by Anna Antonia
Gabriel’s mouth pinched. “I’ve never done this with anyone else.”
“What?”
“This,” he gestured with his spoon. “You’re the first.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, I know you think I’m a man-whore—”
“Well, because you are.”
“All right, I’ve been that way but honestly I’ve never much spent time with my partners—”
“Girlfriends.”
“Partners after we finished. That’s not what we were about.”
I took another bite, studiously avoiding his gaze while he did the same. Since I introduced the subject it was only fair I was the one to ask, “Are you feeling as awkward as I am?”
“More so.”
“Should we change the subject?”
“Please.”
I found another topic of discussion—school work. We chatted about the different classes, saying nothing of importance as we found our way back to comfort again.
Then it was my turn to feel odd and a little raw. Karma perhaps?
“I liked your dress, Emma. Where’d you get it?”
I swallowed my ice cream, taking the precious few moments to decide what I should say. It was a perfectly innocent question, after all. Gabriel’s tuxedo had obviously been tailored to fit his frame and wasn’t something found on a rack, but it just didn’t seem the same at all.
“I had it made.”
“Really? Who did it?”
Although I trusted Gabriel more than I did a month ago, I still had to quickly gauge his expression and see if it held more than curiosity. “My mom knows someone whose daughter sews. She did it.”
The somebody being Carla, a very nice woman who worked on the same cleaning crew as my mother. Her daughter was only a year older than me, but she’d been sewing since she was ten. Nita loved design and wanted to one day work in a fashion house.
We were similarly ambitious in that way.
I wondered if my answer would have Gabriel withdrawing his praise for the dress since it didn’t come from an exclusive designer or boutique. I wanted to know, in fact counted on it changing his opinion.
Gabriel smiled. “She does wonderful work, Emma. No one else had a dress like yours. It had Grecian flair, clean, simple, and elegant. You weren’t a walking sequin like everyone else.”
Shocked at his unexpected response, I sought to hide my feelings in a tease. “You have quite the opinion on fashion. I never pegged you to be a fashionista.”
“I’m a man of many surprises. It makes life interesting that way.” Gabriel took another bite of ice cream after saying, “I hope you continue to have her design other dresses for you.”
He was completely serious and not just being polite.
Gabriel continued eating his ice cream, oblivious to the reshuffling of walls happening in my head space. I was typically silent around him because I watched everything I said, always considering the possible reaction to my words because of how different our worlds were.
He didn’t see that because he wasn’t just like them. He was different.
“What’s on your mind, Emma? You’re frowning again.”
I shook my head, bewildered and helpless to make sense of it all. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”
Gabriel cast me a smoldering glance. “You’re just figuring that out?”
“I guess I am.”
He took my bowl away from me. “Hey! I wasn’t done with that.”
“I’ve got something better. Promise.” Gabriel rinsed our bowls and utensils, putting them neatly in the dishwasher.
I thought to prod and point out how surprised I was that he even knew what a dishwasher was, much less how to load it. Before I would’ve. Now…
Now was different.
Gabriel tossed me a wry grin and a wink as he made his way to the fridge. He pulled out a large silver bowl rounded with large plump strawberries. Next came a slightly smaller bowl of cream.
Fresh cream.
“I hate to be a bother, baby, but can you hold this please?”
Taking the delightful sweet from him, I couldn’t resist dipping my finger in and sucking it into my mouth. It was heaven. Once I opened my eyes again, I caught Gabriel staring at my lips.
“Sadist. Definitely a sadist.” He then placed the strawberries back on the counter, as well as the cream, and asked me to wait while he went to grab a bottle to go along with dessert.
It was only a few minutes before Gabriel came back with a bucket filled with ice and a champagne bottle.
“Do I have to remind you you’re not old enough to drink?”
Gabriel kissed me soundly before answering, “Come on, Emma. Live a little. It’s quite fun sometimes.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Are you suggesting I’m boring, Gordon?”
“Not at all! Only except, you know, when you’re boring.”
I gasped in mock-outrage. “That’s it! No more kisses for you, Gabriel.”
“None?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a little?”
“Not even a little.”
His full, kissable lip jutted in a pout before curving into a naughty grin. “If you won’t kiss me then maybe I can just kiss you. How about here?”
I lifted my chin, helping him kiss my neck as much as he wanted. “Hmm, why don’t you keep doing that a bit longer so I can decide?”
“You mean like this?”
“Yes, just like that.”
Our kisses inevitably led to other things. Naked things. Gabriel proved that strawberries and cream were indeed a better treat, especially as he ate them off intimate parts of my body.
Gabriel’s tongue tickled my skin as he lapped up champagne from the small of my back. He kissed me into submission before hauling me over his shoulder and carrying me upstairs into his marbled shower.
It was primal, raw, playful, and glorious.
When we weren’t physically filled with each other, we whispered some of our secrets.
“Why do you work so hard, Emma?”
“Why don’t you?”
“Seriously.” Gabriel reached out and moved the hair off my face. “Why?”
I sighed. “Because when you come from where I do, Hope is in short supply. School gives me focus. It gives me…” I floundered, searching for the right word that was there all along.
“Hope.”
Mirroring his smile, I nodded. “Yes.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Emma? Don’t act like you don’t already know.”
“You’re going to laugh.”
“No. I won’t. Promise.”
“Okay. An analyst.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows rose high. “Really? An analyst.”
“An analyst. Boring, right?”
Gabriel smiled, soft and sweet. “No, it’s perfect. You’re going to be the best analyst ever because you can’t be anything else.”
“An analyst?”
“No. Perfect.”
Gabriel kissed my shoulder, then my neck, then my mouth, and then we danced again.
Later he rested his head against my chest, purring as my fingers stroked his baby-soft hair. “Why do you do it?”
“Do what?” he murmured sleepily.
“Surround yourself with people you don’t care about.”
His body tensed for a fraction of a second. “Status means everything, don’t you know? I’m just another incredibly shallow fellow. Don’t give it much thought, baby.”
“Cut the crap, Gabriel. You’re more than that, than them.”
“It’s kind of you to think so.”
“It’s not me being kind. It’s the truth.” I yanked his hair for good measure.
“Ouch! You can be such a bully, Emma.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Then don’t pull my hair out…at least not like that.”
“Gabriel.”
“Emma.”
I yanked
his hair again.
“Okay, okay.” Gabriel cleared his throat. “What did you ask again?”
Oh, this silly boy! “Why?”
His grin faded away as if it never was. “Why do I hang out with people I can barely stomach? Because I have to…and because…I don’t want to be alone.”
“Being alone isn’t so bad.”
“I’m not as strong as you, Emma. I don’t want to be alone.”
Pity stirred my heart. “Everyone loves you, Gabriel. That’s why a crowd is always around you following you wherever you go. Remember how the Varsity Cheerleaders decorated your locker and every class you’re in when you turned eighteen? I can’t imagine you’ll ever have to worry about being alone.”
“Emma, you know as well as I do that those people aren’t around me because they like me. They’re around me because they want something.”
“What?”
“Everything.” Gabriel lifted his head up. Staring into my curious gaze, he whispered, “You don’t want anything from me at all. And the oddest thing is I wish you did. I’d give it all to you, Emma. Whatever I have would be all yours.”
I traced a line across his cheek. “If I wanted anything it would be you. Just you.”
His smile parted the sky. “And that’s why you’re all I’ve ever wanted…all I’ll ever want.”
We made love again, gently and full of wonder. Much later Gabriel fell asleep in my arms. Peaceful. Content. Serene.
If only I could’ve felt the same…
Lying there in Gabriel’s arms, I suffered a love so exquisite in its pain I knew that would be the moment to define me forever after.
I’d never, ever be the same.
Staring at the canopied ceiling, I let the tears roll unchecked. They dripped onto the pillow while the beautiful holder of my heart slept undisturbed. I became convinced it was symbolic of how things were fated to be. I then thought of the exquisite pleasure he’d given me and the box of condoms we’d run through.
Considering he’d kept them in his nightstand, apparently I had lots of girls to thank for his practice. I wondered who would thank me in the future as she lay in the spot I vacated.
Eventually I slipped out of his bed, got dressed, and walked the four miles back home. My mother took one look at me and knew. She didn’t yell or lecture me as I’d expected. She simply opened her arms and let me fall into them. I had no tears left, only a soul-wounding scar of regret that things couldn’t be different.
“It’ll be okay, baby. I promise.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t make this okay. Everything in the world but this.
* * *
Our story should’ve ended then. But it didn’t. We found each other again seven years later.
And here we were at another formal event, him looking like a Hollywood god of old and me in an evening gown he bought for me, having a chance to do it over again.
I hoped things would go differently this time because I feared my feelings for Gabriel hadn’t changed…I was still that girl who’d fallen in love with a beautiful, broken angel.
And this time I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to walk away again.
Need more Emma and Gabriel? Then be sure to get:
Mad for You (Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Love Series)
Bad for You (Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Love Series)
Dangerous for You (Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Love Series) – Coming Soon!
ABOUT ANNA ANTONIA
Anna is a lover of all things dark and passionate. Living in the Southeastern United States, she enjoys antiquing, DIY thrift store finds, sedate hiking along trails, and spending time with her family and menagerie of pets. Being the only girl in a household full of men makes it hard to always be a lady, but she gives it a good old college try.
Website: http://anna-antonia.com
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