Page 31 of Vicious Temptation
“I don’t know if mine are all that good either,” I admit with a small, self-conscious laugh. “But I like taking them, so I guess it doesn’t really matter. “It’s not like anyone else sees them.”
“What do you like so much about it?” Gabriel asks curiously, and I can feel a lump in my throat the instant he asks it, feel myself tensing.
I don’t know why, exactly, it’s so hard for me to talk about it. Maybe because my father has always been so dismissive of it, or because it feels like the only thing I have that’s really mine alone.
I feel protective of it. Like I don’t want to risk Gabriel dismissing the feelings I have as silly, or dramatic. Instead, I just shrug, taking another swallow of the wine. “I don’t know,” I tell him, as carelessly as I can manage. “It’s just fun.”
He almost looks as if he doesn’t quite believe me. Like he’s going to keep digging, asking more questions. The conversation is starting to feel too personal, and I wonder if I should just go back up to bed. I like Gabriel—maybe more than I should—but I don’t know if I want him to know me so well. The better he knows me, I think, the more likely it is that he won’t want me here any longer.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering for a while,” he asks instead, changing the topic, which surprises me. “When we ran into each other in the hall, you said your father was putting together another arranged marriage for you. What happened with the first one?”
I almost choke on my swallow of wine. My skin suddenly feels as if it’s crawling, the wine threatening to come back up. I shake my head, setting my glass down on the table in front of me. “You should ask him if you want to know,” I say quietly, as politely as I can manage. “I don’t really like to talk about it.”
Gabriel’s face smooths, the curiosity vanishing. “Of course,” he says quickly. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to pry too much. I was just curious.”
“It’s okay,” I manage. “I just—I should probably go to bed. I’m getting tired?—”
I stand up, a little too quickly, and the moment I do, I can feel that the wine has hit me harder than I expected. I thought nearly two glasses of wine would be fine, but my head swims a little, and as I start to take a step, I trip.
My leg smacks against the coffee table, rocking it, and my wine glass tips over, cracking as it hits the side and rolls onto the floor. I let out a small cry of pain at the impact of my shin hitting the table. Out of the corner of my eye I see Gabriel leap up almost instantly, hurrying towards me as I grab for the wine glass.
“I’m so sorry,” I manage, kneeling down and grabbing for a napkin that was sitting on the table, trying to pick glass off of the hardwood floor with my other hand. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“Hey, it’s alright.” Gabriel kneels down in front of me, pressing a napkin to the pooling wine on the floor. “Accidents happen.” He looks down, towards my leg. “Are you alright? It sounds like you hit your leg pretty hard?—”
He looks up at me at the same time I look at him, our eyes meeting. I hadn’t realized how close he was to me until just that moment, and my pulse picks up, lodging somewhere in my throat as everything comes into sharp focus.
How close his hand is to mine, resting on the wine spill, our fingertips nearly touching. How we’re facing each other, close enough to kiss, his handsome face, those hazel eyes, and that wide mouth a breath away. How, if he wanted to, he could simply lean in, and?—
The air between us suddenly feels heavier, charged with something that I’m not prepared to examine. It prickles over my skin, my breath coming faster suddenly, and I see Gabriel’s gaze dip to my mouth. It stays there, for a long moment that seems to stretch out so much further than it actually does, and for that brief moment, I think he is going to kiss me.
For that brief moment, I think I might actually let him.
And then, just as quickly as it happened, it ends. Gabriel pulls back abruptly, that softened, worried expression on his face shuttering. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly, and I think I see a flush on his neck. His shoulders are tense, and his eyes look darker in this light, more intense. My heart pounds in my chest, and I feel like I can’t suck in a full breath. For the first time, I don’t know if it’s desire or fear that’s making me feel this way.
He wanted to kiss me. He must have. What else would he be apologizing for? My heart races in my chest until it almost hurts, and I feel a sudden, overwhelming need to escape. A feeling so familiar that it transmutes desire to panic, even though Gabriel would never hurt me, even though what I need to escape from with him is the possibility of pleasure instead of pain.
The feeling of needing to run feels the same. I scramble to my feet, the throbbing in my shin bringing me back to the present, and I stammer out an apology, retreating. “I’m sorry,” I blurt out, backing towards the door. “I’m going to go to bed—I’m sorry?—”
Gabriel says nothing, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ve just fucked everything up somehow if, with one mistake, I’ve ruined the thing that means the most to me right now.
And underneath all of that, still heating my blood along with the wine, is the thought of that near-kiss.
I hurry up the stairs, half-running until I make it to my room, flinging myself inside and closing the door behind me. I lock it out of habit, leaning back against the door as I try to catch my breath, my blood racing and my skin tingling.
The sensation of desire confuses me. I’ve been attracted to men before, but Gabriel makes me feel something different, something more intense, more visceral than what I’ve felt in the past. If I’d felt it under normal circumstances, it would confuse me, but like this—wrapped up with my aversion to being touched and my fears of what will happen if someone gets close enough to me to discover all the ways my trauma has broken me—it feels impossible to sort out what that means. Why he makes me feel this odd, sharp desire that I’ve never experienced before.
Is it just because he feels safe? Because he seems to respect me? Because he treats me like an actual person, and not just a fuckable extension of my family name?
It could be all of those things, or some of them, or none of them. I don’t know how to begin to sort it out. And over all of that, pulsing in my mind like a neon sign, is the reminder that none of it really matters.
All of these thoughts, any possibility of something like that kiss happening, is completely inappropriate. He’s my employer. The key to me remaining free of my father, and independent. And at any rate—I bite my lip as another truth rears its head, one that stings more than the rest: he can’t really want me. He doesn’t know me well enough to really want me for myself—if he does have feelings of desire towards me, it’s just for my looks, like every other man. That thought feels disappointing—it stings a little.
But not enough to completely erase the memory of how my heart started to race when I looked up and saw how close his mouth was to mine.
I shrug out of my clothes, changing into my pajamas, and crawl into bed, sinking down under the blankets. Every time I picture it, his hazel eyes darkening as he looked down at my mouth, the closeness of his fingertips to mine, my heart starts to race and I feel that warmth flooding through me. I can feel it all the way down my body, in between my thighs, an ache that I haven’t felt in so long building, faintly pulsing.
Gingerly, I reach down, skating my fingertips over my stomach, just above the waistband of my pants. I haven’t touched myself in a long time, but that ache pulses a little more, teasing me with the possibility of pleasure. Of something that I haven’t even wanted in what feels like forever, even if it’s only been a few months.