She wanted to say something but she couldn’t think, grab on to any words. It was all just sensation, sound, want, reaching for a release, which came suddenly in a tumultuous wave that had her gripping his T-shirt, her head snapping back as it took her under. Sara bit her lip so hard she tasted blood, rocking forward, vaginal muscles vibrating and straining, her mind empty, breath held. The intensity overwhelmed her, the pleasure all-consuming. As the last spasms subsided, she had to force herself to relax—fingers, legs, shoulders, abdomen—to suck in air and remind herself to breathe, to remember who and where she even was. “Jesus Christ,” she said, loosening her death hold on his shirt.
Mouth thick and in desperate need of water, she took another deep breath, swallowing hard, suddenly aware that the hair on her forehead was damp and that her legs were trembling from the position. She wanted to say something, needed to say something, but she just looked at him, waiting for him to either flip her entirely onto the top of the piano, which struck her as a bad idea, or yank her down to the floor or the couch to finish what they had started. To fill her with him, to take both of them into that ecstasy, that completion, together.
But one glance at his face had her amending what was going to happen next. Gabriel wasn’t going to have sex with her. It was obvious in the tightness of his shoulders, his face, the frustration she saw etched in every muscle, in all of his body language. He was already pulling away, literally and figuratively. As he retreated, he pulled her skirt down, covering her, his hand wiping his mouth dry.
She refused to feel ridiculous, slighted, annoyed. She had known why he was resisting, known it was too soon. She hadn’t intended to force him into action. He had done that. She would have been content with what she had done on the couch. Knowing he was watching, getting aroused, had been enough for her, and this was his choice.
So she decided to take the upper hand, instead of waiting for him to embarrass her by reminding her he wouldn’t have sex with her. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said, peeling herself off the piano. She trailed her fingers across his cheek, through his hair, as she moved past him. “Thanks for playing. I really enjoyed it.”
He opened his mouth. Then shut it. Then opened it again. “No problem. My pleasure.”
The irony of that nonchalant statement made her laugh.
And Sara headed for the bathroom, stopping to scoop up her shirt on the way, feeling more relaxed than she had in a year.
Gabriel watched Sara head down the hall, her tank top swinging back and forth in her hand, her light laughter carrying as she gave him one last glance over her bare shoulder. The look was saucy, pleased. She had gotten what she wanted and didn’t seemed offended that he wouldn’t take it to the next step.
He wasn’t feeling at all pleased. He was sick with self-disgust, at his complete lack of control. The taste of her was lingering on his mouth, and he could still feel the warmth of her thighs as he gripped her, keeping her legs spread, her panties pushed to the side, as he had moved his tongue in and out of her receptive body. She had been wet, eager, easy to orgasm, and he had known when he’d seen her sit up on the couch and reach for her skirt that she was going to peel off her clothes and pleasure herself some more, and that he was going to take her himself instead.
It had been stupid. She was drunk, dancing with the green fairy, and had let down all of her inhibitions. She was going to regret touching herself in front of him the next day. He should have left it alone, just concentrated on the notes and not even watched. He should have stepped out of the room to give her privacy. He should have resisted the urge to touch her.
But he felt a kinship to Sara, an intense longing and lust that superseded any and all common sense, and he suspected that he was succumbing to the very angelic emotion of love. He had thought that since his fall, since his plunge into selfishness, he was incapable of stepping outside of himself and caring about another person, but maybe he had been wrong, because his desire for Sara was complex. It wasn’t just lust, but a need to connect, to feel her, to touch, to please, to protect, to make her happy.
Gabriel pushed D above middle C with his thumb. The note rang out, then faded. It had felt good to play again. He had heard the music once he had touched the instrument. But it had made him lose control.
Or maybe he had never been in control.
He didn’t know what he was doing. Who he was. Why it mattered to solve Anne’s murder.
He didn’t know how to prevent Sara from falling victim to his sins.
And he didn’t know how to move beyond his purgatory into a better life, one where he could have a positive impact on the world, humanity. One where he didn’t stand around motionless in the muck of his sins, but took action.
Gabriel played Bach idly. He didn’t know any contemporary music, or anything twentieth-century, for that matter, since he hadn’t played in a hundred years. But he liked the traditional intricacy of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers.
He needed to stay away from Sara.
But he knew he wasn’t going to.
“Gabriel?” she called from down the hall. “I forgot a towel. Can you bring me one?”
Without hesitation, he got up and went down the hall.
He was fallen, after all.
No one expected him to have a halo anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
DONOVAN WITNESS DEAD!
January 11, 1850—In a shocking twist to the willful murder trial of Anne Donovan that has the city riveted, witness Molly Faye, former lover of elusive and charming defendant Jonathon Thiroux, is dead, by her own hand.After engaging in a heated and illustrious argument with another witness, also a lewd and unfortunate woman, just two days past, in which Miss Faye learned she was not the only object of the defendant’s affection, Miss Faye took her life in the decisive manner of slicing open her own throat.
Found by the proprietress of the House of Rest for Weary Men, Madame Conti, in the victim’s own bed, the vision first conjured up images of the scene last October when poor Anne Donovan was found in a similar state just two rooms down the hall. But whereas Anne had been sliced repeatedly, with such brutality and force as to render her unrecognizable, Molly Faye suffered merely one wound, from the left side of her throat to the right, approximately six inches in length and of a shallow depth. Dr. Raphael, the coroner, has concluded her death a suicide, as the weapon was in her hand and the slice tentative, as is often the case when a person hesitates on the threshold of death. The deceased’s personal effects were tidy and in order, and though no note was left, that can be explained by the simple fact that Miss Faye was not literate. Next to her bed, on the nightstand, was a torn-out clipping of the newspaper article written by this reporter detailing the courtroom scuffle involving Miss Faye and Miss Swanson. There was no money in the room, no evidence of next of kin, and possessions only enough to fill a small satchel.