Fallen (Seven Deadly Sins #2)(80)
Author: Erin McCarthy

It was all good. She was going to talk to him, express the concerns she still had about the murders, ask him all her many questions about who and what he was, and make him an offer.

Hopefully it would be one he couldn’t refuse.

Gabriel lay on his living room floor staring at the ceiling. There was a vicious crack up there he’d never noticed. Interesting that he and the building, this apartment, had existed together in New Orleans through a hundred and fifty years. Through addiction, murder, hurricanes, they had survived, and they had both changed so very little. There was a defiance to them now, a stubbornness to stand stronger and sturdier in the face of such small expectations from the world, to be exactly as they pleased. Or maybe that was just him.

Or more likely still that he needed to stop working sixteen-hour days and roaming around the Quarter for hours on end. It wasn’t really all that normal to be lying on the floor, but it felt good. He felt good. He had just wanted to stretch out while he edited the first three chapters of his manuscript, so he had printed them out and read them above his head, enjoying the hardwood pressing into his spine, forcing his muscles to relax. Eventually he had stopped reading and had taken to just staring at the ceiling, just thinking.

He was pleased with his progress on the book. The first draft was written. Since it was going to be his last true crime book, he wanted it to be solid, something he and Sara could both be satisfied with. And the sooner he was done, the sooner he would have a legitimate reason to contact Sara, which he really wanted to do. He wanted desperately to hear her voice, just to talk, but he had to give her the space she needed.

Even if it sucked.

There was a knock on his door. Probably his landlord. He had been hanging around the building for two days overseeing some repairs.

“Come in,” Gabriel called, no intention of getting up. He was extremely comfortable on the floor.

The door opened and he heard, “Gabriel?”

It was Sara. He whipped his head to the side and saw her standing in his doorway, smiling tentatively. It was really her, Sara, standing in his doorway and wearing jeans. He’d never seen her wear jeans before, and he liked the way the denim showed off her legs. Her hair was up in a bouncy ponytail, her skin fresh and clear, the shadows under her eyes lighter. She seemed to have gained about five pounds, and overall she looked very healthy. The best he’d ever seen her. She looked amazing.

“Sara,” he said, unable to prevent a smile from breaking out on his face. Damn, it was so good to see her. He had missed her intensely.

Yet her smile was fading as she looked at him, glanced around the room. “Are you okay? Why are you lying on the floor?” She stepped over an empty pizza box. “And it looks like you’ve stopped cleaning since I left.”

That was probably true. He sat upright and drew his knees up, surveying the room with its many piles of papers, laundry, and food wrappers. “I’m a disgusting pig when I’m writing a book. It’s just part of my process.”

“Part of your process is to stop taking out the trash?” She picked up the pizza box and three soft drink cans and walked into the kitchen.

“Yep.” He stood up and shook his hair off his face.

She reappeared empty-handed and gave him a smile, gazing up at him from under her eyelashes. Pointing to his shirt, she said, “And you stop doing laundry?”

Glancing down, he realized there was chocolate on his T-shirt. “Yep.” Then because chocolate and pizza boxes and papers didn’t matter when he was faced with her in front of him, in the flesh, he reached out and touched her arm with just one finger, sliding it down her warm, smooth skin. “I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you, babe, a lot.”

The softness in her eyes and the wide, genuine smile were both reassuring. “I missed you, too.”

It wasn’t enough, to say those words, it didn’t even begin to encompass what he meant. How could he explain that while he had been doing so well, working so hard, and reaching outside of himself for the first time in years, he had missed her? That he thought about her every day, that he longed to hear her voice, smell her cinnamon scent, touch her soft skin and hair. That he ached with want and loneliness to just see her, be with her, feel her. Words weren’t enough, would never be specific or emotional enough to convey the depth of his love, his passion, his yearning for her.

She stepped in closer to him, dropping her purse onto the floor. Gabriel stood still, wondering how close she would get, aching to touch her, to take her in his arms and feel her body, her skin, her hair, her very existence. He wanted to own the right to hold her, to know that when she walked into a room, her connection was to him, that no matter who she was with or what she did, her relationship with him was the most important in her life.

Moving in alongside of him, she brushed his hair off his shoulder and murmured in his ear. “Don’t worry, I know you can’t touch me.” Her lips ran along his jaw, a gentle caress. “I just want to be near you. I want to love you. I want to be with you.”

Longing, intense and worse than any need for absinthe had ever been, arose in him, and he couldn’t prevent himself from leaning his head back, moving away, needing space before he grabbed and took, and through his weakness ruined the beauty of who Sara was and what they shared. “I love you too, Sara, in ways that I can’t even describe. I look at you and I can’t believe that I can feel this much for someone.”

He wanted to say more, needed to remind her that what he wanted and what he had to do were two separate things, but Sara stopped him.

“You don’t have to say it,” she said. “I know. I’m here knowing it. It’s okay, for now. I want to be with you and see where it takes us.”

An unpleasant thought suddenly flooded over him. Maybe she was back because she had made love to him in Florida. Maybe she had returned because she had to have him, because compulsion had demanded she be with him. “Was this a choice? Or were you driven to be here?” He didn’t know how else to ask without insulting her.

Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re asking if I’m going to beg like Rochelle or those other women, the answer is a big fat no. I won’t beg to be with you. I love you, I want to move in with you, but you’re never going to hear pleading coming from my lips. If you don’t want me or this, I’ll go back to Florida and I’ll move on. I’ll be perfectly fine.”

Apparently he had insulted her anyway. The longer she spoke, the feistier her words became, and Gabriel tried not to grin at her. It was a relief to hear her getting offended at the very idea of begging him for anything. And he knew she would go on without him. She was a survivor.