11. Bella

11

BELLA

I t's impossible to miss how tense Gabriel is. From the moment he walked up to see that man at the gelato shop—he introduced himself as Antonio—talking to me, being next to him has felt like having a live wire humming next to me. I can feel the tension radiating off of him. I can see how his hands are gripping the steering wheel, his jaw set. He seems to be somewhere far away, not hearing the chatter of Cecelia and Danny behind us, not looking at me.

I don't say anything. There's nothing I can say, with the children in the backseat. And there are too many thoughts rattling around in my head for me to be sure of what might come out of my mouth. I don't want to say the wrong thing until I'm sure of how I feel.

I'm quiet all through dinner. We get back to the house and unload our purchases, Cecelia, Danny, and I taking our bags upstairs while Gabriel brings the groceries in to Agnes. A little while later, we all reconvene around the dinner table, where Agnes has a meal of chicken with bruschetta topping, toasted sourdough, and a salad with vinaigrette waiting for us. There's wine, too, as usual, but I just sip at my glass, my thoughts still occupied with Gabriel's reaction to seeing me talk to someone else.

I wasn't even interested in Antonio. The attention of any man other than Gabriel still makes me feel wary, but I wanted to try. It's been a long time since I've felt safe enough to even have a conversation with a man who's a stranger—and the whole purpose of what Gabriel and I did together was to make me feel safe enough to do exactly that, and more, eventually. I wanted to see if I could do it, without panicking. Not because I think I'll ever see Antonio again, but because I wanted to know for myself. I wanted to know how far back Igor's threats had set me.

To my surprise, I'd been able to have a normal conversation with him. Even laugh a little at a joke he'd made. I don't even really remember what he said now, but that's not what matters. It's that it made me feel a little more normal. A little more like myself.

As soon as dinner is finished, I get up and help Agnes take the plates back to the kitchen—or at least, I try. "You're off work today, girl," she says as I go to pick up the platter that held the chicken, waving me off. "Go enjoy your evening. You need it."

I want to argue, but I know better than to try. She'll just keep shooing me away until I go, so instead, I veer out of the dining room and head to the library before Gabriel can say anything to me. I still don't feel ready to talk to him, especially if he's going to say anything about what happened.

The library is dark and cool, smelling of dusty, old wood and books. It's not a bad smell, and I breathe in as I flick on the light, looking around the space. It's in need of as much repair as the rest of the house. Agnes and I pulled the dust covers off of the furniture yesterday. I circle the room, looking at the brown leather sofa along one wall, the upholstered wing chairs near the fireplace, the settee-style chairs in velvet and leather nearer to the bookshelves. All of the walls but the very back one are floor- to-ceiling bookshelves. On the left wall, there's a nook between the shelves where a large window looks out to the estate beyond, heavy velvet drapes covering it, and the padded bench tucked behind them.

The books are all so dusty it will take an entire day just to dust the spines, more to remove all of them and deep-clean the shelves. It wasn't a task I was looking forward to, but just now, the solitude and repetitiveness of it don't sound so bad. I walk to one shelf, running my fingers down the spine of an edition of Les Miserables , the edges of it fraying. Some of the books are in better repair than others.

The click of the door opening makes me jump. I turn to see Gabriel stepping into the room, closing the door behind him, and my heart leaps into my throat. I reach up without thinking, pressing my fingers against the shallow beat of my pulse in the hollow there.

"What is it?" My question comes out sharper than I intended for it to, and Gabriel raises an eyebrow.

"I wanted to check on you," he says mildly, walking further into the room. "You were so quiet at dinner. And you practically ran off from the table as soon as we were all finished."

"I wanted to be alone. It's my day off." It comes out defensively, and I see Gabriel pause, leaning up against one of the shelves as he looks at me.

"You're upset about something." There's concern in his voice as he says it, but it rubs me the wrong way all the same, in my current mood.

"You were jealous today." I turn away from him, studying the spines of the books in front of me without really seeing them. "I was just talking to that man, and you?—"

"I wasn't jealous."

I turn sharply, glaring at him. It's a blatant lie. Even I, someone who knows so little about relationships, know that it's a lie. "Are you lying to me on purpose, or are you just not aware of it?"

I've never talked to him like this before. It might be the intimacy of what we've shared with each other, still so recent—or it might be that after what Igor did, what he still might do, after going across an ocean to another country and having my life turned upside down more times than I can count, I just can't bring myself to keep biting my tongue.

I wait for him to get angry, but he doesn't. "I wasn't jealous," he repeats, and the words grate at me.

"Then why were you rude? You ignored him like he wasn't even standing there. You didn't introduce yourself. You just walked past him and ignored him until he walked away." Even as I say the words, I don't know why I'm arguing this so intensely. Maybe I want a fight, something to work out the tension and anxiety that feels like it's coiling inside of me, tighter and tighter every day. Maybe I just want Gabriel to admit that he was jealous.

Maybe, even though it would only make things harder for us both, I want him to admit that he wants me.

"Do I need to talk to every stranger I pass? Or just the ones you flirt with?" His voice is sharp and cutting, and it whips over my skin, stinging as I look sharply towards him.

"I wasn't flirting."

Gabriel rolls his eyes, and I almost laugh. It's the kind of gesture that I'm sure he would think was beneath him, if he were thinking straight. But he's not, and his fiery reaction only makes my blood heat more, makes me want to fight back. Maybe this is what we both need.

"I know what flirting looks like, Bella. Don't insult my intelligence."

"So you were jealous." I raise an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my chest, and his gaze darkens. "Why won't you just admit it?" I press, stepping closer to him. "Just admit you didn't like me talking to another man, and then tell me?—"

Gabriel spins, so fast that I step back unsteadily and end up with my back pressed to one of the bookshelves. In any other circumstance, I'd be afraid—but even though he's looming over me, his gaze dark and tense as he looks down at me, I'm not scared. The rush of my blood, the wild beat of my heart—it's all for a different reason altogether.

"Fine," he grits out between his teeth, one hand bracing against the shelf next to my head as he leans closer. "I was jealous. Are you happy?"

This is a different Gabriel, one that I've only ever barely glimpsed before, and never directed towards me. I can feel all of the barely restrained emotion trembling through him, and I'm suddenly overcome by a dark, twisted desire that I've never felt before.

I want to know what happens if I push. What would happen if all that restraint came unraveled, and Gabriel lost control with me. I want to know what he really feels. What he really wants. What's behind all the careful words and touches, behind the gentlemanly way he always behaves with me.

I know I can trust him. I know he'd never hurt me. But now I want something else.

I want to know what else there is.

I tip my chin up, meeting his darkened green eyes. "I'm going to have a future with someone else, eventually. If you manage to keep me safe?—"

He flinches, and I realize that was a jab too deep, a prod against a bruise that still hasn't healed. I'm not good at games like these, and it takes a little of the wind out of me. I look away, turning my face to one side.

"I should have known better," I whisper, a feeling of defeat replacing the excited defiance that flooded me a moment ago. "I should have waited to find someone else that I could trust to be my first. Someone that it wouldn't be as complicated with. Sleeping with you was always going to screw things up between us, and?—"

Gabriel's fingers clutch my chin, making me gasp as he turns my face back towards his. He almost never touches me without asking first, never just grabs me. It doesn't frighten me—it sends a flood of heat through me instead, my pulse once again fluttering in the hollow of my throat, my breath catching.

"Don't ever say that," he growls softly, and I can see those threads of restraint coming unraveled, feel them coming apart a little at a time as he looks down at me. He's so close to me, an inch from pressing all of that hard, masculine body up against mine, and I want him to lean into me, to feel him again. I want him hard and hot and needy, the way we've been together before, and the craving is so intense that it leaves me breathless.

"I don't want to think about anyone else having been your first," he murmurs roughly, his thumb sweeping along just the edge of my lower lip. "I was your first."

I nod, speechless. I couldn't form a single word right now if my life depended on it. All I can think about is how close he is to me, the scent of spice and oranges and male arousal filling my senses, the feather-light touch on my lip driving me mad.

A little more of that restraint snaps, and he presses the pad of his thumb to my lip. "Your first kiss," he murmurs, his darkened eyes falling to my mouth. "The first hands you wanted on your body."

His hand touches my waist, skimming up the line of it, up to the curve of my breast. His palm cups the weight of it, his thumb brushing over the nipple, and I jerk under his touch, letting out a cry of pleasure as my mouth falls open.

He pushes the tip of my thumb into my open mouth, over my tongue, and my lips close around it reflexively. He groans, a low, deep, quiet sound that still seems to reverberate in the silence of the library.

His other hand brushes against the slit of my dress, his fingers skimming up the smooth skin of my thigh, and I hear myself whimper, arching into his touch.

"Your first orgasm." His hand drags higher, between my legs, and I feel the tips of his fingers press against the front of my panties. I feel the shudder that goes through him when he realizes that just his closeness, just those few touches, have made me soak them all the way through. "The first one that you didn't give yourself."

A shudder of arousal washes over me, remembering a few nights ago, remembering touching myself in my room while I heard his footsteps just outside the door. My face heats, wondering if he heard me moan, if he lingered, wanting to hear more.

"Gabriel—" I whisper his name, my voice cracking with need, and he suddenly pulls his hand back, his other hand still gripping my chin as he surges forward, his mouth slanting over mine. His body presses into me, hard and hot, and I can feel the thick ridge of his cock through his jeans as he jerks my skirt to one side and pushes himself against me. The seam of his jeans, the hard line of his cock, grinds against me as he kisses me roughly, the wet lace of my panties rubbing against my swollen clit.

I let out a keening sound, half whimper, half moan, and Gabriel sucks at my lower lip, still rocking against me. "The first man you ever touched," he growls, the words vibrating against my mouth as he sweeps his tongue over my lip, thrusting it into my mouth as his hips thrust against mine, a rhythm that brings back the memory of him inside of me with a hot rush. "The first man who ever fucked you?—"

He kisses me again, tongue tangling with mine, hand bracing against the bookshelf as the other wraps in my hair, his fingers curling around the nape of my neck. I arch against him, the feeling of his jeans and the lace of my panties abrading my clit a wonderful, rough, almost painful pleasure, and I cry out, gasping as I roll my hips against him, chasing an orgasm.

"Don't stop," I whimper against his lips, bucking harder as I feel the pleasure build. "Please don't stop."

"Ask me to make you come." His voice is a demanding growl, his lips never leaving mine. He shudders against me, and I can feel him throbbing, hard as an iron bar behind the zipper of his jeans.

I want him to fuck me. I can see it so clearly—him lifting me up and wrapping my legs around his waist, jerking down his zipper, and yanking my panties to one side, thrusting all of that hard, hot length up into me. I moan into the kiss, desperate for more, and I try to reach between us.

His hand closes around my wrist, yanking it up against the shelf. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to remind me who's in charge, and pleasure blooms through my veins.

"Ask me," he rasps, and I let out a sobbing moan. I'm so close. His thrusts have slowed, but the hard ridge of his cock is still rubbing against me, and right now, I feel like I'd do anything to come. Anything to spill over the edge of the release I'm so close to.

"Please," I whisper, my head falling back against the spines, my eyes closed as I strain against him. "Please make me come, Gabriel, please?—"

His mouth drops to my throat, lips dragging a hot line down to my shoulder as he tugs one strap down, his lips leaving a hard, sucking bite on my shoulder as he grinds into me. I forget that anyone outside the library could hear us, that we could be caught, that we shouldn't be doing this at all in the blinding heat of the pleasure that floods me, one leg wrapping around his as I buck against him and cry out his name as he jerks his mouth away from my shoulder and crushes it against mine.

"Oh fuck— " He groans, his hand dropping to my hip as he thrusts into me, his entire body shuddering as I come apart against him. "Oh god, Bella, fuck ?—"

For a moment, neither of us moves. I'm pinned to the bookshelf, his body holding me there, and his forehead is pressed to mine, our breath coming in sharp, hot gasps. I feel him pulsing against me, his hips still twitching as he tries to catch his breath, and I realize with a stunned jolt what just happened.

He made me come—but I made him come, too. Without either of us taking our clothes off.

A flood of fresh desire prickles over my skin at the realization. Gabriel seems to have a different reaction as he pries himself away from me, one hand still gripping the shelf next to me as he tugs my dress back into place. "Shit," he breathes, angling himself away from me. "God, Bella, I?—"

There's a flush on his face that, if I had to guess, is embarrassment. "Don't apologize," I manage, my voice coming out thickly. "I don't think I can stand it if you apologize to me right now, Gabriel."

"I feel like a fucking teenager again," he mutters, still unable to quite meet my eyes. "Coming like that?—"

"That was one of the hottest things you've ever done." I manage to straighten a little, although I'm not entirely sure my knees aren't going to give out on me. "Like you couldn't even wait. You lost control, and it was?—"

"Unforgivable?"

"So fucking hot."

We say it at the same time, and Gabriel's eyes widen, then narrow. "I grabbed you, Bella. I did things that I know you don't?—"

"It's okay." I smooth my hands down my skirt, not knowing what else to do with them right now. "I know you'd never hurt me. It made it okay. It made it—good. I didn't know that it would until it happened, but?—"

We stare at each other for a long moment. I want to ask him to take me upstairs to bed. To crawl beneath the covers and take all our clothes off together, to kiss and touch until he's hard again, so he can be inside of me the way I wanted so badly a moment ago.

But I also know all of the reasons why we shouldn't do that. All of the reasons why this was supposed to end, the morning after Gabriel took my virginity.

All of those reasons still exist. This doesn't change any of them.

"We're right back where we started," I whisper, thinking of that night out by the pool, when he told me how to touch myself for him. That first morning in the gym, when he made me come by touching nothing more than my breasts, and I touched him for the first time. "We can't do all of this again."

Gabriel's gaze snaps up to meet mine, but I can see the resignation in his eyes. There's disappointment there, too, and it makes my chest feel tight.

I'd told myself that maybe he didn't want me any longer, now that we'd had one night together. That I was imagining the tension between us. That him kissing me on the plane was just adrenaline and wanting someone —not necessarily me.

But what just happened between us makes it painfully clear that nothing has changed. That he wants me just as much as he ever has. As much as I want him.

It makes it hurt that much more when he nods. "You're right," he says quietly. "We agreed. This can't happen again."

His gaze holds mine for a long moment, and my heart beats faster in my chest, every part of me already aching for him to touch me again. The fact that we've just agreed that it shouldn't happen again somehow makes it even harder to not reach for him, to not say that I was wrong, and beg him for more. It makes it more tantalizing than before.

He takes a step back, as if he can see the lingering desire in my face. I think I see it in his, too. But he turns, his jaw set, and walks away.

The sound of the door closing behind him feels like it shakes me all the way down to my bones.

—

The next day, I try to focus on the house, and nothing else. Gabriel left instructions with Agnes that he wanted us to focus on sprucing up the kitchen and living room first, and some notes on things he'd seen throughout the house that he wants specifically removed or preserved. I'm curious about why he's taken an interest in what Agnes and I are doing with it, when he seemed ready to brush the entire project aside when we first arrived, but he deflects any of my questions about it at breakfast. I want to press him on it, but the tension between us stops me.

From the moment I sit down at the breakfast table, I can feel it, the kind of tension that hasn't been there since I was taken from the mansion in New York. I can feel my cheeks flushing the moment his eyes meet mine, and I quickly look down, my heart beating a little faster in my chest. I can feel Agnes' eyes on me, too, and I can only imagine what she's thinking. Thankfully, she doesn't say anything about it as we start work on cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, but I can't help wondering. She's too astute to not have picked up on the fact that something happened with Gabriel and I.

Partway through the afternoon, Gabriel comes to collect Cecelia and Danny, saying he's taking them out to venture around the estate. He doesn't ask me to come along this time, and that tension is still there, letting me know that I didn't imagine it this morning. I stay on the far side of the living room, working on taking apart the cracked baseboards there, and I only glance up to look at him once. When I do, and his eyes meet mine, I feel heat rush over me, the memory of what happened in the library yesterday too close for comfort.

I know I shouldn't go out to find them later, when Agnes and I are done with the house for the day, and she retreats to the kitchen to work on dinner. I should just change into my running clothes and follow the path that I've found around the estate—which is what I intend to do. But as I jog past a set of outbuildings on one side of the vineyards, I see a shape near one of the paddocks in the distance, and my feet slow of their own accord.

Not just one shape, but four—one that I know must be Gabriel, and the shape of a small pony with a child on its back, the other child clinging to the fence rails. I realize Gabriel must have taken Cecelia and Danny out for riding lessons. Despite my better judgement, I start jogging in the direction of where they are.

I know I should be avoiding Gabriel. Putting as much distance between him and me as I can, so that things can cool down between us again—not that that's ever been particularly successful for us. But going near him right now is only going to make it all harder.

Still, I can't seem to stop myself. I jog all the way to the edge of the paddock, where I see that it's Cecelia sitting on the edge of the railing, kicking booted feet against the wood as she watches her father lead Danny on the pony.

"Hi, Bella," she calls out cheerfully, glancing over me as I slow my pace and stop to lean up against the side of the paddock next to her. "Dad's giving us riding lessons. I rode that one." She points to a nearby paddock where a taller, sleek black pony is drinking from a water trough. "Now Danny is getting his lesson."

Danny's pony is remarkably smaller, about half the size of the one Cecelia said she rode, with a creamy-colored coat and a long white mane and tail. He's seated in what I recognize is an English-style saddle, one hand on the pommel while the other holds the reins. Gabriel has a leather lead attached to the pony's bit, and he is murmuring quiet instructions as he leads them in a circle.

"I got to ride without the lead line," Cecelia announces proudly.

"Good job." I smile at her, glancing over briefly before looking back at Gabriel. He looks devastatingly handsome in jeans and a black t-shirt, his tanned, muscled arms exposed, and his dark hair tousled around his face. All of his focus is on Danny, and I watch as he stops the pony, moving to Danny's side to adjust his feet in the stirrups.

The sight of it makes my chest ache. I've never seen any man who is as good of a father as Gabriel is. Patient, loving, kind—stern when he needs to be but never too much. I feel that wave of regret again that I've felt before, wishing that Gabriel could have been the man I was engaged to, instead of Pyotr. That he could have been the one to show me everything from the very start, to be my only experience of men in this world. I could have skipped all the trauma and hurt if I'd been given to him—or to someone like him.

But my experience is that there are very few men like him in the world at all.

He glances over, and I see the sudden tension in him when he sees me standing there, the tightness in his jaw, the way his eyes quickly rake over me before he regains his composure. He leads the pony over towards where I'm standing next to Cecelia, and I catch a glimpse of the broad smile on Danny's face. It's clear that both children are loving this.

"I didn't expect to see you out here." Gabriel's voice is cool, even, betraying nothing. But the way his eyes darken ever so slightly, the way he looks at me, tells me exactly what he's thinking. So soon after what happened between us, it's hard for him to hide his reaction to me. That knowledge gives me a flush of pleasure, a heady sense of power that startles me. Similarly to the way I liked the feeling of him losing control in the library, it feels good to know that I'm affecting him now.

"I was out for a run, and I saw you. I wanted to get a closer look." I realize how the words sound the moment they're out of my mouth, but I can't take them back. I almost wish I could, when I see the muscle tick in Gabriel's jaw. He caught the unintentional innuendo there, that much is for sure.

"I brought them out here for riding lessons." His voice is still cool, seemingly unaffected, but I know better. I can see the way he's gripping the edge of the railing near where he's standing, and heat washes over my skin, remembering him gripping the bookshelf next to my head. The hard, rhythmic thrust of his hips against mine, the way he sent me over the edge so easily. "We have bigger horses. I can teach you too, if you like."

Much like what I said, I don't think he meant to insinuate anything—and yet when his eyes meet mine as he says it, that rush of heat hits me again. My stomach twists, butterflies fluttering through me at an alarming rate, and I swallow hard.

"I should probably learn how to drive, first," I manage, forcing a weak smile to my lips. A breeze blows past, fluttering my hair around my face and kicking up dust around us, and I see Gabriel's hand twitch as his eyes flick to the pieces of hair clinging to my cheeks.

I want him to touch me. If we were alone, I don't think he'd be able to stop, and a dozen different scenarios, each one more lurid than the last, flash through my imagination in an instant.

Gabriel clears his throat, wrapping the leather lead around his hand and taking a step back. "Tell Agnes I'll have the kids up soon to clean up before dinner," he says, clicking his tongue at the pony as he walks away. Danny nearly bounces in the saddle, gleeful at taking another turn around the paddock, and I bite my lip, unable to tear my eyes away from Gabriel for a moment. His dark hair, curling at the nape of his neck, sticking lightly to it with sweat. The flex of his muscles along his broad back. A shiver runs through me, and I turn away, ignoring the steady throb of heat in my veins and the fluttering in my chest as I start back up the path to the house, breaking into a jog partway there.

I can run away from the moment. But I can't run from Gabriel himself—or how he makes me feel.

And I don't know that I want to.