Even with shadows on her face, I know she’s smiling. “You did call me a tease, didn’t you? Good night, Pascal Dumont.”
“Good night,” I call after her, my voice disappearing in the darkness.
I stare at the bottle in my hands for a moment before I have another drink. I wish she’d stayed out here longer with me. I wish I’d found the balls to kiss her earlier when she was touching me, touching me in ways I’d only dreamed of. I wish a lot of things. It’s very unlike me to be caught off guard, and it’s even more unlike me to hesitate in taking what I want.
But the only way out of this wishing and wanting is at the bottom of the bottle.
I drink most of it sitting alone in the dark in that gazebo, trying so damn hard to drown the turmoil inside me. There’s a shift happening, deep within whatever blackened soul I have, and I don’t know what the shift means.
I just know that it scares me.
And I hate to be scared.
When I’m good and drunk, I stumble back across the lawn and up to my room, where I collapse onto my bed, swept away into the din.
I dream about Gabrielle.
In my dreams, we are back in the gazebo.
This time she’s completely naked, and though it’s dark, she shines bright, like diamonds are lighting her from within.
She unzips my pants, takes my cock out, stiffer and harder than it’s ever been, like she’s grasping hot steel in her hands. Her legs spread as she straddles me and slowly lowers herself until it feels like my world is blown right open, until whatever pixie dust is lighting her up is taking over me.
I run my hands up the soft skin of her sides, staring at her bright and shining, lost in her beauty, in her power, the power I feel running through my veins like I’ve been poured with radioactive dye.
It feels like I have redemption in my hands, slowly grinding herself on me, squeezing my cock until I can’t breathe, until I can’t think.
In my dream, she drives my demons out.
Two days later, I’m standing bleary-eyed in the kitchen, getting my morning coffee when I feel a poke in my side.
I flinch and look to see Gabrielle has sidled up next to me, staring at me with something on her mind.
“Good morning,” I tell her, surprised. “You’re up early. And stealthy.”
She’s not even in her maid uniform yet; instead she’s wearing a loose flannel shirt and black leggings, no doubt some H&M stuff again, but she wears it so well, it could almost be high-end. Maybe it’s because she seems completely comfortable in this, and it feels like I’m seeing a magical creature in her element. Doesn’t hurt that she doesn’t have a lick of makeup on her face, her freckles are popping through, and her platinum hair is long and loose and messy around her shoulders, the faint glow from the sky lighting her up.
She looks so beautiful, it’s catching me off guard as much as the fact that she’s here at this hour. The sun rose only twenty minutes ago.
“I wanted to give you something,” she whispers and then opens my suit jacket, sliding a letter into my inside pocket. I have to fight the impulse to put my hand around her lower back and keep her close to me. Then I have to fight an even greater impulse to not lean down and kiss her. For some reason, it feels like the right thing to do, the only thing to do.
After the dream I had the other night, she’s all I can think about.
I’m becoming a man obsessed.
“Aren’t you curious?” she says softly.
I can barely move my lips, I’m so fixated on hers. “About what?” My words come out thick, and my cock is getting hard.
“About the letter?” she says. “It was under the pile in the hallway. I went through it last night because no one else did. You’re lucky I found it.”
“Did you read it?”
“Yeah, I . . .” She trails off and looks up when she hears footsteps coming from upstairs. “I have to go,” she says, and then she very quickly, very silently scurries away across the kitchen to the back door and then runs to the servants’ house.
Moments later, my father steps into the kitchen and looks around. “Is Jolie here?”
I shrug and take a sip of my coffee. “I haven’t seen