Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,82

that kind of music anymore, okay? No more Lacrimosa or Nine Inch Nails. Walk out of the darkness and toward the light.”

“Where’s the light?” he mumbled.

Julia exhaled deeply. “Why do you drink so much?”

“To forget,” he said, closing his eyes and resting back on the pillow.

With his eyes closed, she was able to admire him. She surmised that he would have been sweet-looking as a teenager—all big sapphire eyes and kissable lips and sexy brown hair. He might have been shy instead of angry or sad. He might have been noble and good. If Julia and he had been closer in age, he might have kissed her on her father’s porch, taken her to the prom, and made love to her for the first time on a blanket under the stars, in the old orchard behind his parents’ house. She might have been his first, in some more perfect universe.

Julia contemplated how much pain a human soul, her soul, could bear without shriveling completely, and she turned to go. A warm hand darted out to catch her.

“Don’t leave me,” he breathed. His eyes were only half open, and they pleaded with her. “Please, Julianne.”

He knew who she was, but somehow he still wanted her to stay. And the way his eyes and his voice grew desperate…she could not deny him when he looked like that.

She wrapped her hand in his and sat beside him again. “I’m not going to leave you. Just sleep now. There’s light all around you. So much light.”

A smiled played on his perfect lips, and she heard him sigh; the grip with which he held her hand loosened. She took a deep breath, held it, and ghosted a finger over his eyebrows. When he didn’t flinch or open his eyes, she softly stroked them, one by one. Her mother had done this when Julia wasn’t able to sleep as a child. But that was ever so long ago, long before her mother neglected her in order to pursue other, more important interests.

Gabriel was still smiling, and so Julia bravely moved her hand to his hair. Feeling the unruly strands running though her fingers reminded her of a day she’d spent on a farm in Tuscany during her year abroad. An Italian boy had taken her out to a field, and they had walked together, her hand floating over the tops of the grasses. Gabriel’s hair was feather light and soft against her hand, like the whispering Italian grass.

She began to stroke his hair, the way Grace must have done at one time. He allowed her fingertips to trail down the side of his face, tracing his angular jaw and rubbing gently against his stubble. She touched the merest hint of a dimple in his chin and began to move the back of her hand against his high and noble cheekbones. She would never again be this close to him; if he were awake, he wouldn’t let her. He’d have bitten her hand, she was sure, and gone for her throat.

His perfect chest rose and fell with his now regular breathing. He seemed to have fallen asleep.

She stared at his neck, the muscles in his shoulders and the tops of his arms, his collarbone, and the tops of his pectorals. If he had been pale, he would have looked like a Roman statue carved in cold, white marble. But the merest hint of a tan left over from the summer made his skin glow almost gold in the lamplight.

Julia pressed a kiss against two of her fingers and placed those fingers tenderly against his slightly parted lips. “Ti amo, Dante. Eccomi Beatrice. I love you, Dante. Here I am, Beatrice.”

Just then, Gabriel’s telephone rang.

She jumped in surprise. The phone was ringing very loudly. Gabriel was beginning to move, the horrible noise piercing his rest. So Julia answered it.

“Hello?”

“Who the hell is this?” a woman’s voice, shocked and shrill, demanded.

“This is Gabriel Emerson’s residence. Who is this?”

“This is Paulina. Put Gabriel on the phone!”

Julia’s heart thudded twice and skipped a beat before beginning to race. She stood up, taking the cordless receiver with her, and walked into the bathroom, closing the door.

“He can’t come to the phone right now. Is it an emergency?”

“What do you mean he can’t? Tell him it’s Paulina and I want to speak to him.”

“Um, he’s indisposed.”

“Indisposed? Listen, you little slut, roll Gabriel over and put the phone in his hand. I’m calling from the—”

“He can’t talk to you right now. Please call back