Robin Schone by Gabriel's Woman (10 ebook reader TXT) 📕

off her body.

He had not planned on finding a woman who would not judge him.

To mak e up for everything he endured.

“Is the woman alive?” Michael asked, eyes sharp.

“When I left her a few minutes ago, yes,” Gabriel said.

But for how long?

“Is she a whore?”

Gabriel fought down a spurt of anger. “No.”

Victoria was not a whore. Whores did not offer everything, their life, their pain, their pleasure.

“Is she a virgin?”

“Yes.” The scent of chocolate coated Gabriel’s tongue. “She’s a virgin.”

“And how would you know that, Gabriel?” whipped the air between them. “Did you touch her?”

Pain . ..

Gabriel did not want to feel pain.

I don’t want to want. . .

“You know I didn’t, Michael,” Gabriel said deliberately, calmly, every sense attuned to the woman in the

adjoining room and the man who confronted him. “You know exactly how long it’s been since I’ve touched

anyone.”

Any moment now Victoria would open the door ...

Would she, too, prefer violet eyes over gray? he wondered remotely.

The jealousy the thought engendered took him by surprise.

The second man had sent her to Gabriel, not Michael. He didn’t want her to choose a dark-haired angel

over him.

Gabriel wanted what Michael had, a woman who would accept his past and the needs of a male whore.

A muscle ticked inside his jaw, heat building, pressure growing.

If Michael did not step back . . .

Michael did not step back.

“She knows that you were sold for two thousand, six hundred and sixty-four francs,” he persisted.

The equivalent to one hundred and five English pounds.

“She knows,” Gabriel agreed, muscles coiling tighter. Preparing to act or to react.

To kill or to run.

But there was nowhere to run.

“The second man sent her to you.”

Gabriel did not deny the obvious. “Yes.”

“Why does he want to kill you, Gabriel?” Michael asked provocatively.

Gabriel knew what Michael was doing: he had used the same pattern on Victoria. Aggression.

Seduction.

He held perfectly still, breathing the scent of Michael’s breath, caged by the heat of Michael’s body.

Trapped by the truth.

“He wants to kill me,” Gabriel said coolly, “because he knows that if he doesn’t, I will kill him.”

The truth but not the whole truth.

“Did the woman touch you, Gabriel?”

Gabriel stiffened, knowing where Michael’s questioning was headed, unable to stop it. “No.”

“Six months ago you touched me.”

Shared memories flickered between them.

Scarred flesh. Cool lips.

Crimson blood.

“What would you do, Gabriel, if I touched you?” Michael asked softly.

Shatter.

Gabriel would shatter if Michael touched him.

And one of them would die.

Perhaps both of them would die.

Michael had not killed; that did not mean he was not capable of doing so.

“Don’t play this game, mon frere,” Gabriel said tightly.

“But it is a game, mon ami,” Michael said caressingly. “You have searched for the second man for

almost fifteen years. And in all that time you have not been able to find him. Why would he hunt you down

now in fear of his life?”

“Perhaps he is tired of running.”

As Gabriel was tired of running.

Time physically ticked away—inside his cheek, inside his hands. Counting down the seconds until the

woman barged through the door and chose a dark-haired angel over a fair-haired one.

Until Michael touched Gabriel.

Until Gabriel killed Michael.

And he shattered.

“I don’t think so,” Michael said gently.

“What don’t you think, Michael?” Gabriel asked, suffocating on the scent of chocolate.

“I don’t think he’s tired of running.” The violet eyes were too knowledgeable. “I don’t think he’s ever

run from you, Gabriel.”

“Then tell me why you think he came tonight,” Gabriel murmured enticingly, playing the game.

It had always been a game: the first man, the second man.

“My uncle destroyed everyone I cared about,” Michael said softly, violet eyes intent.

Everyone but Anne.

Another woman.

Another pawn.

“I killed your uncle, Michael.”

The first man.

And Gabriel would do it again.

Brief anger flared inside the violet eyes: Michael still had not forgiven Gabriel for killing his uncle so that

he would not be tainted with murder. He quickly recovered. “You said my uncle knew the name of the

second man who raped you.”

“Your uncle knew many things,” Gabriel evaded.

“My uncle knew his name, Gabriel,” Michael said deliberately, violet gaze inexorable, “because he hired

the two men who raped you.”

Gabriel fought the never-ending memories of pain that turned into pleasure and pleasure that destroyed

the very will to survive.

Michael could not know the truth.

“How do you know that, Michael?”

“I know that, Gabriel, because you have hated me ever since you were raped.”

Michael’s chocolate-scented breath snagged inside Gabriel’s throat.

“Restitution,” Michael whispered, an echo of Gabriel’s voice six months earlier.

For what? Michael had asked.

Pleasure. Pain.

“You wanted to kill me when you held the gun to my temple.” Michael’s violet eyes were devoid of both

pleasure and pain. “You want to kill me now. But not because of the women who chose me over you.”

Gabriel looked down on two men, one dark-haired, one fair-haired.

“Wasn’t it, Michael?” he asked disinterestedly. Playing the part.

Unable to fight. Unable to run.

“You were never jealous of me, mon frere,” Michael said decisively.

The truth would not be stopped.

“I have always been jealous of you, Michael.”

Gabriel had envied Michael as a thirteen-year-old boy—he had envied his need to love. Gabriel had

begrudged Michael as a man— he had begrudged his courage to love.

The violet eyes did not flicker, reading the truth in Gabriel’s gaze.

The love. The hatred.

“I didn’t understand six months earlier, Gabriel. But you and Anne made me realize the truth. You loved

me, and because of that love, you suffered. Out of that love, you