneath him, trying to get some friction from his cock buried deep inside her.

“I can’t, Luc… Now!”

He released her nipple, then turned to the other one. “Fight it back,” he said, then sucked the pebbled tip of her other breast, giving it the same carnal care. He could feel a light pulsing beginning in her clit. He didn’t relent on the pressure of his pinch, waiting for those magnificent little spasms to move inside her sex, along the length of his buried cock.

She arched and squirmed as much as she could under his weight. Her desperation and sexual fever mounting. Releasing her nipple, he soothed her, coaxing her into fighting back her climax a little longer, telling her how good it was going to be. Then it began, the light flutters of her vaginal walls. Then stronger contractions rippling along his cock. The occasional clench and squeeze of her snug cunt driving him half out of his mind. She’d reached the edge, unable to pull back from it any longer.

He released her bud. Gripping the edge of the table near her head, he dragged his length back out. Then drove back in.

“You’re mine… Isabelle. You’re going to come with me.” He kissed her, his tongue possessing her mouth. His rhythm was hard and fast. His every downstroke came in contact with her sensitized bud.

She surged up against him, his mouth muzzling her cry as her orgasm exploded through her senses. He let go with her. Pouring his prick into her, her sex clutching and releasing him, milking semen from his cock in one glorious rush after another until he’d completely purged his prick.

It took a moment before he heard it clearly. A small knock at the door from his bedchamber. A little voice said, “Maman?”

And the distinct whine of a dog.

Dieu, Gabriel.

Luc shoved himself off Isabelle’s warm form and cleaned himself and her with the first thing he saw—his shirt. He untied her just as quickly and pulled her up to a sitting position. She looked at him, confused, her cheeks pink, her body relaxed and sated. Then she heard it too.

“Maman?” Followed by a little jiggle of the locked door handle.

“It’s Gabriel,” she exclaimed in a whisper.

“Yes, I know. Dress.” Luc scooped up the chemise and tossed it to her.

“Just a moment, my darling,” Isabelle called out to the boy as Luc yanked on his breeches. She tossed on her chemise and caleçons.

“Maman, the door is locked.” Another whine came from the dog.

“I know, darling. I’m coming to unlock it.” She frantically tied the caleçons in place, then shoved her chemise down and smoothed her hair.

Luc reached the door to his bedchamber with two quick steps and placed his hand on its latch. “All right?” he asked her, making certain she was ready for him to open it.

She nodded and rushed forward.

The moment the door opened, she crouched down, and Gabriel was in his mother’s arms. “I had a frightening dream, Maman.”

“Not to worry. I’m here. Montague is here,” she said, smiling at the dog. “And Luc is here.”

“You mean Papa.”

She smiled at Luc. “Yes, that is exactly what I mean.” She rose and then entered Luc’s bedchamber with Gabriel holding her hand.

The giant white dog followed contentedly behind, tail wagging.

Luc rested his hands on his hips and smiled. Papa. It took some getting used to. And yet he loved it as much as the boy who’d made him a father.

He walked into his room to find Gabriel lying on Luc’s bed, Isabelle holding the boy, lying beside him on her side. She patted the center of the bed, where there was plenty of room for him. His smile grew, and he climbed into bed, mimicking her position. She snuggled her bottom into his groin. He wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear, “I love you.” It was easier to say this time. And he damn well intended to say it to her every day of their lives.

There was a sudden pounce on the bed followed by the brush of fur against his side. Luc glanced down his body and found Montague lying on the bed behind him, watching him, his chin resting on Luc’s side.

“Isabelle,” he whispered in her ear.

“Hmmm?” By her response, she’d begun to drift into sleep.

“Where does the dog sleep?”

Gabriel yawned. “He’s part of the family. He sleeps with us.”

“Montague is partial to human beds and obstinate about leaving them,” Isabelle sleepily concurred.

Luc glanced back at Montague. His ears were perked. His chin still resting on Luc. Luc reached down and playfully scratched between Montague’s ears. The giant dog relaxed them in appreciation of the petting.

Luc had his own family now. And a ridiculously large white dog.

Each had managed to awaken his heart when he thought it was long since dead.

As he closed his eyes, he had one final thought before slipping into sleep.

He was definitely going to need a much larger bed.