“Why?”
“Gabriel—”
“Why?”
His relentlessness trapped me. “Because I’m not like those other girls, Gabriel!”
“I know you’re not.”
“No!” My hand cut through the air impatiently. “We both know I’m not like your spoiled princess debutantes you’re always dating. I’m talking about the others.”
“What others?”
“The ones who are poor like me and end up getting their hearts broken by rich boys like you. I won’t be like them.”
Gabriel dropped his head. “You always think the worst of me, Emma, and I really wished you wouldn’t but I understand why. Still I try…”
He looked up. I opened my mouth but no words came out. Longing, frustration, misery, and anger roiled about him. I was humbled.
Drawn. Enchanted.
It hurt to look at a mourning angel. Overwhelmed and feeling like I’d seen what wasn’t mine to observe, I looked down at my shoes. Gabriel instantly lifted my chin so I’d have no choice but to see him. His long fingers imprinted into my skin. I trembled in his hold. Gabriel’s touch frightened me because it felt so right.
“Why won’t you look at me, Emma? Don’t you know the only one I’ve ever really wanted the past four years is you? What can I do to get you to like me back? I’ll do anything you want…be anything you want…just say you’ll be mine, Emma.”
My legs went weak. I could barely force the muscles to contract and keep me upright. I never imagined anyone, much less Gabriel, saying that to me. I closed my eyes, body relaxing as if it had already acknowledged him as its true owner.
What about school, everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve? Are you going to lose focus and throw it away right when it’s in your grasp?
No.
I couldn’t let Gabriel see how much his words affected me. Lifting my chin, I waited until his fingers retreated. Even without being able to see myself, I knew the picture I presented.
Cold. Composed. Unfeeling.
A lie.
“You don’t really like me. If you did, you wouldn’t have fucked nearly every girl in this school sideways. I saw you with Brandy, remember? I can’t un-see that, Gabriel.” Jealousy coiled in my heart like a bed of venomous snakes. “You know what you are? You’re a fucking liar who’s so full of shit and I wished you’d just leave me alone.”
Gabriel suddenly rushed me. He pressed my body against the brick wall and caged me within his expensively attired arms. No tuxedo rental for him. I could feel his whole body, including the hard bulge of him pressing against my side.
I swallowed back the rest of my venom as I focused on something else far more important. The rumors concerning Gabriel’s sizeable girth weren’t exaggerating. I had the insane urge to push back, to even touch him.
We were in a darkened alley. Alone. No one to see us. No one to stop us.
These kinds of thoughts proved who I really was. Someone who always reached for the darkness, for the forbidden fruit perched on a perfect smile. Someone who flew too close to the flame because she really wanted to burn.
Gabriel paused, searching my gaze with an enigmatic tilt of his head. I wondered what he saw in my eyes.
Lust? Surrender? The truth?
“I’m not lying,” he swore right before pressing his soft lips against mine.
I could’ve screamed. I could’ve bit him. I didn’t do either of those things because I really didn’t want to.
His mouth was perfect. He was perfect. Anything I could’ve imagined, daydreamed about collapsed as the pale imitation it was. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the drugging sensation of having him kiss me. I melted against Gabriel, reaching out blindly to entangle my fingers in his golden hair.
He was drunk when our kiss started. I was drunk when it ended.
Gabriel’s rested his forehead against mine. His bright gaze raked across my red and swollen lips. Hunger sharpened the sensuous lines of his mouth. Perfect teeth flashed bone white.
“Come with me.”
Everything would change if I went but how could I stay? With Gabriel’s kiss, everything already had changed. All my barriers were destroyed. I didn’t care about the future—my grades, school, or even what would happen tomorrow.
I wanted Gabriel. I’d always wanted him, long before this night or even this month. I wanted him from the first moment I laid eyes on him. And now I would have him.
“Yes.”
FOUR
“What are you doing, Gabriel?”
He leaned against me, straining against the seatbelt I clipped for him, and kept kissing my bare shoulder. I shivered in pleasure when he bit down on the spot between neck and shoulder for a sweet moment.