Chapter 18
Paul, hi. Sorry. Didn’t hear doorbell. Broken? Emerson scolded me but won’t have to drop class. (phew) Have to find new advisor. Working on it. Chat later & thanks, Julia
Paul stared in confusion at the text message he’d just received from Julia. A broken doorbell? That seemed convenient. He didn’t know whether she was giving him the brush off because she was embarrassed about her altercation with Emerson or for some other reason. In either case, he didn’t have time to track her down and find out; Emerson had e-mailed him with a list of books that he wanted checked out of the library and delivered to his office before one o’clock.
Paul sent Julia a short reply saying he was glad she was all right and walked quickly from his apartment to Robarts Library, shaking his head.
P
Julia sat facing backward on the leather sofa, resting her chin on her folded arms. The view through Gabriel’s floor-to-ceiling windows was remarkable. From her position she could see much of downtown and part of Lake Ontario. The trees of the city had changed color and were now dappled in gold and yellow and brilliant orange and red. They reminded Julia of some of the Canadian landscapes Paul had taken her to see at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
She’d volunteered to help Gabriel clean up after breakfast, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He’d kissed her forehead and asked her to relax, as if relaxing was even an option. Gazing at the Toronto skyline enabled her to
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focus on something beautiful while she replayed her conversation with him over and over in her head, trying to match it with their previous encounters.
How had she been so blind? And why had the Clarks hidden Gabriel’s addiction from her? They’d always treated her as if she was a member of the family. But not even Rachel had ever breathed a word about it, unless one considered what she said recently about his darkness. Did the Clarks always speak in extended metaphors like metaphysical poets? Julia would have needed a literary criticism class in order to interpret their allusions.
Gabriel leaned up against the fireplace, staring at her. She appeared remarkably at home perched on his sofa, looking out his window like a cat. But her tense shoulders telegraphed worry. He sat next to her, purposefully leaving a healthy gap between them. When she made no move to inch closer to him or even to look at him, he extended his hand.
“Please.” He smiled.
Julia took his hand reluctantly and found herself pulled to his side. He wrapped both arms around her and kissed her hair. “That’s better.”
She sighed and closed her eyes.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Gabriel felt her body relax. After all they’d discussed, he was surprised that she could relax with him. “When was the last time someone held you like this?” He began stroking her hair absentmindedly, when in reality he was anything but.
“Last night.”
He chuckled. “I seem to remember that. But before?”
“I don’t remember.” Julia’s tone was defensive, so he elected not to press her.
She’s probably starved for physical affection. Alcoholic mothers don’t have the wherewithal to look after their children. And that Simon character probably didn’t hold her — unless he was trying to take her clothes off.
The mere idea made him furious — that someone would treat her with so little care. He knew that something about their physical connection calmed her, as it did him. And that led him to believe that she had little experience with positive physical contact.
“Is this all right? Holding you like this?” he whispered against her hair.
“Yes.”
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“Good.” And for effect, he traced the hairline around her face, brushing a wisp of hair back from her cheek. “So beautiful,” he whispered. “So lovely.”
They sat like that for some time until Julia decided to ask a question that she’d been wondering about. “The photo that you had over the bed, where the man is kissing the woman’s shoulder…where did you find it?”
Gabriel pressed his lips together. “I didn’t.”
“Then where — ”
“Does it matter?”
“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I saw it in the closet when I was looking for a sweater. It’s very beautiful.” She tried to move away from him, but he held her fast.
“Do you really think it’s beautiful?” His voice grew soft, and he lifted her chin so he could gaze into her eyes.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“And the others?”
“Not so much.”
Gabriel appeared smug. “I made them.”
“You made them?” She pulled back in surprise.
“Yes.”
“But they’re…”
“Erotic?”
“Yes.” He smiled wryly. “Is it difficult to believe that I could take a beautiful and erotic photograph, Miss Mitchell?”
“I didn’t know you were a photographer. And those aren’t regular photographs.”
“I’m not much of one, really. But they turned out nicely, I think. I have others.”
Julia’s jaw dropped. Others? “And the women?”
He shifted next to her.
“The women are, or rather were, friends of mine.”
“Models?”
“No.”
Julia crinkled her face in confusion until the answer finally dawned on her. And with eyebrows raised, she gave Gabriel a very surprised look.
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He sighed and began rubbing his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure it was in poor taste to display them. And it was certainly in poor taste to subject you to them when they’re personal in that way. That’s why I felt it necessary to remove them before I brought you into my bedroom. But the photos were taken with their consent. In a few cases they begged, actually. You’ll notice that I’m in more than one of them too, so I was far from simply a prurient observer.”
She forgot her question about which photograph was of Paulina and drew back in complete and utter astonishment. “That’s you?”
“Yes.”
“The one I was asking you about, that’s you?”
His eyebrows knit together. “Don’t act so surprised. I thought you found me attractive.”
“But you’re naked in that photo.” Feeling very flustered, Julia began waving a hand furiously in front of her face, fanning her heated skin.
Gabriel laughed heartily and drew her closer. “I am naked in all those photos.” His voice oozed sex as he crooned in her ear. “That photo was my favorite too, even though in the end I didn’t like the woman very much.” He smiled a slow, smoldering grin and kissed the top of her head. “I’d like to take your picture.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re beautiful, Julianne. A photo of you — of your smile or your profile or your elegant neck — would be far lovelier than any of the art I own, including Holiday’s painting.”
She shook her head.
“I’ll ask you again someday. Now, how about a reservation tonight at Scaramouche? It’s one of my favorite restaurants.”
“I don’t think dinner out is a good idea.” Julia was still trying to catch her breath.
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you say we shouldn’t be seen in public?”
Gabriel frowned. “But I know the owner. I can reserve the chef’s table where we’d be away from prying eyes. Unless you’d rather go to Harbour Sixty to see Antonio. He has been pestering me to bring you back.”
“Really?”
“Really. He told me all about the meal you shared with him and his family at the Italian-Canadian Club.”
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“Antonio was very kind to me.”
Gabriel nodded and moved as if to kiss her, but she placed a hand on his chest.
“I can’t go to dinner with you tonight. I have a meeting with Katherine Picton tomorrow and I’m not ready for it.”
“Tomorrow?”
“She invited me to tea at her house. She kind of scares me.”
“Wait till you meet her. She looks like someone’s grandmother, but don’t let that fool you — she’s brilliant and definitely no-nonsense. She’ll expect you to address her as Professor Picton, and she doesn’t do small talk or speak of anything personal.”
“Only pretentious Oxonians prefer to be addressed as Professor,” murmured Julia.
He frowned until she winked at him.
“She’s very formal, but she’s a hell of an academic, and if you can work with her, it will be very good for you. Just be on your best behavior, and I’m sure she’ll take to you. As much as she is capable of doing.”
Julia shivered, and Gabriel responded by tightening his arms about her.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be interested in your proposal. I’m sure she will want you to change it, but if I were you, I would accept her corrections without argument. She knows what she’s doing.”
“I’m sure she has more important things to do during her retirement than supervise graduate students.”
“She owed me a favor. I told her I had a brilliant student who I didn’t feel comfortable supervising because she was a friend of my family, and Katherine agreed to meet you. She’s pretty skeptical about today’s youth — she doesn’t think they’re as talented or as hard working as they were when she was in graduate school. So she didn’t promise me anything.”
“You didn’t have to do that for me.”
Gabriel wound a lock of her hair around one of his fingers. “I wanted to do something nice. I’m sorry you weren’t able to go to Harvard.”
Julia looked down at her hands. “It led me back to you, didn’t it?”
He smiled, even with his eyes. “Yes, it did.”
After an intense moment, he shifted his body so he could check his Rolex. He groaned.
“What is it?” she asked.
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“I have to go. I have a meeting.”
“I should go too.”
She climbed off the couch and walked quickly to her knapsack, slinging it over her shoulder and searching for her coat.
Gabriel crossed the room in three strides and put his hands on her shoulders. “Stay. I won’t be long, and I’ll come right back.”
She brought her lip between her teeth and grazed on it thoughtfully.
He poked his thumb in between her teeth and her lip, effectively freeing her scraped flesh. “Don’t. It troubles me when you do that.”
He withdrew his thumb quickly lest she misread his intention, but not before accidentally making contact with her tongue. It was difficult to tell whose accident it had been.
“What’s your meeting about?”
Gabriel began rubbing at his eyes. “It’s with Christa. It’s going to be unpleasant. But it would go much easier if I knew that you would be here waiting for me.”
“I have so much work to do, and I have to call Paul. Apparently he went to my apartment last night to check on me.” Julia’s speech quickened. “I sent him a text telling him I was fine. I said I wasn’t going to have to drop your class, but that I had to find a new director. I don’t know how I’m going to explain having Katherine Picton as my advisor.”
Gabriel fumed. “You don’t owe him an explanation. Tell him it’s none of his business.”
“He’s a friend.”
“Then mention something about a connection between your Harvard application and Katherine. She’s a friend of Greg Matthews.”
Julia nodded and began buttoning up her coat.
“Wait.” He walked over to his study and disappeared for a few minutes. When he returned, he pressed an old hard-cover book into her hands.
She read the title, The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante by Charles Williams.
“I want you to have this.”
“Gabriel, I want you to stop giving me things.” She held it out to him.
“You will impress Katherine if you are familiar with this book. She’s a fan of Dorothy L. Sayers, and Sayers borrowed a lot of her insights on The
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Divine Comedy from Williams.” He cleared his throat. “There are no strings here, Julianne. And no shame.”
She stared at the volume and smoothed her hand over its old binding.
“At least take it until she agrees to be your advisor.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, we need to talk about something else.”
She looked up at him nervously.
“It would be much easier if you weren’t my student, but you are. At least for now.”
She inhaled sharply.
Gabriel rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right. What I mean is, I can’t be your thesis supervisor, obviously. But that still leaves the problem of the Dante seminar.”
“Dropping your class would prevent me from graduating in May. You said in your voice mail messages that you could find me a reading course as a substitute, but that won’t help me. I need a Dante seminar for my specialization and my thesis.”
“The non-fraternization policy covers students in a faculty member’s classes, not just students under thesis supervision. That means that I cannot have a relationship with you while you’re my student. Next semester, of course, is entirely different. You won’t be my student anymore.”
She knew this. The Declaration of Graduate Student Rights and Responsibilities had said as much. Faculty were not allowed to sleep with their current students, that much was clear. And graduate students were not allowed to sleep with supervising faculty members. Or else…
Of course, Julia wasn’t planning on sleeping with Gabriel. She wondered if he remembered that.
“I won’t lose you again,” he whispered. “And I won’t keep you from doing what you came here to do. So we’re going to have to figure something out. In the meantime, I will have a conversation with my lawyer.”
“Your lawyer?”
“A pre-emptive, privileged conversation about what I can expect from the university if I intend to date one of my students while she is in my class.”
Julia placed a trembling hand on his sleeve. “Do you want to lose your job?”
“Of course not,” he said roughly.
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“I’ve already jeopardized your career once. I won’t do it again. We’ll have to stay away from one another, and when the semester is over we can talk about this again. You might change your mind, you know, and decide you don’t want me.” She looked down at her sneakers and nervously wiggled her toes.
“That is not going to happen, Julianne.”
“We’re still getting to know one another. Maybe five weeks of friendship is just what we need.”
“Friends go to dinner. How about tomorrow night?”
She shook her head forcefully. “Why don’t you call me? I promise I’ll answer my phone.”
Gabriel frowned. “So when will I see you again?”
“At your seminar next Wednesday.”
“That’s too far off.”
“That’s just the way it is, Professor.” Julia gave him a half-smile and walked toward the door.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She quickly checked her knapsack to make sure she had her keys. “I don’t think so.”
He stalked toward her, his eyes momentarily dark. “No kiss good-bye for poor, lonely Gabriel?” he whispered, his voice intentionally seductive.
Julia gulped. “Friends don’t kiss the way you do.”
He came closer, until her back was pressed up against the front door. “Just a friendly peck. Scout’s honor.”
“Were you ever a Boy Scout?”
“No.”
Gabriel brought his hand up slowly so as not to spook her and gently caressed her cheek. He smiled at her disarmingly, and she found herself smiling back. He pressed his lips to hers, firmly but lightly, and held them there.
Julia waited for him to do something, to open his mouth, to move, anything, but he didn’t. He was frozen still, applying gentle pressure to her lips, until he pulled back and gave her a small smile.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He chuckled as he traced her jaw line with the tip of his finger.
She shook her head. “Good-bye, Gabriel.”
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As the front door closed behind her, he leaned up against the wall and rubbed his eyes, muttering to no one in particular.
P
After Gabriel returned home from a very unpleasant and slightly colorful meeting with Christa, he grabbed a Perrier from the refrigerator and dialed the number of John Green, his lawyer. Gabriel hadn’t had need of John’s services for quite some time, and he preferred to keep it that way. John had some shady clients, but he was the best, and Gabriel knew it, especially when it came to Canadian criminal law. However, John was not a specialist in employment law, which he pointed out to Gabriel more than once during their thirty minute conversation.
“I need to warn you, if observing the non-fraternization policy is a term of your employment, you violate it at your peril and at the peril of your job. So let me ask you a question — are you sleeping with her?”
“No,” said Gabriel tersely.
“Good. Don’t start now. In fact, my professional advice to you is to keep your distance from this girl until you hear from me. How old is she?”
“Pardon?”
“The girl, Gabriel, the twinkie.”
“Call her that again and I take my business elsewhere.”
John paused. Gabriel was a tough son of a bitch, he knew, and a bit of a brawler. And John didn’t have the energy for a telephone altercation.
“Let me rephrase — the young lady in question, how old is she?”
“Twenty-three.”
John breathed a sigh of a relief. “Good. At least we aren’t dealing with a minor.”
“Once again, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Listen Emerson, I’m your lawyer. Let me do my job. I can’t give you a professional opinion on your situation until I know all the facts. One of my partners sued the University of Toronto last year; I’ll get her to bring me up to speed. But for now, my advice to you is to steer clear of this girl, but whatever you do, don’t sleep with her. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
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“And let me be even more explicit. Don’t engage in any kind of sexual activity with her, at all. We don’t want to be drawn into a Clintonian debate about what constitutes sexual relations. Do nothing with her; it doesn’t matter if the activity is consensual.”
“What if we’re involved romantically, but not sexually?”
John paused for a moment and began cleaning his ear out with the tip of his baby finger. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“I said, what if I’m seeing her socially but there is no sexual contact.”
John laughed loudly. “Are you kidding me with this, Emerson? I don’t believe you, and I get paid to. No one else will believe you, either.”
“That’s not the point. The point is, if I am not engaging in sexual activity with my student, does our relationship violate the policy?”
“No one is going to believe that you’re having a relationship with a student that does not involve sex, especially given your reputation. Of course, the onus is on the employer to provide evidence of the relationship, unless your chiquita files a complaint against you or someone catches the two of you in a compromising situation. Or she ends up pregnant.”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
“Everyone says that, Emerson.”
Gabriel cleared his throat. “Yes, but in this case, it would be beyond the realm of possibility. For more than one reason.”
John rolled his eyes and decided not to give The Professor a biology lesson. “Nevertheless, if you were caught, and there was no sexual contact, you’d likely face only a reprimand for an improper relationship. But I can’t state for certain without reading the policy, and I need to know from my partner what kind of precedents the university has set up for itself.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s your ass and not mine if something blows up here, so be careful. I get paid either way.” John cleared his throat. “And Gabriel?”
“Yes?”
“I would stay out of trouble for the next little while. No girls, no fist fights, no public drunkenness, or anything of the sort. Any lawsuit with the university will expose your past, remember that. Let’s try to keep the past in the past, okay?”
“All right, John.”
And with that, Gabriel hung up the phone and grabbed his keys, deciding to work out his frustration at his fencing club.
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P
When Julia returned to her apartment, she eagerly searched the now hibernating flower bed for any fragments of Gabriel’s card. Sadly, all she found were a few ripped pieces, far from enough to reconstruct his note.
She spent most of the day skimming Charles Williams’ book, making notes that she hoped would help with her meeting with Katherine. She had to admit, Gabriel’s foresight on this point was almost providential. Williams had a mastery of Dante that offered her a lot of suggestions for her thesis.
Before she went to sleep, she sat on her bed listening to her iPod and thinking about Gabriel. He’d uploaded two songs for her; the second song was Dante’s Prayer, also by Loreena McKennitt. It was a profoundly moving piece, and listening to it made Julia weep. She fell asleep that night with the photograph from her underwear drawer under her pillow once again, while she pondered a number of things.
Gabriel was a drug addict. She knew without doubt that if his addiction ever overtook him, it would overtake her as well, dragging her down to depths she did not wish to inhabit.
Furthermore, any relationship with Gabriel had the potential to taint both their careers. Once their connection was discovered, he’d be the gifted young professor who’d tapped a piece of ass he found in one of his seminars, making him the subject of tantalizing innuendo at faculty cocktail parties. She would be the young slut who spread her legs to get her degree because she wasn’t smart enough to do it any other way. It didn’t really matter if they waited until the semester was over or not, the gossip would tarnish them both.
Finally, she had fallen in love with Gabriel Emerson when she was seventeen. Perhaps it could be explained by their intense connection, or the way he looked at her, or the feelings he invoked when she was in her arms. Whatever the true basis for her crush, she had fallen for him and fallen hard. She tried to suppress her feelings when he didn’t come home; she tried to kill them by developing feelings for someone else. But snuggled in his arms the night before, a wave of emotion had crashed over her, and all her little defenses were carried out to sea like a toppled sandcastle. The love she had for Gabriel was still there, a small flame burning brightly that not all the water in the ocean could extinguish.
So perhaps it was the case that she had no choice now because she had made her choice then. She’d made her choice when he asked for her hand
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and she’d offered it without question. Once he touched her, she knew she was his. Afterward, he had always been there in the shadows, like a ghost who would not leave. And now the ghost had decided that he wanted her.
But Julia believed that he would never, ever love her.
P
The next morning, she checked her cell phone and was surprised to find a message from Gabriel. He’d called after she’d fallen asleep,
“Julianne, you promised you’d answer your phone. [Sigh.] I’m assuming all is well and that you’re in the shower or something. Call me when you get this message.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t take you to dinner this evening, but I would like to have dinner with you tomorrow night. Can we at least talk about it? [Pause…] Call me, principessa. Please.”
Julia immediately saved his number on her phone, but entered his name as “Dante Alighieri.” When she called him back, she reached his voice mail.
“Hello, it’s me. Um, I’m sorry I didn’t get your message last night. I fell asleep. Of course it would be nice to see you, but I think dinner is too risky. I want to get to know you again, Gabriel, and I’m hoping we can find some safe way to do that. Sorry I missed your call. I’ll talk to you later.”
She spent most of Friday working on her thesis proposal. She kept her cell phone on, just in case. But Gabriel didn’t call her. She did, however, receive a call from Paul. Their conversation was cut short because he was interrupted in his study carrel by Professor Emerson. Since Emerson seemed in a much better mood, Paul had only a slight reticence in believing that he’d gone easy on Julia. And Julia did her best to eliminate that reticence. Crisis averted.
After her very interesting meeting with Katherine, Julia came home and fed herself a modest meal of cream of tomato soup. After dinner, she showered and wrapped herself in a purple towel that barely covered her from breasts to bottom, wandering over to her closet to choose a pair of flannel pajamas to wear to bed. In view of the chill in the late October air and the proximity to Halloween, she decided that jack o’lantern pajamas were in order.
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Tap, tap, tap.
Startled, Julia yelped. A muffled voice from outside her window started speaking rather loudly, and the tapping noise continued in earnest. She ran to the window, threw back the curtain, and looked down into the worried face of Gabriel.
“You scared the hell out of me!” she screeched, unlocking the ancient window and trying with one hand to pull it upward while anxiously clutching her towel with the other.
“You wouldn’t answer your phone. Or the doorbell. I thought something was wrong. I walked into the backyard and saw your lights were on.”
Gabriel noticed that she was struggling and slid his fingers underneath the window. “Let me do this.” With one movement, he lifted the window and proceeded to hand her a couple of paper bags.
“What’s this?”
“Dinner. Now stand back, it’s cold out here.” He placed his hands on the windowsill, trying to hoist himself up.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m crawling through your window. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I could let you in the front door like a normal human being,” she protested, putting the paper bags on her card table.
Gabriel eyed her somewhat hungrily as he swung his legs through the window. “Not undressed like that you can’t.” He closed the window tightly, locked it, and pulled the curtain closed. “You should put some clothes on.”
Julia trembled as he reached out a finger to stroke the skin of her bare shoulder.
Smooth, soft, wet, and warm, he thought.
She wrapped the towel more tightly around herself as he averted his eyes. She was barely covered and damp from the shower, and the sight of the two together…he twitched. More than once.
“Please get dressed now, Julianne.” His voice was low and rough.
She reacted to what she thought was his embarrassment and immediately began backing up.
“I’ll change in the bathroom,” she mumbled, hurriedly searching for a yoga outfit and her old shearling slippers.
“Why don’t you have the heat on?” he called as she darted into the bathroom.
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“It is on.”
“Hardly. It’s almost the same temperature in here as it is outside. And walking around in a towel will make you sick.”
Julia closed the door behind her, ending their conversation.
Gabriel adjusted himself and looked around for a thermostat, but of course, there wasn’t one. He was soon on his hands and knees wrestling with the aged radiator that was the only source of heat in the main room of the apartment. How can she live like this? It’s freezing in here.
When Julia exited the bathroom, she found Gabriel still in his dress coat, kneeling in front of her radiator as if it were an altar. She giggled. “You’re on your knees more than the average professor.”
He shot her a look. “Very amusing, Julianne. This radiator is useless. Do you have a space heater?”
“There’s an electric baseboard heater in the bathroom. But I don’t use it.”
He shook his head as he got to his feet and strode past her. He cranked up the heat and made sure to leave the bathroom door wide open.
“Just let me warm the apartment up a little. Your hair is wet, and you’re going to catch cold. I should make you some tea,” he offered, hanging his coat up on the back of her front door.
“I could do that,” she said softly.
“Allow me.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and picked up the electric kettle, filled it with water from the bathroom faucet, and got down on hands and knees to plug it in underneath the dresser.
Julia tried very hard not to stare at the way his black wool trousers clung to his really very fine derrière as he plugged in the kettle. To distract herself, she compared his current behavior with the way he had behaved during his last visit to her little hobbit hole. It was as if there were two Gabriels, and she was only now being visited by the nice one. This newer model is just as handsome but infinitely more attractive.
“Now,” he said, looking around. “I need to warm you up.”
Gabriel fixed his eyes on her and pulled her into a hug, rubbing his hands up and down her back. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you answer your phone?”
“I answer it. Just not while I’m asleep or in the shower.”
“I was worried. You didn’t answer last night, and you didn’t answer about an hour ago.”
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“I was washing my hair.”
Gabriel buried his face against her neck, inhaling her scent. Vanilla.
“Julianne,” he began, bringing his left hand to touch her face.
She blinked rapidly. “Yes?”
He grew silent.
She looked at him in surprise. His eyes were dark, and he was staring at her intensely.
He leaned over and began feathering his lips up and down the left side of her neck, beginning just under her ear lobe and ending at her collarbone. A flash of want flared in Julia’s stomach and lower down. His lips were barely floating over the surface of her skin and making every drop of blood in her body rush to that space. His touch had never felt so erotic, so affectionate.
Up and down and up and down, he worshipped the curve of her neck, now and then darting his tongue out to taste her skin. Now and then he withdrew his lips so that he could nuzzle her gently with his nose or his chin, the slightest hint of stubble subtly scratching across her flesh. He fluttered his mouth with soft kisses down to the hollow at the center of her throat and pressed his lips there firmly, beginning his sojourn up and down the right side of her neck.
Julia moaned and closed her eyes, sliding her arms up his back to trail her hands in his hair. Her fingertips moved without conscious thought, stroking the edge of his hairline just above his shirt collar.
“Mmmmmmm,” she breathed.
“Does this please you?” he whispered, continuing his gentle kissing.
She murmured her appreciation.
“I want to bring you pleasure, Julianne. More than you know.”
He paid special attention to the skin around her ear and just under her jaw line, teasing her slightly with his tongue. “Tell me if I’m pleasing you.”
She barely heard the question, focused as she was on the myriad sensations that coursed through her body and the warmth that fanned across her flesh. She no longer felt cold. She no longer felt anything but him.
“You please me, Gabriel,” she whispered dazedly.
“This is a declaration of desire,” he breathed against her ear, making her quiver. “If we were lovers, I would kiss you like this to signal my intention to take you to bed. And you can only imagine the delights that await you there. But at this moment, I can only declare that I burn for you. I won’t let myself touch your lips for fear that I wouldn’t be able to stop.”
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Julia moaned even louder, and Gabriel continued, moving her hair away from her shoulders so he could expand his exploration. He poured out the lightest of kisses, covering her neck until he finally took the edge of her earlobe in his mouth and drew on it slightly, tracing the edge delicately with his tongue.
“If I were to taste your mouth now, I couldn’t answer for the consequences. So I can only adore this beautiful neck. I know that in a few seconds I will have to pull away, before the temptation becomes too much. It’s too much already. You have no idea how much I want you.” Gabriel’s voice was raspy, and he seemed to be breathing rather fast.
Julia felt her legs grow weak, and she started to sway…And that’s when the electric kettle began to whistle at them. Gabriel pressed a chaste kiss to her cheeks and went to make tea, while Julia sat down shakily on one of the chairs. Her heart was thumping so loudly she thought she was having a heart attack. She leaned her head forward, holding it in her upturned hands.
If I’m this unglued while he’s kissing me, what am I going to be like when he…
“What kind of tea, darling?” Gabriel’s voice held only the smallest edge of amusement as he watched her try to catch her breath.
Of course, the only reason why he was able to catch his breath so quickly was because he’d walked away. And he was far more skilled than she at hiding his feelings, except upon visual inspection.
“Lady Grey. It’s in the tin by the teapot.” Julia’s voice was shaky.
“I’m not a tea drinker, so it won’t be as good as yours. But hopefully it will be potable.”
She arched an eyebrow at his choice of adjectives, but politely thanked him when he placed the pot of tea, teacup, and saucer in front of her.
“I bought a few things for dinner. Have you eaten yet?”
“I had soup.”
“Julianne.” He sat next to her and gave her a scolding look. “Soup isn’t a meal.”
“Yes, I believe I’ve heard that before.”
She rolled her eyes, and Gabriel laughed.
The first items he took from the bag were a bottle of wine and a Rabbit corkscrew.
“Do you have wineglasses?”
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“Yes.” Julia stumbled over to her small kitchen area to fetch them. She still had questions about Gabriel’s relationship to alcohol, especially in light of his past. But she had decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, for the present.
When she returned to the table, she read the wine label: Serego Alighieri Vaio Armaron Amarone 2000.
“Is that who I think it is?” She extended a finger toward the bottle.
Gabriel took her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. “Yes. Dante’s son bought the vineyard in the fourteenth century, and the Masi family still produce wine from it.” He sat back in his folding chair and regarded her quietly. She seemed awestruck.
“I didn’t know his family had a vineyard.”
“It’s a very good wine. Although in light of our past, perhaps you find the choice overly sentimental?”
She shook her head. “No. No, I don’t.”
“I had to work late, but I wanted to have dinner with you, so I went to Pusateri’s and ordered take out. There’s manicotti, Caesar salad, and a loaf of bread. How’s that?”
Julia looked at the array of food set in front of her and immediately felt hungry. “What are these?” She pointed to a cellophane package of cookies that had a reindeer on the label.
Gabriel grinned. “Lime cookies from the Dancing Deer Baking Company. They’re my favorite. Why don’t you let me look after this while you dry your hair and drink your tea?”
He reached out his hand to run it through Julia’s long, wet curls.
“Why do you keep feeding me?”
His hand stilled. “I told you, I like giving you pleasure.” He withdrew his hand, his expression quizzical. “This is how a man acts when he is interested in a woman, Julianne. He’s attentive and anticipatory.” He flashed her a wicked grin. “Perhaps I’m trying to indicate that if I am this attentive with respect to sating your culinary longings, I’ll be even more attentive with respect to satisfying other — ah — appetites.”
Julia flushed immediately, and Gabriel touched her cheek with his hand. “Your skin is lovely,” he breathed. “Like a rose in first bloom.” He gazed at her admiringly. “Rachel stopped blushing when she started sleeping with Aaron.”
“How do you know?”
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“As I recall, we all noticed it. One minute she was reading The Little Prince and the next she was buying lingerie.”
Julia chewed at her lip thoughtfully. “I loved that book.”
“We need to see with our hearts and not our eyes,” said Gabriel.
“Exactly,” she murmured. “I like the part when the fox talks to the prince about the process of taming. And the fox decides that he wants to be tamed, to be the prince’s fox, even though doing so will make him vulnerable.”
“Julianne, I think you should dry your hair now.”
He removed his hand from her face and stood up quickly, turning his back on her allegedly so that he could prepare dinner, leaving Julia to wonder what had so disquieted him.
P
After dinner, they found themselves sitting on her bed as if it were a sofa. Gabriel propped up some pillows against the wall and leaned back, putting his arm around her waist.
“I’m sorry it’s so uncomfortable,” she apologized meekly.
“It isn’t uncomfortable.”
“I know you hate this place. It’s small and cold and — ” She gestured to the room with a wave of her hand.
“I will regret forever what I said to you when you were kind enough to invite me in. I don’t hate this place. How could I?” He interlaced his fingers with hers. “This is where you are.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for making everything beautiful just by being.”
She smiled as he brought their hands up to his mouth and kissed each of her fingers tenderly, one by one.
“Now tell me about your meeting with Katherine.”
Julia had to wait a moment until her fingers stopped tingling before she began. “She was exactly as you described. But she was very happy I’d read Charles Williams. I think that warmed her up a little. She agreed to be my advisor.”
“And what did she think of your proposal?”
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“Um, she thought it was derivative and so she suggested that rather than comparing courtly love and lust, I should compare aspects of the friendship between Virgil and Dante with the theme of courtly love. So rather than discussing lust and love, I’ll be discussing love and friendship.”
“Are you happy with that?”
“I think so. We decided that I should take Professor Leaming’s Aquinas seminar next semester because it’s going to be on love and friendship.”
Gabriel nodded. “I know Jennifer Leaming. She’s quite good.”
Julia fidgeted with the duvet.
He placed his hand over hers. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“No hiding, Julianne. What is it?”
“I e-mailed Professor Leaming a week ago to ask if she would be my director. That was before you and I had our, um, conversation.”
Gabriel’s eyes grew momentarily cold. “And what did she say?”
“She didn’t.”
“Jennifer is very busy. She’s untenured, and I doubt she has time to supervise graduate students outside of the Philosophy Department.” He paused. “When I told you I would find you another director, did you not believe me?”
Julia squirmed. “I believed you.”
“Then why did you feel the need to go behind my back?”
“I wanted to see if I could fix it on my own.”
Gabriel pressed his mouth into a hard line. “And how did that work out?”
“It didn’t.”
“Sooner or later you are going to have to trust me. Particularly about things having to do with the university. Or this isn’t going to work.”
She nodded, chewing the inside of her mouth slightly. “Tell me about your meeting with Christa.”
“I’d rather not. She’s a pest.”
Julia tried in vain to smother a smile.
“She’s far too busy trying to rescue her dissertation proposal to trouble us. I won’t accept her project as it is, which means she has to find another
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supervisor. And as you know, I’m the only professor supervising theses on Dante at the moment.”
“So Christa is out?”
“I told her today that I would give her until December eighteenth to turn in an acceptable proposal. And that was a gift. So don’t worry about her anymore. Her academic future hangs by a thread, and I’m holding the end of it.”
Good, thought Julia.
“I had an interesting conversation with my lawyer today.”
She took another sip of wine and waited for him to continue.
“He said that he’s going to look into the non-fraternization policy, but he strongly warned against any kind of romantic relationship with you while you’re in my class.”
She reddened. “Does that include kissing?”
“Assuredly, but he pointed out that the university is concerned primarily with sexual activity. So as long as we’re chaste and discreet this semester, I don’t think we’ll have a problem.”
Julia reddened even further and looked down into her wine glass.
“So you’ll have to keep your hands to yourself, Miss Mitchell, until I’ve turned your grade in. After that, well…” He grinned at her suggestively.
“You can’t be kissing me one minute and grading my essay the next.”
“At this point, I couldn’t be objective about your work even if I tried. I’ll have Katherine grade it.”
“Won’t she find that peculiar?”
He smiled. “I’ll make an excuse. And I’ll buy her a bottle of sixteen-year-old Lagavulin. It would resurrect the dead.”
“You’re still proposing fraternization — of a sort.”
Gabriel cupped her face in his hands. “But it’s less serious than an affair and therefore puts us at much lower risk with the administration. I have my lawyer looking at all the loopholes.”
“I don’t want to be a loophole.”
“I don’t view you as one. Do you want me to stay away for five weeks and not see you at all? Not hold your hand or put my arms about you? Is that what you want?”
Julia thought for a moment, and the idea made her ill. She shook her head.
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“I’d like to continue to see you, as friends of course. You’re still deciding if you can trust me, and we’re still getting to know one another. What the university doesn’t know won’t hurt us.” Gabriel took her wine glass and placed it alongside his on the card table. When he returned, he pulled her so that she was almost sitting in his lap.
“We can pretend we’re both in high school and living in Selinsgrove. We’ve just begun dating, and because we’re good little teenagers and slightly old-fashioned, we’ve taken a vow of chastity.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I have a vivid and detailed imagination when it comes to you,” he whispered. “And maybe I wish we’d been teenagers together.”
“So this is headed toward an affair?”
Gabriel was quiet for a moment.
“I had in mind something less tawdry. But Julianne, much of what our relationship will or won’t be rests entirely with you.”
She nodded to indicate that she’d heard him, and they both fell silent. Eventually she closed her eyes, breathing in his scent and feeling strangely calmed by the regular rhythm of his heartbeat. Gabriel stroked her hair and whispered to her in Italian.
“Julianne?”
Silence.
“Julia?” He leaned down only to discover that she’d fallen asleep. He didn’t want to wake her. But he also didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye, and he wanted her to lock the door behind him.
He lifted her carefully and placed her underneath the sheets and comforter, hoping that she would wake up. But she didn’t. Gabriel regarded her little form, the way her chest rose and fell with her gentle breathing, her lips slightly parted. She was pretty. She was sweet.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent a chaste evening with a beautiful woman who wasn’t a relative. A chaste evening that was fraught with desire and passion and an overwhelming need…He wanted her.
But the old interior conflict loomed large in his mind. He did not wish to corrupt her, to make her like him. He did not want to make her vulnerable or cause her to bleed in any sense. He seriously doubted his ability to be involved with her physically and not lose control, for the mere sight of her in a towel had almost shattered his resolve.
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This is what comes of years of unbridled lust — now you don’t even have the ability to court her like a gentleman. You want to make love to this girl without lapsing into fucking, but can you? Can you be sexually involved with her without treating her like a pretty toy that has been constructed solely for your carnal satisfaction? Can you love without sin?
Gabriel’s thoughts troubled him as he stared at the rosy-cheeked lamb that trusted him enough to fall asleep in his arms, oblivious to the passion that boiled in his veins. He emptied his pockets and turned off his iPhone before heading to the washroom. He turned down the baseboard heater, as promised, and quickly stripped to his t-shirt and boxer briefs. He took a moment to inventory Julia’s shampoo and bath products, committing their names to memory so that he could be sure to stock his bathroom for her next visit. He definitely preferred vanilla to any other scent. Although vanilla and chocolate…
He turned out the lights and climbed into her twin bed. It was far too small for two persons; in truth, it made Gabriel almost nostalgic for the residence hall beds at Princeton or Magdalen College. Almost. Those beds were barely tolerable for sleeping and certainly far from ideal for any kind of sexual activity. It was fortunate that such activity was off the menu for this evening.
As Gabriel rolled to his side, his hand fastened on a small, smooth piece of paper that was wedged underneath the pillow. He retrieved it and held it up against the sliver of moonlight that was streaming in from behind the curtain. What he saw more than surprised him for in his hand was an old photograph of him from his Princeton days. He recognized the varsity rowing jersey he was wearing.
How did she get this? How long has she had it? He slid the photo back under the pillow, the ends of his mouth turning up in wonder. Something akin to hope began to warm his insides.
He’d never been a fan of spooning; it was an act far too intimate for him. But tonight it was what he wanted. He curved his body around hers and stretched his left arm over her waist, placing a light hand on her stomach. They fit together perfectly. Gabriel sighed with contentment at the soft warmth of the young woman he treasured in his arms, his nose buried in long, soft, vanilla-scented hair.
P
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Sometime around three o’clock in the morning, Julia opened her eyes. A strong arm tightened its hold on her, and the scent that was Gabriel’s filled her head. She was wrapped in his arms, his chest against her back. Although he’d moved seemingly in reaction to her anxiety, the sound of his breathing indicated that he was still asleep.
Julia looked at him in the darkness. How many years had she waited just to be sleeping at his side once again? She shifted slowly, so that she was lying on her back. With his eyes closed and a look of peace on his face, he looked much younger. Almost like a boy — a gentle boy with brown hair and pink lips who smiled sweetly in his sleep. Julia sighed her aesthetic appreciation.
His eyes flickered open. It took a moment for him to be able to focus on her in the dark, but when he did, he leaned over to press his lips against hers.
“Are you all right?” he whispered against her mouth.
“You’re still here.”
“I won’t leave you again without saying good-bye. Can’t you sleep?”
“I thought this was a dream.”
Gabriel smiled at her in the darkness. “Only for me.”
“You’re gorgeous, Gabriel. You always were, you know.”
“Nature’s cruelty — the fallen angel retains his beauty. But I’m ugly on the inside.”
She kissed him back firmly, trying to convey the truth of the words she was about to speak before they were audible. “Someone who is ugly on the inside wouldn’t have bought me a messenger bag and kept his generosity a secret.”
Gabriel stared at her. “How long have you known?”
“Rachel told me.”
“And did it make you more likely to accept it, or less likely?”
“At the time, only half and half.”
“I noticed you don’t use it anymore,” he whispered, reaching up to push the hair back from her face.
“I’ll use it again.”
“So you like it?”
“Very much. Thank you.”
He nuzzled his nose lightly against hers and smiled. “You were merely beautiful at seventeen, Julianne. You’re stunning now.”
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“Everyone is pretty enough in the dark,” she whispered.
“No, they are not.” He kissed her before pulling back abruptly, willing himself to stop.
She rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart and trying not to drink too deeply of the energy that charged between them.
“It just occurred to me, Julia, that I only seem to get honest answers out of you whenever we share a bed.”
She blushed, and even though it was dark, Gabriel knew it. He chuckled softly. “Why do you think that is?”
“When we’re in bed, you’re gentle with me. I feel…safe.”
“I don’t know how safe it is to be with me, Julianne, but I promise that I will try to be gentle with you always. Especially in bed.”
She hugged him tightly and nodded against his chest, as if she understood the full implication of what he was saying. But she didn’t. How could she?
“Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”
“Yes. I need to call my father to give him the good news.”
“I promised Richard I’d come home. Would you…consider flying out with me?”
“I’d like that.”
“Good.” He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “It isn’t going to be a pleasant holiday.”
“I don’t like Thanksgiving. But Grace always made it nice.”
“Wasn’t it nice with your family?”
Julia squirmed. “We didn’t really celebrate it.”
“Why not?”
“I did all the cooking unless my mother was in recovery. And whenever I tried to do something special…” She shook her head.
Gabriel tightened his arms around her. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“You don’t want to hear this.”
She tried to turn away from him, but he held her fast. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just trying to know you.”
The tone of Gabriel’s voice was such that it tugged at her, more powerfully than his words or his arms. She drew a deep breath.
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“During my last Thanksgiving in St. Louis, Sharon was on a bender with one of the boyfriends. But stupid me, I decided to cook a Martha Stewart recipe for stuffed roast chicken, twice-baked potatoes, and vegetables.” She stopped.
“I’m sure it was delicious,” he prompted.
“I never found out.”
“Why?”
“I kind of had an accident.”
“Julianne?” He tried to lift her chin so that he could look into her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at him. “What happened?”
“We didn’t have a kitchen table. So I set up a card table in the living room and set it for three. It was stupid, really. I shouldn’t have bothered. I put all the food on a tray to carry it to the table, and the boyfriend stuck out his foot and tripped me.”
“On purpose?”
“He saw me coming.”
Gabriel seethed with instantaneous anger, his hands curling into fists.
“I went flying. The dishes shattered. Food was everywhere.”
“How badly were you hurt?” he asked with clenched teeth.
“I don’t remember.” Julia’s voice instantly cooled.
“Did your mother help you?”
She shook her head.
Gabriel growled, low in his throat.
“They laughed. I must have looked pathetic on my hands and knees, crying, covered in gravy. The chicken skidded across the tiles and under one of the chairs.” She paused thoughtfully. “I was on my knees for a while. You would have had a stroke if you’d seen me.”
Gabriel stifled the urge to ram his fist through the wall behind his head. “I wouldn’t have had a stroke. I would have beaten him and been sorely pressed not to horsewhip her.”
Julia traced his fist with one of her fingers. “They got bored and went into her bedroom to fuck. They didn’t even bother to close the door. That was my last Thanksgiving with Sharon.”
“Your mother sounds like Anne Sexton.”
“Sharon never wrote poetry.”
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“My God, Julia.” Gabriel unclenched his fists and hugged her close.
“I cleaned up so that they wouldn’t get mad at me, and I hopped on a bus. I rode around aimlessly until I saw a Salvation Army mission. They were advertising a Thanksgiving meal for the homeless. I asked if I could volunteer in the kitchen, and they put me to work.”
“That’s how you spent Thanksgiving?”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t go home, and the people at the mission were friendly. After the guests were served, I had a turkey dinner with the volunteers. They even sent me home with leftovers. And pie.” Julia paused thoughtfully. “No one ever baked me a pie.”
He cleared his throat. “Julianne, why didn’t your father take you away from her?”
“It wasn’t always bad.” She began fidgeting with his t-shirt, gathering the soft cotton in between her fingers and tugging slightly.
“Ouch. Careful.” Gabriel chuckled. “You’re pulling out what few chest hairs I have.”
“Sorry.” Julia nervously smoothed the cotton with her fingers. “Um, my dad lived with us until I was four, when my mom kicked him out. He went back to live in Selinsgrove, where he grew up. He used to call me on Sundays. I was talking to him one day, and I let slip the fact that one of the boyfriends had wandered into my room the night before, naked, thinking my room was the bathroom.” She cleared her throat and began speaking quickly, so Gabriel wouldn’t have a chance to ask that question.
“Dad freaked out, wanting to know if the boyfriend had touched me. He hadn’t. He wanted to speak to my mom, and when I explained that I wasn’t supposed to bother her when one of the boyfriends was over, he told me to go into my room and lock the door. Of course, I didn’t have a lock. First thing the next morning, Dad showed up to take me to Selinsgrove. I guess it was a good thing the boyfriend was gone by the time he arrived. I think my father would have killed him.”
“So you left?”
“Yes. Dad told Sharon that if she didn’t get rid of the boyfriends and get off the alcohol, he was going to take me away from her permanently. She agreed to go into rehab, and I went to live with him.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight.”
“Why didn’t you stay with him?”
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“He was never home. He had a day job that was very busy and sometimes he had to work weekends. Plus, he was a volunteer with the fire department. When school finished for the year, he sent me back to St. Louis. Sharon was out of rehab by then and working in a nail salon. He thought I’d be fine.”
“But you came back?”
She hesitated.
“You can tell me, Julianne.” He squeezed her tightly and waited, softly stroking her hair. “It’s all right.”
She swallowed. Hard. “The summer before I turned seventeen, Dad brought me back.”
“Why?”
“Um, Sharon hit me. I fell against the corner of the kitchen counter, hitting my head. I called my dad from the hospital and said that if he didn’t come and get me I was going to run away. And that was it. I never saw my mother again.”
“Do you have a scar?”
She took his hand and brought it up to the back of her head, pressing his fingers against a raised line of flesh where hair no longer grew.
“I’m sorry for this.” He traced it a few times and pressed his lips against it. “I’m sorry that those things happened to you. If I could, I’d beat them all senseless…starting with the bastard who is your father.”
“I was pretty lucky, actually. Sharon only hit me once.”
“Nothing you have told me sounds even remotely lucky.”
“I’m lucky now. No one hits me here. And I have a friend who feeds me.”
Gabriel shook his head and cursed. “You should have been cuddled and adored and treated like a princess. That’s what Rachel had.”
“I don’t believe in fairy tales,” she breathed.
“I’d like to make you believe.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“Reality is better than fantasy, Gabriel.”
“Not if reality is the fantasy.”
She shook her head, but smiled. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
Her smile faded. “Do you have any scars?”
Gabriel’s face was impassive. “You can’t hit something that you don’t know is there.”
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Julia leaned up and pressed her cheek into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s difficult to know what’s worse — being hit or being ignored. I guess it depends on what kind of pain you prefer.”
“I’m so sorry, Gabriel. I didn’t know.”
She took his hand in hers and wrapped their fingers together. Taking a deep breath, she asked, “Are you going to go home now?”
“Not unless you want me to leave.” He stroked her hair again, carefully avoiding the place where the flesh was raised.
She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. “I want you to stay with me.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
Julia fell asleep while Gabriel remained awake contemplating the scars she had shown him, wondering with queasiness and anger about the scars she had not revealed.
“Julia?” he whispered. Her regular breathing and lack of response indicated that she was sleeping.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He kissed her cheek softly. “Least of all myself.”
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