Gabriel's Rapture (13 page)

He grimaced. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“You’ll tire of me eventually. And when you do, you’ll go back to what’s familiar.”

Gabriel stopped. He turned to face her. “Paulina was never familiar. We have a history, but we were never compatible. And we were never good for each other.”

Julia simply stared at him skeptically.

“I wandered in the darkness looking for something better, something real. I found you, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose you.”

She looked away, surveying the trees and the path she thought led to the orchard. “Men get bored.”

“Only if they’re stupid.”

His eyes were dark, narrowed with concern and worry. He blinked a little under her gaze, before frowning. “Do you think that Richard would have cheated on Grace?”

“Of course not.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a good man. Because he loved her.”

“I make no claim to being a good man, Julia. But I love you. I’m not going to cheat.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I’m not so wounded that I can’t say no to you.”

“I never said you weren’t.” Gabriel looked grim.

“I’m saying no to you now. If you lie to me again, it will be the last time.” Her voice held a warning.

“I promise.”

She exhaled slowly, unclenching her fists.

“I won’t sleep with you in the bed you shared with her.”

“I’ll have everything redone before we return to Toronto. I’ll sell the damn place, if you want.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not asking you to sell your apartment.”

“Then forgive me,” he whispered. “Give me a chance to show you that I am worthy of your trust.”

She hesitated.

He stepped toward her and took her in his arms. She accepted him reluctantly, and they stood under the falling snow, in a darkening wood.

Late that evening Gabriel and Julia sat together in their pajamas on the floor next to their
Charlie Brown
Christmas tree. Julia encouraged Gabriel to open Paulina’s gift, so all the secrets could be revealed. He didn’t want to do it, but for Julia’s sake, he did.

He picked up the ultrasound picture in his hand and grimaced. Julia whispered a request to look at it, and he gave it to her with a sigh.

“This picture can’t hurt you. Even if Rachel and Scott found out, they would be sympathetic.” She traced a finger across the curve of the baby’s little head. “You could keep this somewhere private, but she shouldn’t be kept in a box. She had a name. She deserves to be remembered.”

Gabriel placed his head in his hands. “You don’t think it’s morbid?”

“I don’t think there’s anything morbid about babies. Maia was your daughter. Paulina meant this picture to hurt you, but really, it’s a gift. You
should
have this picture. You’re her father.”

Gabriel was too choked up to respond. To distract himself, he placed the rest of Paulina’s gifts by the door. He was returning them to her as soon as possible.

Julia followed him. “I look forward to wearing your Christmas gift.” She pointed toward the black corset and shoes that were still sitting in their box under the tree.

“You do?”

“I’ll have to give myself a pep talk first, but I think it’s feminine and very pretty. I love the shoes. Thank you.”

Gabriel’s shoulders relaxed. He wanted to ask her to try his gifts on. He wanted to see her in those shoes—perhaps perched atop the bathroom counter with him between her legs—but he kept his desires to himself.

“Um, I need to explain something.” Julia took his hand, weaving their fingers together. “I can’t wear it tonight.”

“I’m sure that after the past two days wearing something like that would be the last thing you’d want to do.” Gabriel stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “Especially with me.”

“It will be a little while before I can wear it.”

“I understand.” He began to extricate his fingers.

“I tried to explain this to you last night but, uh, I didn’t quite finish.”

He stilled.

“Um, I’m having my period.”

Gabriel’s mouth dropped open slightly. Then he closed it. He pulled her into his arms, embracing her warmly.

“That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.” Julia’s voice was muffled by his chest. “Maybe you didn’t hear me?”

“So last night—it wasn’t because you didn’t want me?”

She pulled back in surprise. “I’m still upset about what happened with Paulina, but of course I want you. You always make me feel special when we make love. Right now, I’m not going to go there. Or actually, have you go there. Uh, you know what I mean.” She grew flustered.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Gabriel kissed her forehead. “I have other plans for you.”

He led her by the hand to the spacious washroom, pausing to press play on the stereo. The strains of Sting’s “Until” began to fill the room as they disappeared through the door.

* * *

Paulina sat up, wide-awake in a strange bed in Toronto, covered in a cold sweat. No amount of repetition made the dream vary in its events or its terror. No amount of vodka or pills could remove the ache in her chest or the tears from her eyes.

She reached for the bottle by the bed, knocking the hotel’s alarm clock off the nightstand. A few shots and a few small, blue pills and she would fall asleep again, letting the darkness take her.

She could not be comforted. Other women could have a second child to assuage the loss of their first. But she would never bear a child. And the father of her lost baby no longer wanted her.

He was the only man she’d ever loved, and she’d loved him from afar and then she’d loved him close by, but he’d never loved her. Not really. But he was too noble to cast her off like the used piece of goods she was.

As she sobbed into her pillow, her head spinning, she mourned a double loss aloud—

Maia.

Gabriel
…

Professor Giuseppe Pacciani wasn’t virtuous, but he was clever. He didn’t believe Christa Peterson when she declared that she was willing to meet him for a sexual rendezvous. In order to ensure that their liaison actually happened, he withheld the name of Professor Emerson’s Canadian
fidanzata
on condition that Christa meet him in Madrid in February.

Christa was unwilling to wait that long or to sleep with him again in order to ferret out the information, so she didn’t respond to his last email. She decided to regroup and find an alternative way of discovering the name of Professor Emerson’s fiancée.

It could be said that she was jealous and that this was her primary reason for wondering who had successfully captured the Professor’s attention when she had failed (inexplicably). It could be said that she’d begun to nurse a suspicion about a certain doe-eyed brunette, ever since Professor Emerson had almost come to blows with that student over a mistress called Paulina.

But perhaps the most accurate explanation was her new and rather prurient fascination with the rumors she’d heard about Professor Singer and her not-so-secret lifestyle. When Professor Emerson embraced her after his lecture at the University of Toronto, it set a good number of tongues wagging. Christa’s tongue was among them.

Perhaps Giuseppe was wrong. Perhaps the Professor did not have a
fidanzata
after all. Perhaps he had a Mistress.

In order to solve this very juicy mystery, Christa contacted an old flame from Florence who wrote for
La Nazione
, hoping that he would provide her with information about Professor Emerson’s personal life. While she waited for a response, she focused on an information source closer to home. In the
Vestibule,
all sins would be revealed.

Professor Emerson’s marked absence from Lobby began the evening she tried to seduce him. So, she reasoned, his relationship with his fiancée must have begun around that time. Previously, he hadn’t cared who he hooked up with or when. Or perhaps he and his fiancée had been involved only causally until that fateful night. It was possible that the Professor was far from monogamous in his relationship and that he’d had a fiancée all along, although such an attachment would have likely made the rounds of the rumor mill.

(Toronto is, after all, a small town.)

Christa’s way forward was clear. It was likely that the Professor and his fiancée had visited Lobby sometime over the course of the winter semester, since it appeared to be his watering hole of choice. All she needed to do was to find someone who worked at the club and pump him for information.

Late on a Saturday night, Christa stalked the staff at Lobby, trying to discover the weakest link. She sat at the bar, absolutely ignoring the tall, blond American woman who was there for the same purpose, having just flown in from Harrisburg. Christa’s full, red lips curled back in disgust when the woman pulled out her iPhone and spoke very loudly in Italian to a maître d’ called Antonio.

As the night wore on, Christa soon realized her options were few. Ethan had a serious girlfriend, which meant that he wouldn’t be ripe for the picking. More than one of the bartenders were gay, and all the servers were women. Which left Lucas.

Lucas was a computer geek (not that there’s anything wrong with that) who assisted Ethan with security at the club, in a technical capacity. Lucas had access to the video recordings from the security cameras, and it was he who rather enthusiastically agreed to let Christa into the club after hours so they could sift through CD upon CD of footage, starting with September 2009.

And that was how Christa found herself sitting on the vanity in the women’s washroom with Lucas pounding into her on a Sunday morning when she should have been in church.

* * *

Gabriel and Julia arrived back in Toronto late in the evening on January first. They went to Julia’s apartment so she could drop off some things and retrieve some clean clothes. Or so Gabriel thought. With the taxi waiting at the curb for them to return, he stood in the middle of her cold and shabby apartment expecting her to pack an overnight bag. She didn’t.

“This is my home, Gabriel. I’ve been gone for three weeks. I need to do laundry, and I need to work on my thesis tomorrow. Classes start on Monday.”

His expression grew very dark very quickly.

“Yes, I’m aware of when classes begin.” His tone was clipped. “But it’s freezing in here. You don’t have any food, and I don’t want to sleep without you. Come home with me, and you can return tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to go home with you.”

“I told you I’d have the master bedroom redone, and it has been. The bed, the furniture, it’s all new.” He grimaced. “They even painted the walls.”

“I’m still not ready.” She turned her back on him and began unpacking her suitcase. He took one look at her activities and strode through the apartment door, closing it somewhat loudly behind him.

Julia sighed.

He was trying, she knew. But his revelations had scorched holes in her already fragile self-confidence, a self-confidence that had only begun to be rebuilt during their time in Italy. She knew herself well enough to know that her fear of losing him was grounded in her parents’ divorce and in Simon’s betrayal. Although she knew all these things, it was very difficult to will herself to disregard them and to believe that Gabriel’s love would never wane.

She’d just walked to her door to bolt it when he walked in, suitcase in hand. “What are you doing?”

“Keeping you warm,” he said stiffly.

Gabriel placed his suitcase down and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He emerged a few minutes later with his shirt untucked and unbuttoned, muttering something about having successfully turned on her damned electric heater.

“Why did you come back?”

“I am not accustomed to sleeping without you. In fact, I’m about ready to sell the damn condo and all my furniture and buy something else.” He shook his head and proceeded to undress unashamedly without further conversation.

While Julia used the bathroom, Gabriel examined some of the items she’d displayed on her card table—the book containing the Botticelli reproductions he’d given her for her birthday, a pillar candle, a book of matches, and the photo album of pictures he’d taken of her.

As he leafed through the album, he found himself aroused. She’d promised to pose for him again. She
wanted
him to photograph her. A month earlier he never would have believed that such a thing could come to pass. She’d been so timid, so nervous.

He recalled the look she had in her eyes when he took her to his bed after their horrible argument in his seminar. Thinking of Julianne’s eyes, large and terrified, and the way her body trembled under his hands, diminished his arousal. He didn’t deserve her. He knew that. But her own perceived unworthiness prevented her from seeing the truth.

He flipped through the pictures before focusing on one—Julianne in profile with his hand on her shoulder, his other hand holding up her hair, while he pressed his lips to her shapely neck.

She was unaware of the fact that he had a copy of that picture hiding in his closet. He’d never displayed it, for he was worried about her reaction. When he returned to his newly redecorated bedroom, hanging that photograph would be his first task.

The thought alone was more than enough to fuel his desire, so he took the candle and struck a match to light it, placing it on the card table before turning out the lights. A romantic glow fell over the photographs and the bed just as Julia entered the darkened space.

He sat on the edge of her narrow bed, completely naked, while she stood clutching a pair of worn flannel pajamas. They had rubber duckies on them.

“What are you doing?” He glanced at her sleepwear with barely disguised distaste.

“I’m getting ready for bed.”

Gabriel stared.
“Come here.”

She walked over to him slowly.

He took the fabric from her, tossing it aside. “You don’t need pajamas. You don’t need to wear anything.”

Julia carefully proceeded to disrobe in front of him, placing her clothes on one of the folding chairs.

He paused her movement toward the bed and placed his hands on top of her head, almost as if he were blessing her. Then he began to touch her, passing his fingers through her long hair to her face, where he caressed her eyebrows and cheekbones. His eyes remained stubbornly fixed on hers, the heat of their intensity searing into Julia’s consciousness.

In her whole life, no one had ever looked at her like that. Like a blue tractor beam that froze her and pulled her in. Like she was the only woman in the room, in the world, the only woman ever. Like she was Eve.

Something of the old Professor Emerson was visible now, especially in his expression, which was sexual and raw. She closed her eyes briefly, and his hands moved from her neck to her face, pausing for a moment.

“Open your eyes.”

She opened them and gasped at the hunger reflected back to her. He was like a lion, eager to feed but still stalking his prey. He didn’t want to scare her off. But she was helpless in her own desire for him.

“Have you missed me touching you like this?” he asked, his voice a scorching whisper.

Julia’s affirmation escaped her mouth as a strangled groan. Gabriel’s chest swelled with pride.

It was a long journey from her face to her knees, and he seemed to enjoy it, pausing slowly at different parts, his touch light but heated. She felt warm beneath his gentle fingers, despite the coldness of the room. As soon as she thought of the cold, she flinched.

Gabriel stopped his explorations immediately, and moved aside to allow her to crawl into bed, closest to the wall. He pressed his chest to her back, pulling the purple duvet over their naked bodies.

“I’ve missed making love with you. It was as if one of my limbs was missing.”

“I missed you too.”

He smiled his relief. “I’m very glad to hear that. It was tortuous to go a week without being able to touch you like this.”

“It was tortuous to go a week without being able to feel you touching me.”

The stirrings of desire in her voice set fire to Gabriel’s blood. He tightened his hold on her, squeezing gently. “Cuddling is a very important component to making love.”

“I would never have pegged you as a cuddler, Professor Emerson.”

He drew some skin from her neck into his mouth, sucking it lightly. “I have become a great many things since you made me your lover.” He placed his face in her hair, inhaling her vanilla scent deeply. “Sometimes I wonder if you realize how much you’ve changed me. It’s no less than miraculous.”

“I’m no miracle worker. But I love you.”

“And I love you.” He was quiet for a moment or two, which surprised her. She had expected him to begin making love immediately.

“You never told me what happened at Kinfolks restaurant the day before Christmas.” Gabriel tried to sound relaxed, for he didn’t want her to think he was scolding her.

In the hope of ending the conversation quickly so they could move on to other activities, Julia described her altercation with Natalie. She left out the part where Natalie had mocked her sexual encounters with
him
in front of everyone. Gabriel rolled her onto her back so he could see her face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was too late for you to do anything.”

“I love you, damn it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Paulina was waiting for us when we returned to the house.”

He scowled. “Right. So you threatened your former roommate with a newspaper article?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she believed you?”

“She wants out of Selinsgrove. She wants to be Simon’s official girlfriend and hang on his arm at political events in Washington. She isn’t going to do anything to jeopardize that.”

“Doesn’t she have all that now?”

“Natalie is Simon’s dirty little secret. Which is why it took me so long to figure out he was fucking her.”

Gabriel winced. Julia didn’t use profanity often, and when she did, it was jarring.

“Look at me.” He pressed his forearms into the mattress on either side of her shoulders.

She looked up into concerned blue eyes.

“I’m sorry he hurt you. I’m also sorry I didn’t do more damage to his face when I had the chance. But I can’t say I’m sorry he went after your roommate. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here with me.”

He kissed her, his hand tracing the curve of her neck until she sighed contentedly into his mouth.

“You
are my sticky little leaf. My beautiful, sad, sticky little leaf, and I want to see you happy and whole. I’m sorry for every tear I’ve made you shed. I hope that someday you’ll be able to forgive me.”

She hid her face in the crook of his shoulder as she clutched him closer. Her hands explored his body until they were one. The silent air of her tiny studio was broken only by heavy breathing and muffled pants and her own voice moaning to a fevered pitch.

It was a subtle language—this shared language of lovers: the reciprocation of sigh and groan, anticipation growing and feeding until groans became cries and cries became sighs once more. Gabriel’s body covered hers completely, a delicious weight of man and sweat and naked skin upon naked skin.

This was the joy that the world sought—sacred and pagan all at once. A union between two dissimilars into a seamless one. A picture of love and deep satisfaction. An ecstatic glimpse of the beatific vision.

Before Gabriel withdrew from her, he pressed one more kiss to her cheek. “Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Forgive me for deceiving you about Paulina. For taking advantage of her.”

“I can’t forgive you on her behalf. Only she can do that.” Julia chewed at her bottom lip. “Now, more than ever, you need to see that she gets help so she can move on with her life. You owe her that.”

He wanted to say something, but somehow the strength of her goodness silenced him.