Page 137 of Black
When he spoke it was softly muffled against my hair. “I still love you and I always will.”
That made me hide my face against his chest and give in to my tears. I’d felt so hurt and rejected by him, and now that I was beginning to see both sides of the story, I was overwhelmed with the stupidity of my stubbornness.
He pulled back to look at me. “I know you think I only love you when you act and look a certain way, but it’s not true. My love for you is unconditional…”
“How can you say that and at the same time say you don’t like me as Black?” I asked in a brittle voice.
He kissed me on my hair. “Don’t confuse my sexual desire with my love. I’ll always love you, even when you have a cold and your eyes are puffy and your nose is running, but I probably won’t feel sexually attracted to you in that moment though.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Of course not.”
“It’s the same with the Goth costume. I love you but seeing you in that black gear is a turn-off.”
“But if I chose to go back to wearing black, would you still love me?”
“I would, but our relationship would suffer, because I would feel rejected by you.”
“Why?”
“I already explained that to you. So who do you want to be… Cia or Black?”
I looked down at myself. I hadn’t dressed as Black since that night, nor had I wanted to.
“Maybe the two aren’t opposites in my mind. I’m wearing a black dress now,” I said. “You got a problem with that?”
He slid his hand down my arm. “No, it’s very feminine and you look beautiful.”
“Good, because I won’t let anyone dictate how I dress,” I told him.
“Hey, you can dress any way you want. You’ll just get a different reaction from me.”
“Because you’re imperfect,” I said dryly.
“If you call being male imperfect, then yeah…”
“Are you saying all males are visual?”
A smile lurked at the corner of Gabriel’s mouth. “I’m sure it’s just a male thing. Because as we all know, women never try to make their men wear certain things or complain about men in sandals and white socks.”
I tilted my head. “Very funny… I see your point: so we’re all visual to some extent.”
“Yup… and I honestly don’t care if you dress in sweat pants and a ponytail… in fact I like your natural beauty… but when you hide it behind that black armor it makes my dick shrink.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Hey, just keeping it real,” he said and picked a leaf from a branch close to us.
“Did you sleep with the blonde?” I asked out of the blue.
“No.” Gabriel pointed back over his shoulder. “Do you want me to open the trunk so you can ask her yourself?
I stuck my tongue out. “I still think it was wrong of you to kidnap me.”
He raised both palms. “Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. I had to do something, and besides – you should see it as a sign of my devotion to you that I’m willing to become a criminal to prove my love to you.”
I didn’t think before I caressed his face. “Is that what this was about? You proving your love to me?”
“Yes, Cia… this is me telling you that I still want to share my future with you.” He took my hand and kissed it. “If you’ll spend your time with someone as flawed, and judgmental, and imperfect as me.”
Gabriel had asked me to marry him before and I had never really committed to him. My hands were shaking, my chest was heaving, and I was seeing spots in front of my eyes. But none of it could distract me from the intensity in Gabriel’s eyes that spoke of unconditional love for me – something that I had always wanted. Life was reaching out an olive branch to me; all I had to do was reach out and accept it.
