Free Robin Schone by Gabriel's Woman Page B

do.”
    Another truth. Gabriel had not planned on an accomplice who entered his house on the pretext of
    auctioning off her body.
    He had not planned on finding a woman who would not judge him.
    To mak e up for everything he endured.
    “Is the woman alive?” Michael asked, eyes sharp.
    “When I left her a few minutes ago, yes,” Gabriel said.
    But for how long?
    “Is she a whore?”
    Gabriel fought down a spurt of anger. “No.”
    Victoria was not a whore. Whores did not offer everything, their life, their pain, their pleasure.
    “Is she a virgin?”
    “Yes.” The scent of chocolate coated Gabriel’s tongue. “She’s a virgin.”

    “And how would you know that, Gabriel?” whipped the air between them. “Did you touch her?”
    Pain . ..
    Gabriel did not want to feel pain.
    I don’t want to want. . .
    “You know I didn’t, Michael,” Gabriel said deliberately, calmly, every sense attuned to the woman in the
    adjoining room and the man who confronted him. “You know exactly how long it’s been since I’ve touched
    anyone.”
    Any moment now Victoria would open the door ...
    Would she, too, prefer violet eyes over gray? he wondered remotely.
    The jealousy the thought engendered took him by surprise.
    The second man had sent her to Gabriel, not Michael. He didn’t want her to choose a dark-haired angel
    over him.
    Gabriel wanted what Michael had, a woman who would accept his past and the needs of a male whore.
    A muscle ticked inside his jaw, heat building, pressure growing.
    If Michael did not step back . . .
    Michael did not step back.
    “She knows that you were sold for two thousand, six hundred and sixty-four francs,” he persisted.
    The equivalent to one hundred and five English pounds.
    “She knows,” Gabriel agreed, muscles coiling tighter. Preparing to act or to react.
    To kill or to run.
    But there was nowhere to run.
    “The second man sent her to you.”
    Gabriel did not deny the obvious. “Yes.”
    “Why does he want to kill you, Gabriel?” Michael asked provocatively.
    Gabriel knew what Michael was doing: he had used the same pattern on Victoria. Aggression.
    Seduction.
    He held perfectly still, breathing the scent of Michael’s breath, caged by the heat of Michael’s body.
    Trapped by the truth.
    “He wants to kill me,” Gabriel said coolly, “because he knows that if he doesn’t, I will kill him.”
    The truth but not the whole truth.
    “Did the woman touch you, Gabriel?”
    Gabriel stiffened, knowing where Michael’s questioning was headed, unable to stop it. “No.”
    “Six months ago you touched me.”
    Shared memories flickered between them.
    Scarred flesh. Cool lips.
    Crimson blood.
    “What would you do, Gabriel, if I touched you?” Michael asked softly.
    Shatter.
    Gabriel would shatter if Michael touched him.
    And one of them would die.
    Perhaps both of them would die.
    Michael had not killed; that did not mean he was not capable of doing so.
    “Don’t play this game, mon frere,” Gabriel said tightly.
    “But it is a game, mon ami,” Michael said caressingly. “You have searched for the second man for
    almost fifteen years. And in all that time you have not been able tofind him. Why would he hunt you down
    now in fear of his life?”
    “Perhaps he is tired of running.”
    As Gabriel was tired of running.
    Time physically ticked away—inside his cheek, inside his hands. Counting down the seconds until the
    woman barged through the door and chose a dark-haired angel over a fair-haired one.
    Until Michael touched Gabriel.
    Until Gabriel killed Michael.
    And he shattered.
    “I don’t think so,” Michael said gently.
    “What don’t you think, Michael?” Gabriel asked, suffocating on the scent of chocolate.
    “I don’t think he’s tired of running.” The violet eyes were too knowledgeable. “I don’t think he’s ever
    run from you, Gabriel.”

    “Then tell me why you think he came tonight,” Gabriel murmured enticingly, playing the game.
    It had