Gabriel's Rapture by Reynard, Sylvain (reading comprehension books .TXT) 📕

and unease about her body. She desired the moments after sex, when they were both relaxed and sated, and Gabriel would whisper beautiful words in her ear, and they would simply be in one another’s arms.

As the days passed, Julia wasn’t sure how long she could tolerate their disconnection without lapsing into a depression.

* * *

One day at the end of September, Julia opened the door of the Range Rover and silently slid into the passenger seat. She buckled her seatbelt and gazed out the window.

“Sweetheart?” Gabriel reached his hand out to push her hair away from her face.

She stiffened.

He withdrew his hand. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Sharon,” she mumbled.

Gabriel reached over to gently turn her chin in his direction. Her face was puffy, and her skin was blotchy and uneven. She’d been crying for a while.

“Come here.” He unfastened her seatbelt and tugged her over the center console and onto his lap, which was no easy feat. “Tell me what happened.”

“Dr. Walters brought up all this stuff about my mother. I didn’t want to talk about it, but she said that she wasn’t doing her job if she let me suppress everything that happened in St. Louis. I took as much as I could take and then I left.”

Gabriel grimaced. Dr. Townsend had been making similar comments about his own mother, but he seemed to be closer to making peace with his past since his trip to Italy. Certainly, his continued presence at Narcotics Anonymous meetings seemed to be helping.

“I’m sorry,” he offered, kissing the top of her head. “But didn’t Nicole address your relationship with your mother?”

“Briefly. Mostly we discussed you.”

Gabriel winced. He would always feel guilty for the pain he had caused her, but the fact that he had bumped Sharon off Nicole’s priority list for helping Julia made him cringe.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Julia laughed mirthlessly as she wiped her tears away. “Find me another therapist.”

“I wouldn’t be helping you if I did. Any therapist worth her salt would insist that you address what happened with your mother. And her boyfriends.”

Julia began to protest, but Gabriel interrupted her. “I understand what you’re going through. Even though our mothers were abusive in different ways, I understand.”

She wiped her nose with a tissue.

“I’m here to listen, whenever you want to talk about it. But in order to be healthy, you have to deal with your past. I’ll do everything I can to help, but this is something only you can do—for yourself and for us.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “You realize that, don’t you? That the healing process not only helps you, it helps us?”

She nodded begrudgingly. “I thought all the angst was behind us. I thought that after everything we’d been through, we’d have our happy ever after.”

Gabriel tried to repress a snicker. And failed.

“What? You don’t believe in happy ever after?”

He smirked at her and tapped her nose with his finger. “No, I don’t believe in angst.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not an Existentialist; I’m a Dantean.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Very funny, Professor. With a name like Emerson, I would have thought you to be a Transcendentalist.”

“Hardly.” He kissed her wrinkles affectionately. “I exist in order to please you.

“We will be happy, Julianne, but don’t you see that in order to get to the happiness, you have to address the pain of the past?”

She squirmed but didn’t respond.

“I was thinking about visiting Maia’s grave.” He cleared his throat. “I’d like to take you with me.” His voice was hesitant and barely above a whisper. “I’d like you to see it. That is, if you wouldn’t find it morbid.”

“I’d be honored. Of course I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you.” He pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Gabriel?”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t tell you everything that happened with Sharon. Or with Simon.”

Gabriel rubbed at his eyes. “I didn’t tell you everything about my past, either.”

“Does it bother you? That we haven’t told one another everything?”

“No. I’m willing to listen to anything you have to say. But truthfully, there are some things I don’t want to discuss about my life. So I understand your reticence to lay bare your history.” He locked eyes with her. “The important thing is that you address those events with someone. I’m sure that talking things over with Dr. Walters is good enough.”

He kissed her once again and held her close, meditating on how far they’d come in their individual journeys and how far they still needed to go.

Chapter 51

In October, Gabriel persuaded Julia to travel to his house in Selinsgrove for the weekend in order to congregate with their relatives. Rachel and Aaron insisted on doing all the cooking during the weekend, while Tammy’s little boy, Quinn, entertained everyone, including Tom, with his smiles.

“How is married life treating you?” Gabriel asked Aaron as he assembled the ingredients for a salad.

“Really well. You should try it sometime.” Aaron winked at Julia as he took a long pull from his Corona.

“That’s an idea.” Gabriel smiled smugly and went back to his salad.

“Cut the crap, Gabriel. When are you going to put a ring on that woman’s finger?” Rachel’s voice floated across the kitchen from the oven.

“She has one.”

Rachel left her chicken Kiev unattended and raced across the kitchen to examine Julia’s left hand.

“That doesn’t count.” She pointed to Julia’s thumb, which was encased by Gabriel’s platinum band.

Julia and Rachel exchanged a look and shook their heads.

Gabriel regarded the way that Julia’s countenance fell and quickly abandoned his salad (which was laden pretentiously with both fruit and nuts), and hastily embraced her.

“Trust me,” he whispered, so quietly that no one else could hear.

She murmured her acquiescence, and he squeezed her tightly before kissing her.

“Get a room.” Aaron snickered.

“Oh, we have one.” Gabriel glanced at him sideways.

“We have two, actually.” Julia sighed in resignation.

When they sat down for dinner, Richard asked everyone to hold hands while he said the blessing. He thanked God for his family, for Tammy, Quinn, and Julia, for his new son-in-law, and for