Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,291

a newspaper article?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she believed you?”

“She wants out of Selinsgrove. She wants to be Simon’s official girlfriend and hang on his arm at political events in Washington. She isn’t going to do anything to jeopardize that.”

“Doesn’t she have all that now?”

“Natalie is Simon’s dirty little secret. Which is why it took me so long to figure out he was fucking her.”

Gabriel winced. Julia didn’t use profanity often, and when she did, it was jarring.

“Look at me.” He pressed his forearms into the mattress on either side of her shoulders.

She looked up into concerned blue eyes.

“I’m sorry he hurt you. I’m also sorry I didn’t do more damage to his face when I had the chance. But I can’t say I’m sorry he went after your roommate. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here with me.”

He kissed her, his hand tracing the curve of her neck until she sighed contentedly into his mouth.

“You are my sticky little leaf. My beautiful, sad, sticky little leaf, and I want to see you happy and whole. I’m sorry for every tear I’ve made you shed. I hope that someday you’ll be able to forgive me.”

She hid her face in the crook of his shoulder as she clutched him closer. Her hands explored his body until they were one. The silent air of her tiny studio was broken only by heavy breathing and muffled pants and her own voice moaning to a fevered pitch.

It was a subtle language—this shared language of lovers: the reciprocation of sigh and groan, anticipation growing and feeding until groans became cries and cries became sighs once more. Gabriel’s body covered hers completely, a delicious weight of man and sweat and naked skin upon naked skin.

This was the joy that the world sought—sacred and pagan all at once. A union between two dissimilars into a seamless one. A picture of love and deep satisfaction. An ecstatic glimpse of the beatific vision.

Before Gabriel withdrew from her, he pressed one more kiss to her cheek. “Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Forgive me for deceiving you about Paulina. For taking advantage of her.”

“I can’t forgive you on her behalf. Only she can do that.” Julia chewed at her bottom lip. “Now, more than ever, you need to see that she gets help so she can move on with her life. You owe her that.”

He wanted to say something, but somehow the strength of her goodness silenced him.

Chapter 14

As the semester unfolded, Julia was under tremendous pressure to complete her thesis, and Katherine Picton was pushing her to submit chapters more quickly. Quicker chapters would make it easier to speak more specifically about Julia’s abilities to Greg Matthews, the Chair of the Department of Romance Languages at Harvard, should he follow up on her reference letter.

Julia couldn’t concentrate when Gabriel was around. Her voice grew soft when she told him why. Something about blue eyes and sexual pyrotechnics and a chemistry that vibrated in the air between them, all of which kept her from focusing on the tasks at hand. Gabriel was extremely flattered.

So the happy couple worked out a compromise. There would be telephone calls and texts and the occasional Gmail, but apart from a lunch or dinner during the week, Julia would stay at her apartment. On Friday afternoons she would arrive at Gabriel’s in order to spend the weekend with him.

One Wednesday evening in mid-January, Julia called Gabriel after her homework was done.

“I had a rough day,” she said, sounding tired.

“What happened?”

“Professor Picton is making me scrap about three-quarters of one of my chapters because she thinks I’m offering a Romanticized version of Dante.”

“Ouch.”

“She hates the Romantics, so you can imagine how annoyed she was. She went on and on about it. She makes me feel stupid.”

“You aren’t stupid.” Gabriel chuckled into the phone. “Professor Picton makes me feel stupid sometimes.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You should have seen me the first time I was summoned to her house. I was more nervous than I was on the day I defended my dissertation. I almost forgot to wear pants.”

Julia laughed. “I can only imagine that a pantless Professor Emerson would be very well received.”

“Thankfully, I didn’t have to find out.”

“Professor Picton told me that ‘my strong work ethic makes up for my occasional lapses in reasoning.’”

“That’s high praise coming from her. She thinks most people fail to reason at all. The way she describes the world today, most people are monkeys who happen to wear clothes. On occasion.”

Julia groaned, rolling onto her stomach. “Would