Then his face changed, looked almost distorted with agony when he stood before another kind of fire. Stella watched as if from above, and her heart shattered into a thousand pieces as she saw those fathomless eyes stare off into the flames as a different chant reached her, this one low and hoarse and yearning. “I will not age a minute until you come back to me.”
Come to me.
Come to me tomorrow.
“Naaaaaaugh!” she cried when she woke up alone in her bed the next morning. She must have dreamed everything all along, even that delicious, out-of-this-world fuck.
Damn it! She slammed a fist on the mattress, then stared in shock at the lone white lily she’d barely missed beside the pillow.
A lily. For her?
Could Gabriel have…
Her heart faltered a beat. Well, there was only one way to find out.
* * *
Something was terribly wrong.
Sunlight streamed through the entrance of the cave, and all the ropes had disappeared. No more torches lit the way, no more clothes were strewn around the corner, and instead she found Gabriel sitting over a tall, wide wooden chest.
He was reading, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Stella’s heart leapt with joy at the sight of him, and yet the feeling lasted little, for when he looked up at her, there was something different about him. Something alarming.
His clothes were clean, a pair of black slacks and a crisp cotton shirt, and he looked shaved and ready for…something.
Rather than look like a brooding villain, he looked like a freaking hero, just after saving the day.
She didn’t like this turn of events at all!
“Are you leaving?” she asked, careful to keep the worry out of her voice.
A half smile touched his lips, his eyes warming at the sight of her. “Maybe.”
She smiled falsely. “I had the weirdest dream last night,” she said, hoping dearly to be contradicted. Hoping dearly, dearly that it hadn’t been just a dream!
He eyed her with a slightly raised brow. “Oh?” he said as he set the book on top of the chest and rose.
“You said the strangest things to me.”
He advanced on her, smiling a slow, pleased smile. “Did I?”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “Oh, well.” She turned before he could see the look of disappointment on her face.
He reached for her shoulders. “Come here, Stella,” he whispered, pulling her back against him.
Need and desire flared inside her. His lips caressed her temple, and she shivered against him. “I need you to do something for me.”
She closed her eyes and pressed herself back against him so every lean inch of him was touching her. “Anything.”
“I need you to break a spell.”
Stella stiffened, her eyes popping open.
So he did want her body after all. Well, of course he did! It was the only vehicle for him to bring his love back.
That’s just what Stella was to him. A body. Her insides recoiled at the thought. When he’d told her she was his last night, she’d foolishly imagined he meant something else. Now her heart felt like shriveling inside her.
“Come,” he whispered, taking her hand and leading her toward the chest. She followed hesitantly, watching him place a finger on the open book. The pages were old and yellowed, the letters written in an elaborate, old-world style.
“Read this, beautiful,” he said, tapping the page. “Read this and mean every word.”
She shook her head, taking a step back and looking up at him in confusion. “Gabriel, I—I don’t understand.”
He took both of her shoulders and squeezed. “Yes, you do, Stella.” His gaze was deep and piercing, filled with an odd sort of understanding that made her feel anxious and agitated.
“No, I—”
“You do understand, Stella. You understood even before me.” He shifted his hands up her neck, splaying them across her cheeks, his eyes looking deep into her own. “It’s you, Stella. It’s you, baby.” There was so much emotion in his voice that she felt a knot form in her throat.
“W-what do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember?” he asked, his tone filled with hope. “Don’t you remember me? Us?”
Stella stared up at him with wide, watery eyes that stung from the effort to hold back tears. She did remember. She remembered too much, in fact. But she’d never considered—or maybe she had, but she’d been much too scared to even admit—that those memories might actually be her own.
But they were, weren’t they?
They were as much a part of her as he was.
“Faith,” Stella whispered, her old name on her lips somehow sounding as familiar as her new one.
“You are Faith, Stella.” His hands squeezed her face in encouragement, then one of them flattened down over the page of the book. “Read it, beautiful.” Gabriel’s eyes were steady on hers. “Make peace with yourself so we can start over.”
Start over…
Stella held onto those words as if they promised her eternity. She’d been given another chance, but she had yet to live it. Had been too scared to live it. Maybe now she could make peace with Faith Harrison, with her cowardly old self.
Catching her trembling lower lip with her teeth, Stella turned to stare down at the Book of Shadows, Gabriel stepping behind her.
Slowly, hesitantly, she began to whisper the words, listening to his gentle voice behind her, speaking them in unison.
Remove the chains of time and space, and make my spirit soar, let these mortal arms embrace, the life that haunts before.
Everything. Everything she had tried not to remember. Everything which had been there, contained, on the edges of her mind, broke free and flashed before her eyes.
A whole life with Gabriel, the future awaiting them, destroyed by men’s greed. Her father’s ambitions, his lack of scruples.
Stella remembered herself, softly crying as she spoke those forced marriage vows, all of them lies, lies because she’d loved another man, wanted another man, who had drunk himself into a stupor the night before. For months, she’d begged, cajoled, and pleaded with Gabriel to let her do what she must do, let her save her father, and she knew how much, how very much it cost him to let her.
She remembered assuring him she would be all right, telling him she would get out of this as soon as her father was released, and yet she’d inwardly feared it might never happen.
She remembered struggling with that odious man on her wedding night, remembered the nausea at the feel of his big, fat hands on her body.
She remembered his face after she’d slapped him, bloated and red with rage, and his vicious words as he tied the rope around her.
She remembered her father. Stripped of all manhood right before her eyes, reduced to groveling, sniveling at the man’s feet, begging for his daughter’s life as her husband tightened the rope around her until no more of her whimpers could be set free.
She remembered choking, looking into her father’s wild, tortured gaze, and finding only a small trace of the man he’d been before; she remembered forgiving him, forgiving him for everything. And in that last breath of hers, she remembered Gabriel, remembered thinking, Wait for me. I will come back to you. Wherever you are, I will find you. Please wait for me. Don’t ever stop loving me…Please, wait…Wait for me…
“Y-you waited,” she sobbed, her body shaking uncontrollably. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t.”
He caught her when she swayed, wrapping his arms around her in a tight, protective embrace. He smoothed his hands through her hair, whispered endearments to her. She was so distraught she didn’t notice his shudders, or the deep, muffled sobs against her hair as he cried out his suffering too.
“It was him, Gabriel; it wasn’t me. I would never kill myself, not when I knew you were waiting for me!”
“He won’t hurt you now,” he said in a ragged whisper, tightening his hold on her. “I should’ve taken you aw
ay. I should’ve protected you better. Oh, God, forgive me.”
“No, no, no, don’t say that, you always protected me—always,” she said fiercely.
“I heard you. In my mind, I heard you calling me. I thought I’d go crazy,” he said savagely. “It took me hours to get back from the city, and when I did, I couldn’t find you.”
“So you killed him.”
Gabriel fell silent for a moment. “I set his house on fire, but I didn’t kill him, Stella. Your father did.”
“My father,” she whispered, remembering that face, so anguished at what his weakness, his vice had caused.
“He was committed to the asylum. Didn’t last a month before he passed away.”
Though it hurt so much, suddenly she had to know more. “And my mom?”
“She never spoke again. She locked herself in her room and just…waited to die.” Stella drew in a sharp breath. Gabriel fell silent, as if unsure whether to continue. “She died shortly after your father.”
Her chest felt heavy, her heart crushed with regrets. “Oh, God, my poor mother.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I could barely live with myself, thinking of everything I could’ve done to save you.”
“But you have saved me.” She cupped his face and looked deep into his eyes. “You have saved me, Gabriel.”
“I love you. I won’t ever let anyone hurt you, I swear,” he said in a low, hissing breath, and then he dipped his head and pressed his mouth to hers. She parted her lips for him eagerly, their tongues seeking, finding, blending.
Gabriel gently gathered her hair in one hand as he kissed her, pulling her head back so he could trail a path of kisses down her neck. His mouth hovered over the tiny pulse at the base of her throat before he flicked out his tongue to lick it, making her sigh as a slow, dizzy heat spread throughout her body.
This was not a mindless passion, but a slow, tender seduction, and her last coherent thought was that it was no wonder no man had ever lived up to him. He’d spoiled her for any other man a lifetime ago, and no one but him would do.
Stella shuddered under his touch, his breath warm along the curve of her jaw as he showered it with attention. His lips grazed her temple, nuzzling the shell of her ear as he felt her breasts over her cotton shirt, gently weighing, stroking, feeling. She hadn’t been wearing a bra lately, and she was deliriously grateful as he bent his head, wrapping his lips around the puckered nipple, wetting it with his tongue through the thin fabric of her shirt. When he sucked it into his mouth, fabric and all, she gasped, and he growled low and deep, like a satisfied male.
“Gabriel, I want to touch you, too,” she protested, pushing at his shoulders until he came up and locked his mouth to hers, silencing her with a kiss, his hands gliding around her waist only to snatch her buttocks and press her to him.
“You’re plumper now,” he whispered, greedily gathering the supple muscle of her buttocks in his palms.
“I hope that’s not a bad thing.” She was tugging his shirt from his waistband, slipping her hands under it when it freed and smoothing her fingers over his heated flesh.
“Hell, no, I love it…I love everything about you,” he murmured against her lips, grinding his erection over her throbbing sex. He groaned as her deft fingers caressed him, tracing every inch of muscle on his chest until she paused to lightly fondle his nipples.
“Off with this,” he said, tugging her shirt off. “And the pants go, too.”
Stella was happy to oblige, unfastening her slacks to shove them down and step out of them eagerly.
“I have a lot of making up to do.” Gabriel fell silent as soon as she was fully naked.
She watched him draw in a shaky breath, and then shudder with desire as his eyes came to rest on the glossy curls between her legs.
“Open up for me,” he told her as he parted her curls and the dewy petals beneath with a single finger.
She gasped, trembled as his fingers began to play with her, his thumb stroking over her clit as his longest finger slowly traced her moistened slit.
She swayed, and as he sat her down over the chest, bending over her to continue his caresses, her eyes fluttered closed, her need echoing in her ears like music; little moans, gasps, sighs, even the rapid sound of her breathing as he stroked her to pleasure.
“I want you inside me,” she said, eyes still closed as she spread her thighs farther apart, opening up to his longest finger as it quickly sought to enter.
Her head fell back with a gasp when he thrust it deep into the heart of her, only to pull back and twist it in again.
“Gabriel.”
“I’m crazy about you.”
When she opened her eyes to look up at him, she lost her breath at what she saw. His eyes glowed fierce with need, almost unholy in their intensity, his chiseled face set with the same tension as his neck and shoulders.
His free hand wandered up over her side, outlining her waist, brushing past the side of one breast, until he cupped her, pressed his thumb to a quivering nipple.
She cried out when he began to pinch her, pinch her nipple with his thumb and forefinger, sending jolts of pleasure down to her toes. Another hand still toyed with her pussy, his thumb circling her clit faster now, his middle finger merciless as it stabbed inside her.
Stella thought she’d die again.
She writhed, arching into his touch, her own hand lifting to cup her other breast, squeeze it as he was doing.
“I want you,” she whispered.
“You have me.”
“I want you inside me.”
“Let me touch you first,” he said. His gaze fell to her pussy, glowing red as he watched what he was doing to her.
She, too, dropped her eyes then, need and tension gathering in the center of her being as she watched his finger stroke in and out of her cunt. Every time he pulled out, she could see her own cream gleaming wetly over his skin, disappearing within her when he entered again, engulfed by the delicate, swollen folds of her sex up to the base.
“Don’t move,” he said as he knelt before her, her thighs widely spread. Then slowly, he bent his head, his eyes locking with hers.
A shudder coursed through her as she watched him open his mouth, slip out his tongue to lick those swollen folds, drawing her cream into his mouth.
She tensed, fisting her hands over the chest, unable to tear her gaze away from the way he was slowly eating her up, like a banquet, a feast. She could hardly bear it when his eyelashes dropped, a growl vibrating against the entrance of her pussy as he began to suck her in earnest.
“Oh, God, yes,” she sobbed, overwhelmed by the decadent feel of his hot, greedy mouth on her cunt. She pushed her hips against his face, already desperate to be freed of the tension eating her up inside, clenching every fiber of her being. “Gabriel…oh, God.”
At that deep, single stroke of his tongue delving inside her, she cried out, momentarily blinded as a shot of pleasure pulsed through her in shockwaves, her body rocking in spasms of ecstasy. He drank up the juices of her orgasm as if he’d been starved for it for years.
As a lingering wave of pleasure shuddered inside her, he stood and pulled off his shirt, then unzipped his trousers. Stella stared as the bulging head of his cock appeared, the tip dribbling with semen.
“Come here,” she whispered, reaching out to cup his buttocks over his slacks as he did so. His trousers were only unzipped, still clinging to his hips, and she pulled them down swiftly, taking his member into her mouth as soon as it was freed.
Gabriel groaned when she took him, sucking the tip greedily, eager to taste him like she had before, in another life, another time. His taste was exotic, yet familiar, salty, strong, as rich as his scent.
“You suck me so well,” he groaned, sinking his fingers into her hair as she let her tongue toy with him, swipe along the ruddy tip, down his length, then up again. Grabbing the base with her hand, she pulled back, her mouth open, her eyes closed as she rubbed that cock along her lips, her face, feeling t
he smooth, moist flesh slide up along her cheeks.
His hips were moving, rocking against her, his breathing shallow, fast.
“I want you to come inside my mouth,” she whispered, squeezing the base of his shaft as she pressed the tip to her puckered lips. “I want to drink you up, every last drop in you.”
He stared down at her with glowing black eyes. “Suck me, Stella,” he urged, “eat me up, baby.” And she took him fully into her mouth, her eyes drifting shut as every fiber within her concentrated on this feeling, on the wicked sensation of having a thick, swollen cock inside her mouth. Her sex began to pulse, a rush of desire running hot and heavy through her veins again, as intense as the one before.
Unwittingly one of her hands drifted downward, and she began touching herself, little strokes to her clit with the tips of her fingers as her ravenous mouth devoured him.
“I used to watch you touch yourself,” he said, his voice brimming with heat and arousal. “I want to watch you again.”
She moaned, pulling her head back until her lips were locked around the folds of the head, then slid back down his length again.
“Put a finger inside you, baby.”
She whimpered, the sound muffled by the presence of his dick in her mouth. She slid one finger inside her. It wasn’t as thick or as long as his, but his watching drove her on.
Both of Gabriel’s hands fisted in her hair, and he began to drag her head back and forth on his cock; Stella began to fuck herself with purpose, her finger pummeling inside her, then slipping out to circle her clit before plundering inside again.
“Fuck yourself,” he hissed as his cock delved into her mouth with every thrust of his hips. “That’s it. Fuck it in and eat me up.”
She moaned, eager to be fed, eager to come again, to lose herself in the desire she had been harboring for years. When she felt that spurt of warm, salty cream inside her mouth, she moaned in pleasure, drinking him up, swallowing even as he continued to guide her head along his length, her hand frantic on her pussy as she sought out her own orgasm.
“Come with me, Stella.”