He shrugged, turning away to peer at the fire. “Why do human beings do anything? Because they’re searching for happiness. She promised raw, intense pleasure, and I needed the diversion.”
“You let her hurt you because you were bored?” Julia felt instantly ill.
Gabriel’s features hardened. “I don’t expect you to understand. But at the time, I needed a distraction. It was either pain or alcohol, and I was not about to do anything that might get back to Richard and Grace. I tried…
interacting with women, but my liaisons quickly lost their luster. Perpetually available but mindless orgasms can become tiresome, Julianne.”
I’ll remember that, she thought.
“The way Professor Singer was with you at the lecture…then at dinner…she doesn’t behave like a woman scorned.”
“She despises weakness. And she can’t accept failure. It was a harsh blow to her reputation and her massive ego when she tried to control me and failed. She isn’t about to advertize her failure.”
“Did you care for her at all?”
“Hardly. She’s a soulless, heartless succubus.”
Julia looked back at the fire and pursed her lips.
“I was not about to jump into something with Ann without testing it.
And we never got beyond the test. In other words, although we…interacted, I was not involved with her in the strict sense.”
“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t own the specific vocabulary that would allow me to understand what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m trying to explain this to you without tainting more of your innocence than is absolutely necessary. Do not require me to be explicit.” His tone was suddenly cold.
“Do you still want what she offers?”
“No. It was a disaster.”
“With someone else?”
“No.”
“But what about the next time the darkness comes? What will you do?”
Gabriel stared at her. “I thought I’d made myself clear. You dispel the darkness, Beatrice.” He cleared his throat. “Julianne.”
“Tell me she isn’t in one of your photographs.”
“Absolutely not. Those pictures were of women I actually liked.”
“Why were you thrown out of her house?”
He gritted his teeth. “I did something that in her world is absolutely unacceptable. And I won’t lie and say that I didn’t enjoy the look on her face when I gave her a taste of her own medicine. Even though I broke one of my most sacred rules in doing so.”
Julia shuddered. “Then why is she still after you?”
“I represent her failure, her inability to control. And I possess certain skills.”
She flushed uncomfortably.
“Ann was also interested in my pugilistic abilities. When she learned that I was a boxer and a member of Oxford’s Fencing Club, she wouldn’t leave me alone. We share those hobbies, unfortunately.”
Julia fingered the scar that was hidden underneath her hair.
“I can’t be with someone who hits, Gabriel. Not out of anger, not for pleasure, not for any reason.”
“And you shouldn’t. It is not in my nature to be violent with women, but rather, to be seductive. Ann was an exception. And if you knew the circumstances, I think you’d forgive me.”
“I can’t be with someone who wants to be hit, either. Violence frightens me, Gabriel. Please understand this.”
“I do. I understand. I thought that what Ann offered would help me deal with my problems.” He shook his head sadly. “Julianne, nothing was as painful as the moment in which I had to look you in the eye and admit my sordid entanglement with her. I wish for your sake I had no past. I wish I was as good as you.”
Julia looked down at her hands, which were twisting in her lap. “The thought of someone hurting you…treating you like an animal…” Her voice began to tremble as her eyes slowly filled with tears. “I don’t care if you had sex with her. I don’t care if she didn’t leave any marks. I can’t bear the thought of someone hurting you, especially because you wanted them to.”
Gabriel pressed his lips together but said nothing.
“The mere thought of someone hitting you makes me sick.”
He clenched his jaw as he watched two lone tears slide down her cheeks.
“You should be with someone who will be kind to you.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Promise me you’ll never go back to her. Or to someone like her.”
Gabriel gazed at her sharply. “I promised that you wouldn’t have to share me. I keep my promises.”
She shook her head. “I meant — ever. After me. Promise.”
He growled. “You say it as if it’s a foregone conclusion that there will be an after.”
She wiped away another tear. “Promise me you won’t let anyone abuse you in order to punish yourself. No matter what happens.”
He gritted his teeth.
“Promise me, Gabriel. I will never ask you for anything else, but promise me this.”
His eyes narrowed, and he measured her carefully. Then, seemingly satisfied, he nodded. “I promise.”
Julia’s body relaxed, and she hung her head, physically and emotionally exhausted.
He’d been watching her closely, the alternating flush and paleness of her skin, the way she’d fidgeted and pulled at her dress. It hurt him more than he thought possible to see her so upset. And the sight of her tears…
The brown-eyed angel was weeping over the demon. The angel wept because she was grieved at the mere thought of someone hurting him.
Without a word, he pulled her onto his lap. He pressed her head gently against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “No more weeping. I’ve seen enough tears from you to last a lifetime,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her ear. “And I’m not worth a single one.”
He sighed with regret. “I’ve done a very selfish thing in pursuing you, Julianne. You should be with someone your own age who is your equal in goodness. Not with some twisted Caliban like me.”
“There are moments when you are my equal in innocence.”
“When? Tell me.”
“When you hold me in your arms. When you stroke my hair,” she whispered. “When we’re in bed.”
His face took on a pained expression. “If you don’t want me, all you have to do is say so, and I’ll disappear from your life forever. I don’t want you to be afraid of what might happen if you reject me. I promise I’ll let you go, if that’s what you want.”
Julia was quiet, for she did not know what to say.
“I know that I am controlling and, as you put it, commanding.” Gabriel’s voice was low and strained. “But I would never do to you what she does. I won’t harm you, Julianne. I could never harm you.” He lightly trailed his fingertips up and down the exposed flesh of her arm, feeling the skin goose-pimple underneath his words as much as beneath his touch.
“I was more worried about what Ann did to you.”
“No one has worried about me for some time.”
“Your family does. And I did too, you know, even before I came to Toronto. I thought of you every day.”
He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, and Julia reciprocated softly.
“My past indiscretions notwithstanding, my tastes run to inflicting mad, passionate pleasure on my lovers and not pain, I assure you. Someday I’d like to show you that side of me. Slowly, of course.”
Julia chewed at the inside of her mouth, trying to find the right words.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Yes?”
“I am — not as innocent as you think I am.”
“What’s that supposed to be mean?” he snapped.
She raked her upper lip with her teeth nervously.
“Sorry. You took me by surprise.” Gabriel rubbed at his eyes.
“I had a boyfriend.”
He frowned. “I know that.”
“We, um, did things.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What kinds of things?” His question emerged before he could consider it, but he soon thought better of it. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
“I am not as innocent as I was when you first met me, which means that you have, um…an idealized and false perception of me.”
He considered her admission for a moment. He wanted to know the specifics, but he was worried about what she might say. The thought of someone else, of him, coaxing pleasure out of her, or even touching her, infuriated him. He was far from certain that he could handle whatever confession she was burning to make.
“You were my first kiss. The first to hold my hand,” she admitted.
“I’m glad.” He took her hand in his and pressed his lips against it. “I wish I had been all your firsts.”
“He didn’t take them all.” Julia closed her mouth quickly. She hadn’t meant to say that.
Her use of the word take made Gabriel think murderous thoughts.
If he ever found himself in the same room as him he would rip his throat out with his bare hands.
“When you didn’t come back, I started dating someone. In Philadelphia.
And things, uh, happened.”
“Did you want those things to happen?”
Julia squirmed. “He was my boyfriend. He was — impatient sometimes.”
“That’s what I thought. He was a manipulative bastard who seduced you.”
“I have a free will. I didn’t have to give in.”
Gabriel was thoughtful for a moment. Jealousy — the idea of her hands and her lips wrapped around someone else — or someone else’s mouth on her. Her body…“I have no right to ask this, but I will. Did you love him?”
“No.”
He tried to hide his secret relief at her answer by lifting her chin.
“Don’t ever touch me or let me touch you unless you truly want me. That’s a promise I’d like to exact from you right now.”
She blinked at him in surprise.
“I know what I can be like. So far I’ve kept my passions in check.
But I’ve been forward with you, I know, and on more than one occasion I’ve made you uncomfortable. It would trouble me to discover that things progressed between us solely because you felt coerced.”
“I promise, Gabriel.”
He nodded at her and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Julianne, why won’t you let me call you Beatrice?”
“It made me sad that you never wanted to know my name.”
He gazed at her intensely. “I want more than that. I want to know the real you.”
She smiled.
“So do you still want me? Or would you rather I let you go?” He tried to keep his voice steady.
“Of course I still want you.”
He kissed her softly before placing her on her feet and leading her to the kitchen. When she was comfortably seated on one of the bar stools, he walked over to the counter and picked up a large, silver dome. He grinned at her, his eyes glinting mischievously as he placed the plate in front of her.