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

“You sent one of the men who let me inside your house.” Dawning comprehension flowed through

Victoria. Her right eyelash fluttered against his lips. It did not stop her accusation. “You sent him there to

punish him.”

“I sent him there because he is a former club member.” Gabriel’s lips skidded off of her eyelashes; he

stared down into Victoria’s eyes, firmly cupping her face, forcing her to face the truth. “You asked what I

wanted in a woman. I’ll tell you what I want, Victoria Childers.”

But Victoria suddenly did not want to hear.

“I want a woman to touch me, knowing what I am,” he said, a lash of hot air, silver gaze relentless. “I’m

a beggar, a thief, a whore, and a killer. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to get the second man. I want you to

want me, knowing what I am. I want you to look into my eyes when you take me into your body, and know

what it is that you’re taking, a beggar, a thief, a whore, a killer. I told you I want you to love me, but I can’t

promise I can love you in return. I can’t promise I can save you. I can’t promise you won’t die. But I can

promise you that I would give my life to save yours. I can promise you that I can satisfy your every desire.

There’s no sex act I haven’t done, no sex act I wouldn’t do to please you. You were excited by what you

saw through the transparent glass. I won’t share you with another man, but I can show you what it would

feel like to be with two men. All I ask in return is that you let me touch you, that you let me take care of

you. And that you share your pleasure with me. Make me see light when you orgasm, Victoria. It’s the only

light I’ll ever see.”

Can’t promise I can love you . . . Can’t promise I can save you ... Can’t promise you won’t die.

Won’t share you . . .

Victoria couldn’t breathe for Gabriel’s breath; couldn’t feel for Gabriel’s heat; couldn’t move for the

anchor of his manhood.

He had been a successful prostitute because he had learned as a child to disassociate himself from

hunger, from cold, from emotional involvement.

But one man had touched him.

It would tak e a brave woman to love a man such as Monsieur Gabriel, Madame René had said.

But Victoria wasn’t brave.

She had become a governess rather than expose her father as a misogynist who hid his hatred of women

behind moral righteousness. She had taken care of other women’s children rather than marry and discover

she was a whore who lusted for a man’s love over the fruit of his seed.

Victoria had come to the House of Gabriel to survive, not to die.

She had not come to the House of Gabriel to learn to accept herself by accepting a fallen angel. But she

had.

She was not brave.

“I don’t need you to take care of me,” she managed.

Victoria didn’t want to rely upon a man.

Gabriel’s hands tightened, hard flesh squeezing, cold cloth abrading. “You wouldn’t survive the streets,

Victoria.”

“You did,” she quickly rejoined.

His silver gaze would not let her escape the truth. “I was born on the streets; you were born a lady.”

Victoria’s past rose up between them, the head of his manhood pulsing against her stomach an acute

reminder of a woman’s weakness. “My mother ran off with another man.”

“You’re mother left your father, just as you did,” Gabriel said bluntly. “Just as he forced your brother to

leave.”

“I don’t understand what it is that you want from me.”

“I told you what I want from you.”

He wanted her to accept him, all of him. Beggar. Thief. Whore. Killer. All he asked in return was that

she share her pleasure.

Victoria licked her lips, a slick flick of her tongue on chapped lips. “You are asking me to ... live in your

house.”

“Yes,” he said bluntly. Silver eyes guarded.

“Providing we survive.”

“Yes.”

But for how long?

How long would Gabriel be alive? How long would she be alive?

Reality was an unwelcome intruder.

“That is not necessary,” she said stiffly, suddenly, painfully self-conscious of her too sharp bones and

tautly stretched skin and her breasts that jutted out from her chest. “I gave my virginity willingly.”

“I didn’t take you because you were a virgin.”

How difficult it was to admit the truth.

“You were aroused because I flaunted myself in front of you. You would not have been tempted if I had

not paraded in front of you ... naked. Or propositioned you, in front of the transparent mirror.”

“I am nightly surrounded by women who do more than flaunt their nakedness, Victoria.”

Uncertainty twisted inside Victoria. “But this is different...”

“Yes.” Gabriel would not let go of her face, her gaze. “It is.”

Victoria did not glance away from the starkness inside Gabriel’s gaze. “Are you sorry you bid on me?”

The heartbeat that thrummed inside her backside and her vagina and her stomach drummed inside her

ears, waiting for his answer.

“No.”

Victoria read the truth inside Gabriel’s eyes.

Beautiful eyes.

“I didn’t see light when I reached orgasm inside the shower, Gabriel.”

Pain.

Victoria had hurt an angel.

Steam aureoled his water-darkened head. “What did you see?”

Victoria looked into Gabriel’s silver eyes and saw his face reflected in the shower, copper instead of

alabaster. “I saw you.”

She had seen his pain. She had seen his pleasure.

Memory flashed through Gabriel’s eyes: the circling of his flesh; the