Whatever he was thinking was a complete mystery, but the man possessed the capability of looking through her and straight into her thoughts. Celia suspected Gabriel saw everything about her.

Without thinking of the consequences, she goaded him. “Will you be able to restrain yourself until we are married? I don’t believe it is possible.”

Gabriel’s nostrils flared in acknowledgment of her rash challenge.

“Is that so?” His melodic voice curled around Celia like a ribbon of sin. “I think you have no idea just what you are attempting to provoke. Do you want restraint, sugarplum, or do you wish to experience everything?”

“Everything.” She tossed back, trembling with her own boldness. And she did. No matter how frightening it might all be. She trusted him not to harm her, even if that belief was a reckless one.

Gabriel’s eyes flared with understanding, the irises turning so dark and fiery, Celia wondered if she might burn to a cinder from the heat of his stare.

When his lips curled the slightest bit, she was irrationally struck with an urge to press her mouth to the corners of his and taste his amusement.

“And so you shall.” The door was already swinging closed when Gabriel added in a voice laced with conviction. “But not until we are truly husband and wife, and there is no possibility of escape for either of us.”

After Gabriel so unceremoniously shut the door in her face, Celia had no choice but to slink back to her room.

There, she considered her future husband’s cryptic statement. There were so many things of which she remained naïve when it came to matters between a man and a woman. Gabriel would most certainly teach her, but it was an unavoidable truth that her previous experience with intimacy was a disastrous event.

Memories of the awful night five years before often flooded Celia’s mind. During the dark of night, the bedside lamp would often burn low and she would awaken in a state of panic. Heart pounding, drenched in a cold sweat, and gasping for air. Imagining the hand was still clamped so tight over her mouth that she could not draw a proper breath.

During those terrifying moments between consciousness and sleep, Celia would remember Bryan Flannigan’s hot breath brushing across her cheek. His calloused fingers pushing into secret places in ways she’d thought both exciting and shocking at first.

And she always remembered how the pleasure disintegrated into the foreign sensation of flesh tearing when he pushed her skirts higher and shoved himself into her body.

How would she ever forget digging her nails into his lightly muscled forearms, trying without words to make him stop? Despite her struggles, Bryan’s sinewy body, lean and hard from years of working menial tasks, had surged forward. Taking her innocence and shattering the trust she’d placed in his hands.

It was difficult understanding how she once found Bryan’s attention exhilarating. His teasing kisses always suffused her with warmth and filled her head with wicked thoughts of allowing him to do even more. She indulged in silly, impossible daydreams. Fantasies in which she and the handsome groomsman were married. They would live in the country, far from society’s censorship and her parents’ disappointment. Bryan would find work in another nobleman’s stable to make a living. He would come home to the little cottage they shared. He’d call her ‘lass’ and give her sweet kisses on the cheek.