“Julianne?” he whispered.
She shook her head, her skin flushed and her mouth open. She didn’t break eye contact as she moved closer. Gabriel moved his hands a little, just to gauge her reaction. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them he saw something completely new in their brownish depths—heat.
The sight of Julia’s sudden and intense arousal hit him sharply, not just in his own heightened state of excitement, but emotionally as well. She’d never looked at him this way before, all anxious and animated, as if no one had ever touched her before.
Gabriel rumbled slightly in his chest at the thought. He motioned to her with his eyes to come in for a kiss, and he melded his lips to hers, caressing her breasts more forcefully and trailing a thumb against the nubs that began to poke through her shirt. Julia gasped in pleasure into his mouth, and that spurred him on further. Soon he was groaning against her lips and pressing their bodies more tightly together.
More! his body ordered him. Closer. Faster. Tighter. More. More. More.
“Ugghhhh,” he groaned, breaking free from her lips and moving his hands to the safe space of her shoulder blades.
Julia pressed her cheek to the planes of his pectorals, her emotions swirling. Eyes closed, she grew unsteady on her feet, but Gabriel reached down and caught her by the waist.
“How are you?”
“Happy.”
“Passion will do that to you.” He gave her a half-smile.
“So will your fingers,” she whispered.
He placed her in his red chair by the fire. “I need to take a shower.”
Julia tried to regain her composure. Gabriel’s seductive skills left her heady and wanting, wanting things for which she was not ready. Yet.
Professor Emerson is a breast man, she thought to herself with no little warmth.
After he’d been gone for quite some time, she wondered what had happened to him. She wondered why, all of a sudden, he felt the need to take a second shower. When the answer to her silent question dawned on her, she smiled to herself.
Chapter 23
Julia’s weekend with Gabriel was perhaps one of the happiest of her life. She carried memories of it like talismans all week—through his seminar on Wednesday and Christa’s persistent attempts to demean and embarrass her, and through Paul’s well-meaning but unwelcome encouragement to file a complaint against Professor Singer.
Gabriel’s week was the week from hell. It was difficult for him to keep his eyes off of Julianne in his seminar, and the exertion made him irritable and short-tempered. Christa had almost arrived at the end of his patience, begging for extra meetings in which they could (allegedly) discuss her dissertation proposal. He rejected all her requests with a dismissive wave of his hand, which only made her redouble her efforts.
And Professor Singer…she sent an e-mail to Gabriel:
gabriel,
It was good to see you again. I’ve missed our little talks.
your lecture was technically proficient but I’m disappointed that you would present something so closed-minded.
you used to be adventurous. And free. Perhaps the professor doth protest too much…
you need to embrace your true nature and undergo a little training.
I can give you just what you need.
I can give you exactly what you crave,
Mme. Ann
Gabriel glared at Professor Singer’s dominatrix-like provocation, clear even in her lack of capitalization of his name and pronouns. His revulsion at her words and her person clarified for him how much he’d changed since their last encounter. She held no allurement for him, no attraction at all. Perhaps even in the time before Julianne returned to him he’d begun walking toward the light, a journey that had been nurtured and encouraged by her presence. The thought pleased him.
He was careful not to reply to or delete the e-mail. Instead, he did exactly what he had done with her previous correspondence—he printed it and placed it in a file in his office. He was unwilling to launch a complaint against her since their initial involvement had been consensual. But he was not above threatening her with her own words, should the need arise. He only hoped her fascination with him would continue and that she would forget all about Julianne.
In an effort to divert himself, Gabriel spent most of his free time that week either preparing for Julianne’s birthday or fencing with the fencing club at the university. Either option was far healthier than his previous habits for blowing off steam.
Every night he would lie awake staring at the ceiling, thinking of Julianne and wishing that her warm, soft body was next to his. He was beginning to have difficulty falling asleep without her, and no amount of tension release (in any form) was eliminating that difficulty. Or his hunger.