Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno #1)(128)

“Yes,” said Gabriel, as if he’d anticipated her question. “I would like to extend my attention to the rest of your body, but I don’t think a full massage would be possible for us, at least not now.” His eyes darkened slightly as their eyes met.

He switched his attention to her other foot and lowered his eyes. “I already hunger for your body, Julianne. I’m not strong enough to touch you chastely, not if you were laid out before me wrapped only in a bed sheet.”

They sat in silence for a few moments while Gabriel tended to Julia’s feet. At length, he sat back on his heels, running light fingertips up and down her stockings.

“I’ll drive you home, if you wish, and we can talk tomorrow. Or you can stay here. You could sleep in my room, and I’ll take the guestroom.”

He searched her eyes uncertainly.

“I don’t want to prolong this,” she offered. “So I’d like to talk, if that’s all right.”

“That’s fine. Can I offer you something to drink?” Gabriel motioned toward the kitchen. “I can open a bottle of wine. Or fix you a cocktail.” He gazed at her intensely. “Please let me do something for you.”

A flame ignited in Julia’s middle, flaring up and passing over her. But she suppressed it. “Water, please. I need a clear head.”

He stood up and walked to the kitchen. Julia heard him wash his hands followed by the sounds of the refrigerator and freezer doors opening and closing. He returned to her with a tall glass filled with Perrier, ice, and pieces of lime.

“Um, Gabriel, would you excuse me for a minute?”

“Take as long as you need. Come to the fire when you’re ready.” He attempted a smile, but his face was too tense to make it genuine.

She disappeared with her drink, and Gabriel assumed she was using this opportunity to steel herself for the next revelation from his miserable, damned existence. Or maybe she was going to lock herself in the bathroom and demand to speak to him through the door. Not that he would blame her.

Julia’s mind was traveling at light speed. She didn’t know what Gabriel was going to say. She didn’t know how she would respond. It was quite possible that she would learn things that would make it impossible for their relationship to continue, and the thought crushed her. For no matter what he’d done or with whom, she loved him. The thought of losing him again, after the joy of reconnecting, was agonizing.

Gabriel sat in his red velvet chair staring vacantly into the fireplace.

Dressed as he was and brooding, he looked very much like a character out of one of the Brontës’ novels. As Julia approached him, she silently prayed to Charlotte that Gabriel would be one of her ilk and not of her sister Emily’s.

Pardon me, Miss Charlotte, but Heathcliff terrifies me. Please don’t let Gabriel be a Heathcliff. (No offense to you, Miss Emily.) Please.

From where Julia stood, he could not see her. She cleared her throat to alert him of her presence.

He gestured to the fire. “Come warm yourself.”

She made as if to sit on the carpet in front of the fire, but his hand shot out to stop her. He forced a smile.

“Please. Sit on my lap. Or the ottoman or the sofa.”

He stil doesn’t like me on the floor,  Julia thought. She hadn’t objected to the idea of sitting at the hearth. But the mere idea more than offended him.

Not willing to argue over such a trivial thing, she eschewed his lap for the ottoman and sat quietly, gazing at the blue and orange flames. He was no longer The Professor in her mind; he was Gabriel, her professor, her beloved.

Gabriel shifted in his chair, wondering why she wanted to be so far away from him. Because she knows what you are now and she’s afraid.

“Why don’t you like me on my knees?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Perhaps in light of tonight’s conversation, you can divine the reason.

A reason multiplied and strengthened by what you told me at your apartment.” He paused and looked at her pointedly. “You’re far too humble as it is, and people take advantage of your sweet nature.”

“Graduate students have to pay their dues. Everyone knows that.”

“Being a student has nothing to do with it.”

“You will always be the gifted professor, and I will always be your student,” she remarked quietly.

“You forget that I met you long before you were a student and I was a professor. And you won’t be a student forever. I shall sit in the front row when you deliver your first lecture. As for your prejudice against professors, if you prick us, do we not bleed?”

“And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”  Julia countered.

Gabriel sat back in his chair and indulged himself in an appreciative smile. “See? Who is the teacher now, Professor Mitchell? I only claim the advantages of age and experience.”

“Age doesn’t necessarily make you wiser.”

“Of course not. You’re young, but you’re industrious and bright and at the very beginning of what promises to be a long and brilliant career.

Perhaps I haven’t done enough to show my admiration for your mind.”

She fell silent, pretending to be mesmerized by the dancing, licking flames.

He cleared his throat. “Ann didn’t hurt me, Julianne. I hardly think of her, and when I do, it’s with regret. She left no scars.”