Page 69 of Once Upon a Midnight Dreary
His hands were in her hair next, tangling the locks in his fist.Her breath hitched as he tipped her head back, his lips hovering over hers.
“I waited a lifetime for you and now you’re here,” he murmured against her mouth.
It was no casual phrase.It was his confession, raw and unguarded—the truth of his heart laid bare at last.
Her answer never came.His mouth was on hers.
A kiss steeped in yearning and regret.As if he’d wanted it for far too long.And perhaps he had.
The house stilled around them.Quiet as though holding its breath.She’d lost all sense of time as her eyes fluttered closed and she allowed herself to feel everything about the moment.His lips moved over hers with a tenderness that belied his inner darkness, banishing everything that had haunted him for far too long.And she found herself moving closer to him, wanting to be nearer to him, to feel him.She pressed closer, palm to his chest, feeling the wild hammer of his heart.
His mouth moved from hers to trace a line along her jaw, down her neck, drawing an unguarded sound from her.Her breath, erratic and jarring, see-sawed in and out of her as she clung to him, keeping him close, refusing to let him go.
“This is dangerous,” he murmured against her neck just under her earlobe.
“I don’t care,” she replied.
And she didn’t.She cared nothing for how it would change things between them.Nothing for what it would do to the ghostly apparition that stalked the halls of the manor.None of that mattered now that he held her.He planted one final kiss on her temple and then clutched her to him, his arms encircling her as her head pressed against his chest.
It seemed important to him he hold her.So, she said nothing.Her body relaxed against his.Beneath her ear, the erratic beat of his heart.He wanted this.He wanted her.
She wanted him back.
But she could not envision a life with him.Not the way things were at present.
“Gabriel?”she queried.
“I’ve long avoided telling you,” he said, his voice was low and thick above her head.
“Why?”
“It will change things.You will look at me with loathing and disgust.”
He sounded so forlorn, she pushed away from him, holding him at arm’s length.His eyes were full of sorrow.He looked away from her, as though he could not stand for her to see him as he truly was—a broken man.
“I won’t,” she said.
He rose and stepped away from her, standing with his rigid back to her.“You will.”
She took a deep, calming breath, expelled it.“Perhaps you let me decide for myself, Gabriel.”
He looked at her over his shoulder, surprised at her candor.His brows rose.
“I’m not afraid,” she added.
A smile then.One corner of his mouth.She had never seen him smile.“You never were.”
She patted the seat next to her in invitation.He hesitated, the silence stretching between them.Finally, he moved to sit next to her.Close.Taking her hand in his, as though he needed her strength.She gave it to him willingly.
“My solitude here…it wasn’t entirely self-imposed.Your father knew I was in the house.”
The words jarred through her like ice water.“My father?”
“He found me years ago in the west wing.He saw the altar, the remnants of what Lenore had done.He knew I couldn’t leave…that I was bound here.He wanted me gone anyway.We argued.He feared I’d harm you.”
“But you didn’t,” she said, thinking of the garden—the way he’d shielded her.
“No.I stayed away.But when you and your parents arrived, Lenore grew restless.She watched you.She hated that you lived and Lily did not.”
