Shattering Halos (5 page)

Gabriel seemed unperturbed as he extended a hand. “Nice to meet you.” Instead of returning the greeting, Marina took one step back and stared at him, horrified. Then, as if in an absurd, alternate reality, she screamed. She freaking screamed!

“What are you doing with her?” The words echoed off the walls for much longer than I’d thought possible.

Oh. My. God. We’re so hosed. The chaperones…

“Please, Marina, I haven’t explained to Gaia yet.”

They knew each other? A nervous laugh shuddered out as jealousy rumbled in me, but neither of them noticed. Marina’s gaze was glued to his. She looked enraged and fearful, her chest heaving with what—shock?

Gabriel stayed motionless behind me, arms still draped loosely across my waistline, his heartbeat steady at my back.

“Wait a minute—” I started.

“Get out!” Marina hissed at Gabriel.

“Calm down. I need to speak with her.” Gabriel’s voice, dangerously low, made me glance up and catch a new, steely glint in his eyes. He held Marina’s glare with a force that caused my breath to hitch.

“And how exactly would a chat make things better? It’s not hard to put two and two together, Gabriel. You
seized
her in there, and you have no business being here!”

I interrupted before Marina could keep sputtering. “Marina, are you insane? He’s finally here, and you’re shooing him off? What kind of a friend
are
you?”

I took a step toward her, but an arm shot over my shoulder. In a flash, I was pulled to Gabriel’s side. With my stomach flush to his body, the air wheezed out of me in surprise as his hand dead-bolted over my hipbone. If I hadn’t been so upset, the sweet voltage of the touch might have undone me.

“Gaia, hush…don’t worry.”

The atmosphere surrounding us softened. There could not be a breeze inside these hallways, but the air seemed to be caressing us. Marina’s expression calmed, and her stare lost its urgency. Her effort to pull me out of his embrace now lacked conviction. Gabriel’s eyes blazed as they held hers.

She didn’t break away but stammered a little when she whispered to me. “Gaia, trust me…We need to leave now. He’s not good for you. I’ll explain later.”

Gabriel ran two fingertips across my cheek with such gentleness that my mind morphed into a thick, gooey substance. Even though Marina’s betrayal suddenly didn’t hurt, I knew for a fact that I wasn’t going anywhere with her.

“This has gone too far. I’m leaving with Gaia now.” Gabriel’s voice sounded husky, and risking another glimpse at him, I saw his eyes still ablaze, intently watching my friend.

Their eerie conversation no longer bothered me because my mind was waterlogged. Gabriel’s thumb and index finger traced my throat, keeping me suspended in a state of bliss.

“Gaia, let’s go,” he purred.

As he intertwined our fingers and led me to the exit, Marina’s legs folded under her. “Don’t you recognize him, Gaia—don’t you see?”

I abandoned her there in the hallway. Not even her sobs made me change my mind.

Chapter 6 — Mine

Gaia

Somehow the pearlescent Porsche GT2 waiting in the parking lot seemed fitting. Gabriel personally strapped me into the seat. I found myself lifting my arms high like a three-year-old, allowing him to check and double check the safety of the contraption with intense concentration.

When the doors locked and we were alone inside the cream-colored cabin of leather and rosewood, the serene haze I’d been in began to lift.

His scent filled my nostrils, pulling me in, and before my brain had time to object, my hand flopped palm up on his thigh.

Gabriel hesitated too long. For a nerve-racking moment, his gaze drifted over my features. Then he sighed and covered my palm with his. I grinned, but Gabriel didn’t smile back. Those eyes, now the aqua of the Caribbean, floated away, indecipherable. Butterflies stirred in my stomach at his reaction.

The night flowed by, staining us with ribbons of passing streetlights. My mind dug in, the questions multiplying in my head. What did
he want with me? Instinctively, I clutched my abdomen, willing the fluttering to settle.

“Where are we going?”

“To the harbor. Don’t be afraid.”

Oh no. Gabriel scared the living daylights out of Marina, his charisma rearranged my personality, and now he was taking me to the harbor? Dirty, disorganized, and dimly lit, it swarmed with dealers, drug addicts, and prostitutes. It wasn’t a place to visit after dark, much less a pleasant spot for a chat.

What have I gotten myself into?

The frantic merry-go-round in my head reduced its speed and sluggishly came to a halt. The calmness I’d experienced in the school corridors sieved back in, and I looked up at Gabriel. His gaze didn’t waver from the road ahead of him, but the corner of his mouth curled upward.

He knows…no, he probably
planned
what he’s doing to me!

The car glided to a stop outside a door carved from worm-eaten oak. A sign declared in rune-style lettering “Café des Artistes.” Instead of promoting hospitality, the windows seemed to obscure the soul of the establishment, and I frowned.

“This is it?”

“Yes. Now, I need you to trust me.”

Right, trust the stranger who numbs minds and all but kidnaps me.

With a fist trailing the hood of the car, he curved around it to open the passenger door. Gabriel’s face tipped down to read my expression while his hand clasped mine to pull me up. I met that strange, fluctuating gaze of his, and the glow he emanated made my stomach leap.

Damn, he’s hot.

Yes, Gabriel turned me on, and judging by the sudden creasing of his eyebrows, he wasn’t even trying.

“Come.” He led me behind him to the door, his fingers interlacing with mine.

The establishment was so small it only accommodated a bar counter and a handful of wooden tables. A pattern of blossoming peonies faded in and out over silk-clad walls, giving off an air of Victorian elegance.

The barroom brimmed with statues and paintings artfully framed in rustic gold. Jesus leaned out from a cross on one of them, and a reproduction of Michelangelo’s
The Creation of Adam
had a spot by the entrance. Gargoyles, angels, and demons dominated the vertical surfaces and peeked out from corners and shelves in the room.

The counter contradicted the old-world elegance of the walls and artwork. Created from a single piece of silvery driftwood, I imagined it tumbling in the ocean until it wrecked onto a beach to be eroded by a merciless sun.

No other customers had found their way to the Café des Artistes that night. Besides the strange, little bartender, our only human-like company seemed to be the marble statue of a celestial being. Much too large for the low-ceilinged bar, the life-size sculpture crowded the space, imposing itself on the corner table Gabriel chose for us.

I reached out and touched it. Its cool, smooth stone felt almost alive under my palms. With twisting, snakelike curls and perfectly captured wings, the angel stared off in rapture. I was studying the artist’s rendering of abdominal muscles and the pelvic V chasing into the loincloth when Gabriel eased me out of my reverie.

“Oscar, can you bring us a Shirley Temple and a ginger ale, please?” His voice was gentle as he called out to the oddly weathered man.

“How did you know I love Shirley Temples?”

A tiny smile lit his face. “How can I not know?” Our drinks touched the surface between us as he answered, and I looked up, astounded at the speed of the service. Oscar, already hobbling back to his post behind the bar, showed no sign of having hurried.

I was quickly sidetracked. Mesmerized by Gabriel’s beauty, I regressed to ogling him unabashedly. Over my Shirley Temple, I took in the smooth arch of his lips, and I remembered how they had felt against mine. I had no pride—just no pride, for crying out loud.

I reached out and ran my fingertips past his wrist, stroking a shimmering forearm. He didn’t shift away though I sensed that he wanted to. The contours of his skin hinted at muscles as hard as the marble angel’s, only this contact electrified.

I shut out his image as I searched past this fiery flare in me. Somewhere in there, the boring
real
me needed a wakeup call. When I opened my eyes again, he was studying me intently, and I blushed. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.

So far, he had suffused the night with bliss, dread, anger, and attraction. It struck me that my cocktail of emotions must be tied to the mixed signals he sent. No wonder I was going stir-crazy. He was hot and cold, in one out-of-this-world package. He pulled me in and held me back. Why?

My thoughts reflected in his eyes as if he were watching them sprawled out on a screen. Then he fixed me with his stare, leaning closer over the table.

“Gaia, this,” he rotated an index finger between the two of us, “is an anomaly.”

“Huh?”

“You need to know that this is a glitch in the big picture, and I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

My hands froze on his arm. Chills prickled my neck.

“Wait, what? Anomaly…?”

“You’re a wonderful, young woman, but we can’t be together. Someone else will make you happy.”

I sputtered out my first, ridiculous impulse, as surreal and off-key as anything
he
had said so far. “And you’d be fine with that?”

My outburst left him with his gaze cast down, quietly regarding my hold on his arm.

Somebody’s got some nerve; bringing me to the harbor to dump me when we’ve never even dated? What kind of hellish twilight zone am I in?

The few times I’d seen him, he’d exuded love and concern. Why did he stick around if he didn’t nurture feelings for me? He wasn’t making sense.

Erratic as quicksilver, my anger fizzled and gave way to desperation. Gabriel and I shared nothing,
were
nothing, but ever since the accident…

For every glimpse of him, for every touch, I seemed to need him a little bit more. Why, I didn’t know. At the moment I didn’t care either. All I wanted was to make him realize what he’d miss out on if he left me behind.

Anomaly
. Whatever he’d meant, we could be so much more.

I squirmed out of my seat and slinked into Gabriel’s side of the tiny booth. Close to him in the cramped space, I rested on one knee and slid my hands up his chest and inside the collar of his shirt. I traced his skin with my fingertips until they connected at the back of his neck. Gazing into Gabriel’s eyes, I leaned forward until our foreheads touched. Then, I unleashed seven months’ worth of obsession for him.

When my nose brushed his, I let my breath caress his mouth. I’d expected resistance, so his muscles turning rigid didn’t stop me. Softly, I settled closer, angling my lips around his bottom lip. With my breath quickening in anticipation, my fingers tangled in his hair and moved his head down to me.

“Gaia…” He husked it out.

God, always say my name like that.

He cupped my face in an attempt to pull me away from him. But I was hot honey melting over him, relaxing into him, forming myself to his body. The tip of my tongue painted his lower lip moist. The silkiness of the plump, warm surface, the incredible taste of him…I closed my eyes. My stomach imploded in a sweet stab when his breath faltered.

Yes! I’d affected him!

“No, no. Listen to me…” Cornered in the booth with nowhere to go, his voice sounded different. Not so composed anymore.

Oh, yes. Now we’re talking.

Thumbs drew uncertain circles on my shoulders. Gabriel had lost his control over me, and to be fair, so had I. Pure instinct drove me as I slinked onto his lap, straddling him without breaking contact with his mouth. I allowed my tongue to glide across his lower lip, then the upper. He seemed unaware when they slid apart, but he did notice when I let myself in.

The first unrestrained sound I’d ever heard from Gabriel hit my stomach like a fireball. He moaned into my mouth, a sexual rumble that made my entire body flare up. Breath ragged, his hands plunged and crushed me against him so tight that I gasped.

Good God, I have
got
to be dreaming!

With the tables unexpectedly turned, his tongue conquered and roamed. Gabriel’s hand left chills as it glided over the nape of my neck and into my hair. Cradling me against him, the other crossed my lower back and rocked me flush to his hips in one breathless jerk. I whimpered once and stopped breathing altogether.

For an instant, my body seemed to shut down from the intensity of my aching. How can you miss somebody when they’re right there with you?

This will not end well.

As I sat pressed to him, my breathing became erratic against his mouth. I didn’t know where we were heading on this insane journey. When I began to hyperventilate, Gabriel reacted to my loss of restraint.

His own breathing, hot and uneven, slowly calmed as he regained control. The kisses softened, became less demanding, until velvety lips relaxed on mine, warm but unmoving.

His arms remained around me, and I slumped toward him, drained from the force of my own emotions. With my nose nestled in the crook of his neck, he stroked my back up and down, soothing me as if I were upset.

Gentle lips slid over my ear, caressing it. Gabriel didn’t ask me to move, but let me sit there in his arms, comforting me over God knew what.

“Shhh…It will be all right…”

Idly, I wondered if our conversation was over, if I’d convinced him.

“Tell me that you don’t like me, Gabriel.”

His reply came without hesitation. “I can’t. You’re amazing, but you can’t grasp the magnitude of this. I’ve shattered so many unbreakable rules. I’m losing my grip on what’s right and wrong, Gaia.”

His head fell back and leaned against the wall. I watched the angles of his face, the surreal shimmer of his complexion, the anguish in those strangely feline eyes.

And then, clear as a summer day, it hit me. After all this time, I finally understood. I got what Gabriel had been trying to tell me. I got what Marina had seen. I got why he’d chosen this bar filled with mythical depictions, and why the bartender reminded me of a gargoyle. I got why Gabriel had appeared in the oddest locations and situations, and why we were sitting at that very table, in that very moment.