First Night(13)
I lifted my chin, helping him kiss my neck as much as he wanted. “Hmm, why don’t you keep doing that a bit longer so I can decide?”
“You mean like this?”
“Yes, just like that.”
Our kisses inevitably led to other things. Naked things. Gabriel proved that strawberries and cream were indeed a better treat, especially as he ate them off intimate parts of my body.
Gabriel’s tongue tickled my skin as he lapped up champagne from the small of my back. He kissed me into submission before hauling me over his shoulder and carrying me upstairs into his marbled shower.
It was primal, raw, playful, and glorious.
When we weren’t physically filled with each other, we whispered some of our secrets.
“Why do you work so hard, Emma?”
“Why don’t you?”
“Seriously.” Gabriel reached out and moved the hair off my face. “Why?”
I sighed. “Because when you come from where I do, Hope is in short supply. School gives me focus. It gives me…” I floundered, searching for the right word that was there all along.
“Hope.”
Mirroring his smile, I nodded. “Yes.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Emma? Don’t act like you don’t already know.”
“You’re going to laugh.”
“No. I won’t. Promise.”
“Okay. An analyst.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows rose high. “Really? An analyst.”
“An analyst. Boring, right?”
Gabriel smiled, soft and sweet. “No, it’s perfect. You’re going to be the best analyst ever because you can’t be anything else.”
“An analyst?”
“No. Perfect.”
Gabriel kissed my shoulder, then my neck, then my mouth, and then we danced again.
Later he rested his head against my chest, purring as my fingers stroked his baby-soft hair. “Why do you do it?”
“Do what?” he murmured sleepily.
“Surround yourself with people you don’t care about.”
His body tensed for a fraction of a second. “Status means everything, don’t you know? I’m just another incredibly shallow fellow. Don’t give it much thought, baby.”
“Cut the crap, Gabriel. You’re more than that, than them.”
“It’s kind of you to think so.”
“It’s not me being kind. It’s the truth.” I yanked his hair for good measure.
“Ouch! You can be such a bully, Emma.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Then don’t pull my hair out…at least not like that.”
“Gabriel.”
“Emma.”
I yanked his hair again.
“Okay, okay.” Gabriel cleared his throat. “What did you ask again?”
Oh, this silly boy! “Why?”
His grin faded away as if it never was. “Why do I hang out with people I can barely stomach? Because I have to…and because…I don’t want to be alone.”
“Being alone isn’t so bad.”
“I’m not as strong as you, Emma. I don’t want to be alone.”
Pity stirred my heart. “Everyone loves you, Gabriel. That’s why a crowd is always around you following you wherever you go. Remember how the Varsity Cheerleaders decorated your locker and every class you’re in when you turned eighteen? I can’t imagine you’ll ever have to worry about being alone.”
“Emma, you know as well as I do that those people aren’t around me because they like me. They’re around me because they want something.”
“What?”
“Everything.” Gabriel lifted his head up. Staring into my curious gaze, he whispered, “You don’t want anything from me at all. And the oddest thing is I wish you did. I’d give it all to you, Emma. Whatever I have would be all yours.”
I traced a line across his cheek. “If I wanted anything it would be you. Just you.”
His smile parted the sky. “And that’s why you’re all I’ve ever wanted…all I’ll ever want.”
We made love again, gently and full of wonder. Much later Gabriel fell asleep in my arms. Peaceful. Content. Serene.
If only I could’ve felt the same…
Lying there in Gabriel’s arms, I suffered a love so exquisite in its pain I knew that would be the moment to define me forever after.
I’d never, ever be the same.
Staring at the canopied ceiling, I let the tears roll unchecked. They dripped onto the pillow while the beautiful holder of my heart slept undisturbed. I became convinced it was symbolic of how things were fated to be. I then thought of the exquisite pleasure he’d given me and the box of condoms we’d run through.