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

about this man who had systematically hurt him. Something that he was not

telling Victoria.

Something that had come between the love two angels bore each other.

Victoria’s knees ached; the heat of Gabriel’s body bound her.

She wanted to touch him; she was afraid to. She was afraid she would cause him more pain.

“How long have you been a proprietor?” she asked, wanting to distract him, wanting to hold him.

Wanting to give him the comfort he still could not take.

Gabriel shifted. He sat on his heels, pulling Victoria back with him so that she sat on hard, hairy thighs

instead of kneeling on hard, ungiving copper.

Equally hard flesh prodded her behind.

Victoria’s heartbeat quickened.

Gabriel’s breathing deepened. “Fourteen years.”

I have not touched a woman in fourteen years, eight months, two week s and six days, he had told

her the night she had auctioned off her virginity.

“You built your first house”—Victoria grappled for the truth— “in order to lure this man?”

“Yes.”

But he had not been lured. And Gabriel had burned down his house. Only to rebuild it.

“Why did he come back, after all these years?”

Gabriel released Victoria’s breast. “For revenge.”

“But it was he who hurt you.”

Gabriel released Victoria’s waist. “For money.”

Black mail is the price of sin . . .

“Did he try to blackmail you?”

Gabriel lifted Victoria to her knees. “For sport.”

Instantly the copper-skinned woman inside the grotto was free and once again Victoria could feel the

cold metal tub, the wetness of her flesh, the burning discomfort where Gabriel had penetrated her, the

slipperiness of the cream between her buttocks.

The utter aloneness of the man behind her.

She could sense Gabriel standing, a stir of air, a slight pop of a bone. A copper-skinned man towered

over Victoria inside the shower grotto.

Gabriel stepped over the tub. Victoria stared at a tautly muscled thigh, a hair-studded testicle, pale marble

buttocks.

Silently he padded across blue-veined marble, halted in front of the satinwood cabinet that encased the

wash basin. Mist clouded the mirror; all she could see of Gabriel were his strong shoulders slick with water,

sleek back, narrow hips, tight buttocks, long, long legs and the dim reflection of his bowed head.

Water splashed; steam roiled. Buttocks tightening, Gabriel thrust his hips forward.

Victoria did not have to see his actions to know that he washed his genitals.

Her bottom burned and throbbed.

Her pain. His pain.

Gabriel grabbed the washcloth off the wooden towel rack and plunged it into the basin.

Planting her hands onto the satinwood cabinet encasing the copper tub, Victoria clumsily pulled herself up

to her feet.

Gabriel turned, washcloth in hand. His face was pale, remote. Apart from her instead of a part of her.

“Nothing has changed, Victoria.”

Victoria would not cry, not for herself, not for a fallen angel.

She stepped over the satinwood cabinet encasing the copper tub, slipped on marble, grabbed satinwood

paneling to keep from falling. Cold, wet hair slapped her cheeks.

“The man will try to kill you,” Gabriel said tonelessly.

Instantly the heat of humiliation chilled.

Gabriel’s voice was closer.

Victoria’s head snapped up.

He stood over her, male flesh erect.

A single drop of moisture glistened on the bulbous tip of his manhood.

He had been a part of her—front, back.

She wanted him to be part of her still.

Victoria straightened. Her clitoris that he had gently pumped swelled.

More acutely aware of the slickness between her buttocks and the moisture that pooled between her

thighs than she was of her next breath, she riposted, “He will try to kill you, too.”

Gabriel did not skirt the truth. “He will try to hurt me by hurting you.”

Victoria’s heart skipped one beat, two. Who was this man who hunted Gabriel, even as Gabriel

hunted him? “Would it hurt you ... if he hurt me?”

“Yes.”

Her chest tightened. “Why?”

“Because I want you, Victoria.”

Her eyes burned.

“I want you to touch me.”

Her breath stopped.

“I want you to love me.”

Her heart halted.

“Yes, it would hurt me if you were hurt.” Silver light danced in the gray shadows that was Gabriel’s past.

“It would kill me to see you die, because you have touched me and not just my sex. You’ve touched me

with your passion and your honesty.

“You said you didn’t want to feel desire; neither do I. But I do feel desire; I need you to share that

desire. He showed me that by bringing you here. He will see you in my eyes and smell you on my skin. And

he will stop at nothing to kill you. Simply because you touched me.”

As he had killed Dolly, the prostitute, simply because she had guided Victoria to the House of Gabriel.

Victoria’s bravado haunted her. If you compel me to stay, sir, I will seduce you, she had threatened.

Then you will pay the consequences, mademoiselle. As will I.

Gabriel had known the danger of her desire. He had lived with the knowledge of what the second man

was for almost fifteen years.

Have you ever loved anyone other than Michael, Gabriel?”

“No.”

I loved him as a brother.

Victoria’s chest tightened to the point that it was difficult to breathe. “I do not regret touching you.”

Gabriel stepped closer, alabaster skin pale, blond hair water-darkened. Hard flesh prodded her stomach.

“You will, Victoria.”

She inhaled sharply. “What do you want in a woman, Gabriel?”

Warm breath licked her cheek. “You feel compassion for a thirteen-year-old boy who wanted to be an

angel.”

It was not a question.

Victoria wouldn’t lie. “Yes.”

“And when you look at me”—a callused fingertip traced her bottom lip—”you see the