it could just as easily have been Mademoiselle Childers’s head if we had not protected her.”

Gaston came just as Evan left with the first load of boxes.

“What is wrong, monsieur?” he asked, puzzled. “Did not mademoiselle care for the clothes?”

Gabriel held out the glove box.

Gaston’s olive-brown face turned gray.

“When did the clothes arrive, Gaston?” Gabriel asked calmly.

“They arrived just before you did, monsieur.”

“Who delivered them?”

“
Je ne sais pas.
A man. Just”—horror momentarily creased his face—”the boxes were from Madame

René. I did not know, monsieur.”

Gabriel believed him.

He could warn Gaston to check any more boxes that were delivered to the house. There was no need

to.

The second man would not repeat a trick.

He wanted to tell Gaston what to look out for in the future. But Gabriel did not know what the second

man would do next.

He did not know who he would kill next: a man or a woman.

A friend or a foe.

“Give this to Evan,” Gabriel said instead. “And have Julien guard the door in Evan’s place.”

“Très bein,
monsieur.” Gaston turned around.

“And Gaston.”

Gaston paused.

Gabriel glanced at the pale blue silk spread lying across the carpet where it had slid off of Victoria’s

body.

“Take the silk bedcover with you.”

Gabriel silently padded across his office, his bedroom, halted in front of the massive armoire. Opening the

door, he rifled through coats, trousers .. . He grabbed a royal blue silk robe. It clung to his fingers like a

woman’s hair.

Victoria sat on the cold tile in front of the toilet, spine erect, face drained of color. Her hair fell over her

right shoulder.

She had dark brunette hair that shimmered with red and copper highlights.

Beautiful hair.

“Her name was Dolly,” Victoria said dully.

Gabriel’s hand fisted the silk robe.

There was nothing he could do to comfort her. But he wanted to.

The anger inside him kicked up another notch.

The second man had planned everything. And there was nothing he could do to halt the game.

But he wanted to.

“Three months ago a man tried to me,” Victoria continued in the same shock-dulled voice. “It was

raining. Dolly helped me. Everyone else just walked by, umbrellas lowered so they wouldn’t see what was

happening.”

Gabriel tensed; a pulse suddenly pounded inside his left temple.

He knew who had accosted Victoria—he knew everything about him save his name and the extent he

would go to fulfill a dead man’s will.

“What did the man look like?” he asked, voice deceptively calm.

Victoria was not deceived. Realization flowed across her drawn features.

“The man you are looking for,” she visibly swallowed, “he paid Dolly to save me that night.”

And then he had killed Dolly. Just as he would kill Victoria.

She read the truth in Gabriel’s eyes.

“I found the first letter underneath my door the next morning,” Victoria said convulsively.

Gabriel waited for her to piece together the puzzle.

Comprehension sparked inside her shock-dulled eyes; the spark left, leaving behind the comprehension.

“I’m sorry,” she said with the calm that only comes after witnessing violent death. There was no hunger

inside her eyes, no desire for an angel’s touch. “He grabbed me from behind. I never saw his face. But it

doesn’t matter, does it? He will kill me. That is why he gave Dolly the tablets for me to use, is it not? He

will kill anyone who comes into contact with him. Won’t he?”

Gabriel wouldn’t lie. “Yes.”

“You talked to Mr. Thornton today.”

“Yes.”

Gabriel’s muscles coiled tighter, knowing the course of her thoughts, knowing there was only one

conclusion she could draw.

“Mr. Thornton was alive.”

Victoria voiced Gabriel’s fears.

“But if he or his wife were associated with this man you are seeking, they would be dead, wouldn’t

they?”

But if they weren’t associated with the second man, then Victoria was being pursued by two men, her

eyes said.

The second man wanted to kill her. What did the other man want?

“Fear,” Victoria whispered.

Gabriel strained to hear her, to comfort her. “What?”

“You said he sent me to you because of my eyes.”

Hungry eyes.

Sharp pain twisted inside Gabriel’s gut. “Yes.”

“No.” Victoria stared down into the porcelain bowl; Gabriel stared down at her bowed head. “He didn’t

choose me because of my eyes.”

Gabriel fought to distance himself.

You don’t k now me,
Victoria had accused him.

But he did know her. He knew her, and he wanted her.

“Then why do you think he chose you?” Gabriel asked, voice strained.

Victoria raised her head and met his gaze. “He chose me because I was afraid. And because you were

afraid.”

They were still afraid.

Awareness glimmered underneath the fear and the shock inside Victoria’s eyes. “You said fear is a

powerful aphrodisiac.”

The wire inside Gabriel coiled tighter.

. Murder.

Fear
was
an aphrodisiac. Through , men and women had the power to create new life. A final

victory over death.

“I’m cold,” Victoria said suddenly.

Her s quivered.

She was trembling.

Thornton had trembled in his fear; Gabriel had felt only contempt. Victoria trembled in her fear; Gabriel

wanted to weep for the pain he had brought her.

He did not weep.

Angels didn’t cry.

Her bottom lip quavered. “I don’t think I will ever be warm again.”

Gabriel had the power to warm her.

Knees trembling, he entered the bathroom.

Copper gleamed; the mirror sparkled.

The walls closed around him.

Victoria stared up at him. Not expecting warmth. Comfort.

Gabriel stepped behind her, unable to look into her eyes.

Victoria didn’t blame him for the he had been. The danger he had placed her in. The carnal

comfort he didn’t give her.

Gabriel wished that she did blame him.

He hunkered down, knees spread wide on either side of her back; her hair glistened like a dark waterfall.

Slowly, carefully, he draped the silk robe over her shoulders. Feeling her warmth and fragility; inhaling her

femininity and her vulnerability.

Almost touching, not quite daring.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he murmured.

They both knew he lied.

Gabriel couldn’t stop the second man. All he could do was try to find the second man before he found a

way to get Victoria.

Chapter
14

Yellow fog embraced London like the arms of a possessive lover. A hansom cab cautiously

maneuvered through the coal smoke-induced haze that was the price of human life.

They would be dead, wouldn’t they?
the horse’s hooves clacked.
They would be dead, wouldn‘t

they?

And they would be dead,
if
they were associated with the second man.

But the Thorntons weren’t dead.

And Gabriel didn’t know why.

Dull light shone through the sulfur-laden night like warning beacons.

Gabriel had not needed Victoria to describe the interior layout of the Thornton house; Peter Thornton had

done so in great detail. What Gabriel had needed to know was if he could trust Victoria.

She could be trusted, unlike Gabriel.

He leaned against the metal park gate, watching the town house windows that were brighter than the

fog. And thought of Victoria.

She had lived with the Thorntons as their servant. She had tended their children as their governess.

A downstairs window dimmed, was swallowed by the yellow mist. Another missing piece.

Fear.

He didn’t choose me because of my eyes . . . He chose me because I was afraid. And because you

were afraid. Fear is a powerful aphrodisiac.

An upstairs window suddenly lit up the fog, a revelation.

Victoria did not want to desire a man’s touch. Yet she did.

Gabriel did not want to desire a woman’s touch. Yet he did.

It was his desire that warranted Victoria’s death, not hers.

The golden eye that was the porch light dimmed, died.

Gabriel motionlessly watched the upstairs window. Time crawled on its belly.

Was Victoria asleep? Gabriel wondered. Was she warm?

Did she still desire to be touched by an angel?

Why were the Thorntons still alive?

The upstairs window dimmed, disappeared into the fog and the night. The last member of the Thornton

household had retired.

Gabriel waited until Big Ben pealed twelve times. Silently he crossed the street to the Thornton town

house.

The front door opened soundlessly.

Thornton had upheld his part of the bargain.

In the end it had not been violence that had persuaded Peter Thornton to assist Gabriel; it had been the

fear of scandal. He had threatened to send the information about the governesses to
The London Times.

Gabriel allowed his eyes time to adjust to the darkness inside the town house. Furniture loomed like silent

sentries: a table, a chair... There was a doorway on the right; on the left... there were the stairs . . .

A step sharply creaked.

Yellow-tinged darkness yawned before him.

Gabriel froze, breath arrested, left hand gripping the knob of his cane.

He did not want to kill, but he would.

He did not want to take Victoria, and he knew he would do that, too.

No one stirred.

More carefully, Gabriel stole up the remaining steps. He turned left into more darkness.

A wool runner muffled his footsteps.

He could feel Thornton in his bedchamber at the end of the hallway; the man tensely wondered when

Gabriel would enter. He did not realize that Gabriel was only thirty feet away.

Gabriel could feel nothing from Mary Thornton—no fear, no challenge.

No awareness.

Silently he opened a wooden door blackened by night.

The room smelled of coal smoke and a woman’s expensive perfume. Red embers glowed inside a white

marble fireplace; white and blue flames danced over ash-whitened coals.

Thornton’s wife slept undisturbed inside a canopied bed.

A brass lamp gleamed on the nightstand; beside it, liquid sparkled inside a crystal carafe. A small bottle,

more shadow than substance, sat beside an empty water glass.

Gabriel silently cursed.

The woman’s sleep was laudanum-induced. Had Thornton warned her?...

Gabriel remembered the man’s eager betrayal and the ammonia smell of urine.

Peter Thornton cared more for his reputation than his family. He would not have warned his wife.

He gently closed the door behind him; a soft click sounded over the hungry snap of burning coals.

Mary Thornton slept in a silk and lace negligee. Shadow-darkened blond hair trailed across a stark white

pillowcase.

The darkness did not hide the fact that Mary Thornton was an attractive woman. Gabriel was not

attracted to her.

Slowly he pulled the bedcovers up to her shoulders and stealthily tucked the sides underneath the

mattress. He followed the bed rail along the side, the foot. Soundlessly padding around the bed, he pulled

the covers up to the height of the pillow and tucked them tightly underneath the mattress from head to foot.

Pulling off his wool knitted cap, he stuffed it into his coat pocket. Twisting the silver knob on his cane, he

pulled out the short sword.

Razor sharp steel glinted in the firelight.

Kneeling by the bed beside the head of Thornton’s wife, Gabriel gently laid the scabbard on the floor to

free his right hand.

“Mary,” he whispered seductively. “Mary, wake up.”

Strawberry red highlights glinted off her blond hair. She did not respond.

It would take more than whispers to wake her.

Gabriel raised his right hand to his mouth; teeth sinking into his leather glove, he slid his hand free and

pocketed the glove. Standing, he picked up the crystal carafe off the nightstand and poured water into the

empty glass. Sitting down on the bed, thigh securing the covers holding down her shoulders, he dipped his

fingers into the glass. Slowly he dribbled water onto her face.

“Mary,” he crooned. “Wake up, Mary.”

She turned her face away from him to escape the dripping water. “Hmm ...”

Gabriel once again dipped his fingers into the glass.

“Mary, wake up.” A silver drop of water splattered her cheek; she instinctively turned back toward him.

Gently he positioned the edge of the blade against while he continued to dribble water onto her

face. “Wake up, Mary ...”

Delicate eyelids fluttered open.

Mary stared blankly up at him.

Gabriel knew what she saw: she saw an angel with a halo of silver hair.

She saw an assassin.

He pressed the sword edge so that she could feel the prick of cold steel.

Her eyes widened. Realization glittered inside them.

Her body was trapped beneath the covers; she could not move. She opened to scream.

Gabriel grabbed the pillow beside her.

He could stifle her screams. Or he could suffocate her.

And there was nothing she could do.

Mary knew it. Gabriel knew it.

“I know what you’ve done, Mary,” he murmured softly. “Do you think it’s wise to scream?”

For long seconds she stared up at him, mouth open. Her jaw audibly clamped shut.

“Who are you?” she snapped.

There was no recognition in her eyes. No knowledge of the untouchable angel.

“I am a man who can slit your throat and leave you to die.” He allowed the truth of his words to sink

into her consciousness. “Or I can let you live.”

Anger. Fear.

Gabriel waited to see which emotion was the stronger in Mary Thornton.

“How did you get inside?” she whispered angrily.

“Your husband let me in.” There was no need to lie. “It was easier that way.”

Mary Thornton did not seem surprised at her husband’s betrayal. “What do you want?”

“I want,” Gabriel murmured provocatively, “your blood”—he nicked her slender white throat; liquid

black shadows beaded in the firelight—”but I will settle for information. Who do you pander for, Mary?”

Mary did not move. Her very stillness screamed her guilt.

“If you hurt me, my husband will go to the police.”

“Then I will kill him, too,” Gabriel said playfully. The fear and the anger crowding him grew.

Mary Thornton was alive.

But she shouldn’t
be
alive.

“I do not pander for anyone,” Mary denied.

Unlike Peter Thornton, she would not beg.

Unlike Victoria Childers, her bravado did not inspire Gabriel’s admiration.

Mary Thornton was a society who preyed on the weaknesses of those less fortunate than herself.

She had preyed on Victoria Childers.

“Tell me who wrote the letters, Mary.”

“I don’t know.” Mary Thornton convulsively wriggled to break free of the imprisoning covers; she

couldn’t. “Let me up this instant!”

“I know you’re lying, Mary.” Gabriel’s eyes were cold and deadly; his voice was deceptively seductive.

“Tell me who wrote the letters and I’ll let you up. Was it a lover?”

Mary stilled. “I do not have a lover.”

“My condolences,” Gabriel said sympathetically.

Mary was not fooled either by his seductiveness or his sympathy. “Why are you here?”

“You have been careless,
madame.
You shouldn’t have hired so many governesses through West

Employment Agency.”

The lingering horror of waking at knifepoint mutated to genuine fear.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Mary lied.

Women like Mary Thornton played with death, but there were worse things than death to women like

Mary Thornton.

“Imagine if there were an investigation,” Gabriel said lightly. “So many governesses for so few children.

What would the investigation yield, I wonder? Pandering. ion. Murder .. .”

“We did not murder. . .”

Mary realized her mistake the moment the words were out of .

Gabriel smiled. There was no pleasure in it.

Had Victoria known how much pleasure he had derived from her unabashed eagerness over the new

clothing?

Had she known that he had ached for her innocence, that she could still be horrified by death?

“Who is
we,
Mary?” Gabriel asked caressingly. “A lover?”

“We have hurt no one,” Mary Thornton said angrily.

“I’m sure others would feel differently. Take Victoria Childers, for example. She feels that she has been

hurt. . .”

“We did not hurt her,” the woman repeated stubbornly.

But she would have.

“Who do you pander for, Mary?”
The man who wrote the letters? The second man?
“I think seeing

your name in
The Times
would hurt you more than if I slit your throat. Shall I go to the papers?”

Mary’s ruination flashed through her eyes.

Society would shun her. Friends would snub her. Banks could foreclose on mortgages. Business

acquaintances could call in IOUs.

“Will your lover help you, Mary?” Gabriel crooned.

In the end her husband would have no choice but to divorce her.

“Will your husband keep you?”

No
and
no,
her eyes said.

She would lose her lover.

She would lose her reputation.

Mary Thornton would lose everything that made life worthwhile to a woman such as her.

“What is worth more, Mary? This”—he rubbed the silk pillow against her cheek—”or your lover?”

He was not surprised at the answer in her eyes.

Gabriel had ed women like Mary. She was loyal to herself alone.

He had never ed a woman like Victoria. She had protected a e who would have killed her, a

father who had emotionally abused her, and a brother who had abandoned her.

Defeat danced in Mary Thornton’s eyes like flame skimming over burning coals.

“His name is Mitchell,” she said bitterly. “Mitchell Delaney.”

Gabriel had never heard of the man. But he knew the type.

Some men preyed on fear. Some men preyed on innocence.

Some men hunted to kill. Some men hunted to .

Men like the second man preyed on both fear and innocence; hunted to kill and to . Did Mitchell

Delaney?

A picture of Victoria Childers flashed through his mind’s eye.

She was alone. She was afraid.

Victoria was not an idle woman. She would seek distraction.

Mary Thornton’s expensive perfume engulfed him.

Gabriel suddenly knew where Victoria would seek distraction. And he knew that she would find it.

She would find the transparent mirrors.

. Murder.

Act two was about to be played out.

Fear accelerated Gabriel’s heartbeat. It was not fear that hardened his body.

He stared down at Mary Thornton and the steel that caressed .

She saw the rage. She saw the desire.

Her eyes widened until they were twin pools of white terror.

Victoria stared at the ceiling. Crimson blood superimposed the white enamel paint.

She closed her eyelids.

Crimson blood stained the darkness behind her lids. It was punctuated with dialogue.

You won
’
t
see the man who has a gun trained on you ... Perhaps you’ll
see a flash of light when

he releases the trigger, perhaps not. One thing is for certain
—
you won’t hear the gunshot: you’ll be

dead.

Victoria’s eyelids flew open.

She did not want to die.

The scent of Gabriel engulfed her. It came from his sheets, his robe.

I
will not be a victim.

You already are.

An image of the silk napkin slashed with bold black ink flashed before her eyes.

. . .
I
bring you a woman.

A leading actress for a man who avoided men, women, love, pleasure.

I
learned to read English. Someday I hope to be equally proficient in French.

Michael had taught Gabriel to read.

Les deux anges.
The two angels.

I
loved a man, mademoiselle. If I had not loved him, you would not be here.

Was Michael an actor in this unscripted play?

The sin is in loving,
Gabriel had said.

He had been hurt through the love he bore his friend.

But loving was not a sin.

When I became a man, I wanted to experience a woman’s passion. I wanted to feel the pleasure

that I gave. Just once.

She had breathed in the heat of Gabriel’s body. Had tasted his breath.

Victoria didn’t know the touch of his skin.

She didn’t want to die without knowing if Gabriel’s touch was worth dying for.

Fear was a powerful aphrodisiac: the void it created demanded to be filled.

By knowledge.

By action.

By Gabriel.

Laissez le jeu commencer.

Flinging back the covers, Victoria slid out of bed.

A metal tin gleamed on the nightstand. It was filled with condoms. Flat rubber sheaths that were rolled

onto a man’s .

The seduction of an angel. ..

Dolly had told her that a man would not seek to protect himself with a , and then she had given

Victoria the corrosive sublimate tablets.

Now Dolly was dead and Victoria was alive.

Gabriel’s silk robe clung to her s and her buttocks. It was floor-length. It would reach Gabriel’s

calves.

Were they covered with the same dark hair that matted his chest, she wondered, or were they covered

with the silver-blond hair that capped his head?

Cap ...
Hats.

Victoria hurriedly stepped into the ... study, he had called it. A library by any other name.

Ridiculous disappointment sliced through her. She had known he was not in his suite merely from the

throbbing emptiness inside her.

Victoria perused the gold-embossed books—and did not see one single title or author.

She saw blood. She saw Mary Thornton.

She saw Gabriel.

Victoria wondered what he was doing—waiting in the night, breaking into the Thornton’s town house, or

returning to his own house.

Victoria wondered if he would learn that the Thorntons were associated with the man he sought, or if he

would learn that they worked independently to destroy women’s lives.

Gabriel had said that he did not fear a bullet. He had also said he did not know what to expect.

Victoria wondered if Gabriel was still alive.

Victoria wondered how long she would live.

Gabriel had burned down the former House of Gabriel. Why?

So many whys .. .

Vigorously she prowled Gabriel’s study, steering clear of the pale blue leather couch.

The lone boatman riding the shimmering sunset and the glittering blue water silently watched her from

the safety of the painting.

A cabinet proved not to be a cabinet, but a door similar to the one leading to the bedroom. Victoria

pushed it open.

The plush maroon carpet inside Gabriel’s office gave way to flat, dark wool carpet. Dim electric light

illuminated a hallway.

Freedom.

Victoria stepped inside the narrow corridor.

The door swished closed behind her.

Gasping, she whirled around, images of the glove box filling her head.

The door had not locked behind her.

Victoria’s heartbeat did not slow down.

There was danger in the corridor.

There was danger in Gabriel’s suite.

Victoria faced the corridor and the danger.

The hallway was short, only forty or so feet long. Reflected light shone at the end. It was brighter than

the dim light that lit the corridor.

She realized another corridor intersected the short, narrow hallway. A corridor with windows of light.

Heartbeat outracing her feet, Victoria cautiously walked toward the lit corridor.

She reached the end of the hallway.

A long corridor ran diagonal to the short hallway. Light splashed the outer wall at regular intervals.

The light was not caused by windows.

Windows adjoined outer walls; the lit portals came from an inside wall.

There was no reason for the wave of fear that crashed over Victoria or the undercurrent of longing that

tugged her forward.

Pulses pounding inside her ears, she stepped up to the first portal.

Brilliant light illuminated a plush red bedchamber. The bedchamber was not empty.

She stepped up to the second window; the bedchamber on the other side was a lush green instead of

red. It was not empty, either.

The third bedchamber was decorated in gold; the fourth in blue . . .

Victoria saw men; Victoria saw women.

Victoria saw the world that Michael and Gabriel had ruled. A world where no touch was forbidden and

pleasure was the price of desire.

Victoria saw need in all of its guises ...

Chapter
15

Victoria knew the moment Gabriel stepped inside the corridor. She felt him through the silk of his robe

and through the thin covering of her own skin: a burning awareness of what the French madame had made

him, and of what the man he sought had taken away from him.

They were two reflections in the glass, a dark-haired woman who had been taught that touch was

morally reprehensible and a silver-haired man who had indulged in the pleasures of the flesh without ever

once experiencing its beauty.

The man and the woman on the other side of the glass experienced both the pleasure and the beauty.

They touched, feminine hands skimming hard masculine flesh; masculine hands skimming soft feminine

flesh. They kissed, lips brushing, clinging, devouring. They embraced, s to chest, stomach to stomach,

thighs to thighs.

He was young, handsome; she was neither young nor handsome.

They were oblivious to the difference in their ages and their outward attractiveness. Passion made them

partners; need made them equals.

“Can they see us?” Victoria asked softly.

“No.” Gabriel’s voice was curiously taut. “They see a mirror.”

While Victoria and Gabriel saw a window. And inside that window, the man and the woman that neither

Gabriel nor Victoria dared to be.

“How is it that we see them but they see a mirror?”

“The mirror is only half silvered.” Gabriel’s gaze did not waver from the man and the woman. “Strong

light reflects off the silver, like in a regular mirror, so that a person will see their image instead of glass, but

if strong light were shone behind the glass as well as in front of it, it would become transparent.”

Victoria had never before heard of transparent mirrors.

“Can they hear us?” she asked softly.

“Not if we speak quietly.”

The man and the woman parted. She spoke; he responded.

Victoria could see their lips move, but she could not hear what either said. She could only watch them.

And imagine the words they murmured.

Words praising a woman’s passion.

Words venerating a man’s need.

Words Victoria had never heard or spoken but would like to hear and speak before she died.

The man strode toward a mahogany nightstand—erect manhood fencing the air, twin leathery pouches

bouncing below—and picked up a squat white jar.

Victoria had seen men flash their appendages on the street; she had never before seen a man fully

. Buttocks sculpted, muscles delineated. Body studded with hair.

The sight was breathtaking.

“Do they know that the mirror isn’t a ... mirror?” Victoria asked.

She sounded breathless.

She
was
breathless.

The letters had spoken of many of the things she had witnessed this night; seeing was far more

compelling than reading.

“The man knows,” Gabriel said.

The man was a e, he did not need to say.

“But the woman doesn’t?”

“He might have told her.” Superimposed over the man and the woman on the other side of the mirror

was Gabriel’s silver eyes. “She came to the old house once a month.”

The house that he had burned.

But she didn’t want to think of fire. Destruction.

Death.

“With the same man?” Victoria queried, mouth dry, skin flushed.

“Yes.”

“You’ve seen them together before.”

“I’ve seen them occasionally.”

She watched his reflection. “You watch people when they engage in ual congress.”

“The House of Gabriel is a business, mademoiselle. In this business men and women sometimes die. It is

up to me to ensure that no one dies in my house.”

Gabriel was not a vain man. Yet he had named his house after himself. . .

“Why did you name it the House of Gabriel?”

“So that the second man would know where to find me.”

Victoria swallowed. “Is there a first man?”

“He’s dead.”

By Gabriel’s hand.

Victoria tried to fit this latest piece of the puzzle into the frame of her life.

“You said that you blackmail people.”

Now Victoria knew how he got the information with which to blackmail them.

“I merely make recommendations to certain people, mademoiselle,” Gabriel returned neutrally.

And he employs our k ind,
Madame René had said.

Did Gabriel blackmail his patrons to find work for failing es?

Motion snagged Victoria’s attention.

The woman sat down on the bed, back facing the mirror; gray-streaked brown hair brushed the silk

sheet.

Her eagerness for the younger man’s touch was palpable.

Victoria could identify with her need.

For a second she felt the give of the mattress, heard the squeak of springs. Felt the cool caress of silk.

Impossible.

“Do you get... aroused when you watch them?” Victoria asked hurriedly.

The silk robe caressed her s with each inhalation, each exhalation; it felt like sandpaper. Her skin

felt like overripe fruit about to burst.

“It’s business,” Gabriel said flatly.

The business of pleasure.

Victoria had entered the business when she auctioned off her ity.

Would she have had the courage to do so then, knowing what she now knew? she wondered. Would she

have sold herself knowing that ual congress touched the soul as well as the body?

The man unscrewed the squat white jar, sat both the lid and the jar down on the mahogany nightstand.

Victoria fought to control her breathing. “What is in the jar?”

“Lubricating cream.”

Lubricating cream
pierced her .

She was wet, Victoria realized.

And Gabriel knew it.

Was he erect?

“Are all the bedchambers equipped with jars of... of lubricating cream?”

“Yes.”

“The man has ... touched her,” Victoria said unevenly. “Surely the woman doesn’t need artificial

lubrication in order to... to accept him.”

The silver eyes inside the mirror snared Victoria’s attention. “That depends, mademoiselle, upon where

he penetrates her. And with what.”

Where.

With what.

She did not have to ask about where. But—

“What do you mean, what
he penetrates her with?” she asked carefully.

Watching the man. Watching the woman.

“Each room is supplied with an assortment of”—he hesitated—
“godemichés.”

Victoria was captivated by both Gabriel’s hesitation and the unfamiliar French term.

“What is a ...
godemiché?”

The masculine eyes reflected inside the mirror glinted pure silver. “It is a leather device that is shaped

like a .”

Victoria’s involuntarily clenched. She had earlier witnessed a man inserting a -shaped device

into a woman’s body.

They had both seemed to derive enjoyment from the act.

“The assortment you supply... they come in various sizes?” Victoria asked.

Gabriel’s image was transposed over that of the younger man and older woman. His shirt was not

buttoned. Shadowy hair showed through the vent. “Yes.”

Less than nine inches? More than nine inches?

“With what other devices may a man penetrate a woman?”

“Watch and see, mademoiselle.”

The older woman laid back on the silk sheets in a tangle of gray-streaked brown hair. The younger man

kneeled between her legs.

Victoria stared.

He was ... kissing her. There. Between the thighs. On a woman’s most sensitive flesh.

Victoria’s nether lips throbbed.

“Surely he does not require lubrication in order to kiss her,” she said on a sharp intake of breath.

She had witnessed this act over and over during the night; it was far different witnessing a man kiss a

woman’s privates with Gabriel standing behind her.

“He is preparing her,” Gabriel said impassively.

He was not immune to what he witnessed. The intensity of his gaze scorched her skin.

“What is he preparing her for?” Victoria insisted.

The woman’s legs came up; her heels notched the edge of the bed. She reached for the man’s head, to

hold him in place.

Victoria clenched her fingers.

The younger man eluded the older woman. Reaching for the squat white jar on the nightstand, he

scooped the fingers of his right hand into it.

Gabriel was left-handed.

The thought came from nowhere.

The man brought his lubricated hand between the woman’s splayed legs.

Victoria squeezed her thighs together.

The woman threw her head back, face contorted with ecstasy. Or perhaps it was contorted with agony.

“What is he doing?” Victoria breathed.

“He’s stretching her.”

Victoria felt the woman’s penetration all the way up to .

Her breath caught in . “With his whole hand?”

“He will start out with one or two fingers.”

Victoria remembered Gabriel’s fingers.

They were long. White.

The young man leaned over and kissed the older woman between her thighs. He did not remove his

hand.

Victoria did not have to see what he did in order to feel it.

She trembled .. . with desire. Earlier she had trembled with fear.

“What does a woman feel like, when a man has his fingers inside her?”

Even Victoria’s voice shook.

“Like hot, wet silk.”

The anger in Gabriel’s voice took her by surprise.

His eyes in the mirror were not looking at Victoria’s reflection; they stared through the window. Gazing

into his past and seeing the women he had been with.

The women who had begged him for their pleasure and who had then begged him for release.

But he had not begged them.

Gabriel had only begged for release once in his life. A of the senses.

Victoria saw the pleasure Gabriel had given women in the twist of his mouth. In the silver eyes she saw

Gabriel’s pain.

The older woman on the other side of the glass tossed her head back and forth, silk sliding, hair tangling.

Her s quivered, as if she ran a race.

A race to completion.

Gabriel ran with her.

The woman’s mouth opened—to take in air or to cry out, Victoria did not know which.

Gabriel was lost—in the memories of pleasure or in the memories of pain, she did not know which.

“What do you feel?” she asked Gabriel. Aching with pleasure. Aching with pain. “How many fingers do

you have inside her? One or two?”

“Five,” Gabriel said raggedly.

Victoria couldn’t breathe.

Five fingers
jabbed deep inside her.

“I want to feel her pleasure,” he rasped. “I want to be a part of her pleasure—just once, and not apart

from it. I want to be a part of a woman that I am pleasuring.”

And not apart from her.

It should not be possible to splinter with pain at the same time that one swelled with desire: it was.

“This woman. Does she”—Victoria marshaled her voice—”does she enjoy having five of your fingers

inside her?”

A drop of moisture beaded on Gabriel’s forehead; it sparkled like a diamond in the dim light. “A woman’s

is created to stretch.”

But surely not to accommodate an entire hand.

So why did Victoria’s body yawn to accept it?

“How did you . . . penetrate her with five fingers?”

“One finger at a time.” The drop of sweat disappeared inside Gabriel’s eyebrow. “I spent three hours

preparing her body.”

Victoria imagined receiving one finger, two, three, four, five. A finger at a time. Hour after hour. Panting

breath ticking off the minutes ... body opening ... lubricated hand slipping . .. entering through the ring of her

portal.

Pleasure building.

Ecstasy. Agony.

“Tell me,” Victoria said, breathing in time to the rise and fall of the older woman’s s. “Tell me

what you feel.”

Silver lights glittered inside Gabriel’s reflected gaze.

“I feel a woman’s oris against my tongue.”

Victoria’s oris swelled to the point of pain.

“It’s so hard it feels like it will split open with her need to .” Gabriel’s voice scraped Victoria’s

skin. “My fingers are fluted, my thumb tucked into them. The woman’s is so hot it burns. I can feel

her flesh stretch—taking my fingertips ... my fingers . . . first knuckle deep . . . second knuckle deep ... the

width of my palm. The walls of her are forcing my fingers to curl into a fist. All I can see and smell

and hear and feel is her. The smell of a woman’s need. The suction of a woman’s flesh. The sight of a

woman’s stomach tightening.”

Victoria felt Gabriel’s fingertips slide into her. .. first knuckle deep . .. second knuckle deep . .. the width

of his palm. Her stomach tightened, filled with an angel. ..

The body of the woman on the other side of the mirror bowed until only her head and her heels supported

her weight. opened wide in a guttural cry.

“I feel her bursting over me,” Gabriel said, breath harsh in the narrow corridor. “It clenches

around my wrist and squeezes my fist until there is only her pleasure.”

Slowly the older woman’s body sank down to the bed, body lax.

The younger man raised his head: his features were strained with his need.

Victoria had seen many different types of need this night. She had seen the need for intimacy, the need

for ual gratification, and occasionally, in the eyes of both patron and e, the simple need for

human contact.

The younger man’s need was reflected in Gabriel’s face. “But it was her pleasure that milked my hand

—”

Suddenly the silver eyes reflected in the glass pinned Victoria.

She returned his stare unflinchingly.

“—not mine.”

Vaguely she noted that the man behind the glass wiped his hand on the sheet beside the woman and

reached for a small flat tin beside the squat jar of cream. It was identical to the tin of condoms that had

come with her dinner tray.

The younger man jerkily stood up and then he was standing between the older woman’s legs and she

was raising her arms and her body to take him while the man behind Victoria stood apart from their

passion. Apart from Victoria’s passion.

Apart from his own passion.

“This is what he wants,” Victoria suddenly realized.

Gabriel’s nostrils flared. “What?”

“He wants you to hurt.”

But Victoria didn’t want Gabriel to hurt.

She took both of their lives in her hand. She turned and faced their desire.

“You want to touch me,” she said. Praying that it was true.

The truth shone in his eyes. “Yes.”

Victoria’s chest constricted at the need in his eyes. “But you’re afraid.”

“Yes.”

Of touching. Of being touched.

Victoria gambled. “I want you to touch me.”

Gray. Silver.

Fear. Passion.

“I know you do,” Gabriel said.

He did not touch her.

“I want you to feel my pleasure,” Victoria said baldly. “I want to lie down on your bed, . Like the

woman behind the mirror. Like the woman you remembered. I want you to prepare my body. I want you to

give me the pleasure you gave her. And I want to share it with you.”

Gabriel in his breath. “You’re a .”

If Victoria looked away from the need inside those silver eyes, she would run.

Victoria didn’t look away. “You bought my ity.”

The air pulsed around them.

“I don’t know what I would do, Victoria, if you touched me.” Gabriel’s voice was taut.

Pain. Pleasure.

They clawed at her chest.

“Then I won’t touch you,” Victoria assured him.

“But you would let me ... touch you. In whatever way I wished.”

Empétarder ...
Would you grant me access there, mademoiselle?

Victoria struggled to breathe. “Yes.”

“You would let me do anything . . .”

You would let me hold you when both of our bodies are dripping with sweat and the scent of our

fills our lungs.

“Yes.”

“And you won’t touch me.” Gabriel’s gaze was stark with need. “Regardless of the pain or the pleasure

that I bring you.”

Victoria was suffocating—from Gabriel’s robe, Gabriel’s scent.

Gabriel’s words . ..
pain . . . pleasure. . .

“I won’t touch you,” she promised.

He reached out... and touched her, a butterfly touch, a rasp of callused fingertips across chapped lips.

sensation bolted through Victoria.

“I’m sorry.” She flinched. “My lips are not. .. soft.”

Whereas his lips looked softer than a rose petal.

Gabriel would not let her turn away from him: his gaze held her; his finger electrified her.

He lightly strummed her bottom lip. “Open your mouth.”

Victoria’s bottom lip quivered.

Silver fire blazed in his eyes; a dark flush edged his cheeks. He rested his finger against the seam of her

lips.

Gabriel trembled.

With fear. With need.

Of her. For her.

Victoria opened .

“ my finger,” he said hoarsely.

Blue eyes locked with silver, Victoria took Gabriel’s forefinger into , a preliminary penetration.

An invisible finger stabbed up her .

She tasted him, a quick swipe of her tongue.

Gabriel’s head slammed back, as if in pain.
“Dieu.
”

Victoria stared at the corded muscles of his throat. A pulse pounded and throbbed, there above the vent

of his white shirt and the whirls of wiry hair.

His fingertip was callused; it tasted salty.

She led him, as if he were a sweet. And felt the laving of her tongue between her thighs, lips wet,

finger hard ...

Gabriel slowly lowered his head.

There was no question of what had dragged out the agonized
Dieu:
it was pleasure. A pleasure so

intense it was pain.

Victoria felt his pleasure, her pleasure; his pain, her pain . . .

One second she was ling his fingertip, the next second was empty and his saliva-slickened

finger smoothed the inner edges of her chapped lips.

He kissed her. Silver eyes staring into hers; finger pressing open the corner of .

Warm breath filled her lungs, searing heat glided the path his finger had traced.

Gabriel soothed Victoria’s chapped lips with his tongue.

Hot. Wet. His tongue. His lips. A taste; a tease. A commingling of breath and saliva.

Of Gabriel and Victoria.

It was Victoria’s first kiss. She wanted more: more breath, more tongue.

More Gabriel.

Victoria curved her fingers to cradle his head and take more.

Gabriel watched the need build inside her eyes .. . and she knew this was what he waited for: he waited

for her to touch him.

But she couldn’t touch him.

Victoria closed her eyes and clenched her fists.

His tongue instantly filled her: deeper than his finger. Hotter. Wetter.

The second penetration.

Vaguely she was aware of his saliva-slickened finger that trailed up her cheek, joined by more fingers.

He lightly cupped her face while his tongue and ... the top of her tongue ... underneath her

tongue ... the roof of .

Oh ... dear. . .
God.

Victoria in cool air.

Her eyelids snapped open.

Gabriel’s tongue and fingers and breath were no longer a part of her. He stood back, watching her,

waiting for her to reach for him.

Victoria did not reach for him.

But she wanted to.
Please
don’t let him turn away from her.. .

She needed him.

She needed to be loved.

For the first time in her life she would not deny her need.

Gabriel’s gaze glanced past her shoulder—fleetingly calling to Victoria’s mind the man and woman

behind the mirror—and returned to her face. “I’ve trusted one person in my life.”

Michael.

And Gabriel had been hurt.

“I won’t touch you, Gabriel,” Victoria said unevenly.

“God help you if you do, Victoria.” Finality weighted Gabriel’s voice.
“Puisque je ne puis pas.”

Because I cannot.

Chapter
16

Gabriel stepped aside for Victoria to precede him down the corridor. She looked neither left nor right,

every sense focused on the man behind her.

The electric chandelier inside the study was blinding; she stumbled.

Gabriel did not catch her.

They must trust one another, he had said.

She must trust that he would give her pleasure.

He must trust that she would not touch him.

The light in Gabriel’s bedroom was only marginally dimmer than the one in his study.

Victoria paused by the bed, fingers worrying the blue silk sash cinched around her waist. “I... am thinner

than I used to be.”

The women behind the transparent mirrors had come in varied sizes; none had possessed ribs that ridged

their sides.

Gabriel’s face hardened. “I won’t turn out the light, Victoria.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “I don’t want you to be ... put off by my appearance.”

Shadow darkened his face. “I have seen you, mademoiselle, and I assure you, I was not put off by your

appearance.”

How ridiculous she was being. Victoria had undressed for him the very first time they met. She had

stood in front of him while Madame René had measured her and Victoria asked how to seduce a

man.

How to love a man.

She squared her shoulders. Gabriel’s gaze dropped to her s. Victoria did not have to glance down

to know that her s stabbed the thin silk.

She notched her chin higher. “I would enjoy seeing you.”

“I’m not an angel, Victoria.”

A smile was surprised out of her. “I assure
you,
sir, I have no expectations of finding wings underneath

your garments.”

Gabriel did not return her smile. “But you expect a miracle.”

Gabriel was God’s messenger,
Victoria had said.

Michael was his chosen,
Gabriel had returned.

For better or for worse, the lives of two boys had been forever altered by a French madame. The cost of

survival.

Victoria had once believed in fairy tales, but. ..

“I have never believed in miracles, Gabriel.”

“I will try not to hurt you.”

Trust.

But Gabriel still did not trust her.

He didn’t trust her to touch him.

He didn’t trust her to see him .

But she trusted him.

“I know you will,” Victoria said shakily. She dropped the robe.

Gabriel weighed her s with his eyes. And then Gabriel weighed them with his hands.

Victoria stiffened her knees to prevent them from buckling at the lightning sensation that shot through

her.

“You have beautiful s, Victoria,” he said hoarsely, calluses rough, the heat of his skin scorching

hot.

She forced air into her lungs to speak. “Thank you.”

He traced her right rib cage, a raspy trail of pleasure, smoothed her waist. “Women wear corsets to

have waists like yours—”

“Thank you—”

His gaze snared hers. “I know what it’s like to go hungry. You have no need to apologize for your

appearance. Not to me.
Jamais.
”

Never.

The heat of his hand and his gaze scorched her skin.

“I don’t have any cream,” she said breathlessly.

“You won’t need it.”

She in air. “But you said—”

“Sit down, Victoria.”

Victoria sat on the edge of the bed.

Her gaze unerringly rested on gray wool trousers. They were tented.

“You are erect.” Victoria’s voice was hushed.

“I have been erect ever since you walked into my study.”

Harsh truth rang inside Gabriel’s voice.

It seemed a lifetime ago when she had walked into his study. But it had only been a day and a night...

She had witnessed death. And in the last few hours, she had witnessed the need that drove every man

and woman.

Victoria had seen other men . She dug her nails into the palms of her hands to stop them from

reaching out and ing Gabriel’s trousers.

She gazed up. “I want you to feel pleasure, too, Gabriel.”

“Then lie down, Victoria, and let me touch you.”

Fully clothed. While she bared her all.

Victoria lay back.

Immediately, hard hands dug underneath her buttocks. She was bodily dragged across the bed.

Victoria clutched the bedcovers.

Her buttocks were poised on the edge of the bed. Her legs fell apart.

Hard hands were instantly there, gently pushing them farther apart.

The cold, invasive air was promptly replaced by the heat of silver eyes.

Gabriel audibly in air.

He touched her.

Victoria audibly in air.

“You’re wet, Victoria.”

Yes.

His finger throbbed, there where no one had ever touched her.

She had not touched herself there until six months earlier.

Victoria stared up at the white enameled ceiling and clung to two fistfuls of velvet.

If he touched her oris ...

Hard, callused heat glided up the slippery lips of her and pressed her oris.

Victoria gasped. And ed. While electric light pounded her face and the pressure of his finger

pierced her soul.

“You ed.”

Gabriel’s voice grated in her ears.

She gulped air. Electric tingles continued to surge from his finger into her oris. “Yes.”

“What did you see?”

Victoria squirmed to escape his finger. He did not let her escape.

He continued to press her, lightly, pulse throbbing and pounding.

“Light,” she said.

Just when she thought she was going to explode again, that enervating fingertip glided back down the

slippery lips of her .

He gently probed.

Her muscles contracted.

Victoria bit her lip. “What do you see when you ?”

“Darkness,” Gabriel gritted.

Darkness. Death.

“What do you see now?” she hurriedly asked.

“I see you, Victoria, your lips red and swollen and glistening. I see my finger, swirling in your desire.

Your
portail
is a darker red. I see my finger sinking into your
portail..
.”

Oh...

It burned.

Victoria jackknifed upward, legs snapping together.

His hand was buried between her thighs.

Victoria jerked her gaze away from the white cuff and shirtsleeve that stuck up above a thatch of dark

pubic hair.

Silver eyes were waiting for hers.

And you won’t touch me... regardless of the pain or pleasure that I bring you,
rang inside her ears.

I
won’t touch you,
she had promised.

Victoria fought the bed to find a grip, arms stiffly holding up her weight.

His hand was buried between her thighs. It felt as if it penetrated her with a burning poker.

Slowly, slowly Victoria unclenched her muscles and accepted his finger.

Relief flickered inside Gabriel’s eyes. Or perhaps it was the overhead light that flickered. Victoria was

not familiar enough with either Gabriel or electric light to judge.

“Open your legs for me,” Gabriel murmured, “and I’ll tell you what I see.”

He had said he had penetrated a woman with his entire hand. Victoria did not know if she could take

another finger.

She her lips. “What is ...
portail?”

Gabriel’s finger continued to burn and throb. “Portal. It is a French term for a woman’s .”

Victoria’s body had a will of its own. It bore down, taking more of his finger.

Gabriel’s face hardened.

In desire? Disgust?

“Do you always refer to a woman’s anatomy in French?”

“No.”

“What word do you use?”

“.”

An English street term.

“But you don’t use that term now.”

“Non.”
There was nothing soft about the French negative.

Her clenched and unclenched about his finger, as if milking it.

She struggled to understand. “Why?”

For a second Victoria did not think Gabriel was going to answer her. “I spoke French before I spoke

English.”

Before he became a .

Before the man had taken away the control he had valued so much.

Before Gabriel’s need had been turned against him.

Victoria opened her legs.

Dark eyelashes shielded his eyes.

Victoria followed his gaze. All she could see was her dark pubic hair and the white cuff marking the

hand that was between her thighs.

“I see . .. my finger appearing ... It’s wet and slippery .. .”

Victoria felt Gabriel’s finger easing out of her... slowly. ... In her mind’s eye, she visualized it... long,

pale, slippery wet...

Contrarily, her body clenched to keep it inside her.

“Calme-toi,”
he murmured huskily.

Relax.

“I remember the first time I saw a woman like this.”

Gabriel’s gaze was intent on Victoria.

“How old were you?”

“I was thirteen.”

The same age he had been when the madame had sold his services.

Gabriel’s finger reversed its journey, slowly ... slowly . . . sinking inside her until it filled her.

“What did you think, when you saw her. .. like this?” Victoria managed.

“I thought that if a man had a soul, it existed inside a woman.”

Victoria’s chest constricted; then her constricted.

One finger became two.

Stretching her. Opening her.

She sharply inhaled. “Gabriel...”

His dark lashes slowly lifted. “I like the way you say my name.”

Slowly his two fingers slid out of her while he watched her face for signs of pain .. . pleasure.

“How is that?” she asked, voice catching.

“As if you believe I have a soul.”

He curved his fingers, as if they were a hook, and gently raked the inner wall of her . “Come for

me, Victoria. You said you’d share your pleasure with me. Share it.”

He held her gaze, hooked fingers sliding, twisting, searching . . . Electricity shot through her body.

It felt as if she had a second oris inside her , or as if her oris were accessible from within.

Gabriel . Fingers hooked. Holding her gaze.

Fire raced through Victoria’s veins, shimmied down her spine.

There was no fire inside his eyes, just calculated intent.

She wanted more than his expertise.

“I can’t,” she choked.

A smile flitted across his face. “You can. You will.. . You are.”

Victoria’s body bore down. She exploded. Voice crying out.

When her gaze focused, Gabriel waited for her. “What did you see?”

“Light,” she panted.

Shaking. Inside. Outside.

Two fingers became three.

Her body was wide open; she could not squeeze him out. Victoria’s fluttered around him—
three

fingers.

“I feel it,” she gasped. “I feel myself... fluttering around your fingers ...”

“Yes.” A curious expression crossed his face. “I feel it.”

Victoria couldn’t draw in enough oxygen. “I said I wouldn’t touch you.”

His gaze sharpened. “Yes.”

“But I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you what I want.”

“What do you want, Victoria?” Gabriel asked, sudden remoteness coming into his eyes.

How many had told him what they wanted . .. and never asked him what he wanted?

“I want you to taste me. I want you to remember my taste.”

Not a of the senses . ..

“And then I want you to do what you want. Anything. Everything.”

His dark lashes blocked her gaze.

She could feel moisture oozing out from her . Did he see it?

Perhaps he did not like the taste of ...

Gabriel sank down between her thighs. Three fingers sliding ... out... in ... out... in. Deep. Hard.

Riding out one . Creating the need for another.

Silvery-blond hair merged with dark pubic hair.

When Gabriel’s breath whispered across her vulva, Victoria thought she would die. When Gabriel’s lips

closed around her, she knew she would die.

When Gabriel’s tongue touched the hard tip of her oris, Victoria did die.

There is always pain in pleasure,
Gabriel had said.

Darkness glittered inside the light, but still, only, light.

Victoria opened her eyes. And stared up at white enamel.

She did not remember closing her eyes; she did not remember lying down.

All she could feel was the emptiness inside her body and the tiny aftershocks that continued to dance on

her oris.

The dull clang of metal impacting wood penetrated her consciousness.

“What did you see, Victoria?”

Victoria had seen . . . “Light.”

She sluggishly turned her head toward Gabriel and the dull clang.

Gabriel reached into an open tin. His mouth was wet and shiny.

From her.

“What I wanted, Victoria,” he grated tautly.

It took Victoria several seconds to remember what was inside the tin ... It took her several more

seconds to realize what Gabriel was doing.

A silver drop of moisture glimmered on the tip of the large, plum-shaped crown . . .
bite,
Madame René

had called it. Pinstriped wool framed a bush of dark blond pubic hair. Smearing the silver drop of moisture

over the purple-hued head, he expertly smoothed up a rubber sheath, one inch, three inches, five inches,

seven inches, nine inches...

Her stomach convulsively tightened.

Victoria’s gaze jerked up to Gabriel’s face.

She did not recognize it. His lips were drawn, skin darkly flushed, eyes silver shards of light.

“You said anything and everything I wanted.”

Yes.

“This is what I want,” he rasped. “I want to bury myself inside you, and then I want you to come until

you make me come.”

Gabriel looked as though he expected her to object.

Victoria fought for air. For one paralyzing second she did want to object.

“That sounds”—terrifying, exhilarating—“heavenly.”

His sheathed manhood jutted out from the pinstriped wool trousers. “There is no heaven, Victoria, but I

can show you hell.”

Victoria did not doubt it.

Gabriel knelt on the floor. He bowed his head, silver hair sweeping his forehead.

Wool scratched her inner thighs. Rubber prodded ungiving flesh.

Victoria edged back on the bed.

The rubber was far, far thicker than had been his fingers.

A finger lightly pressed her oris.

Victoria’s breath caught in . She was riveted by silver eyes.

“Take me, Victoria,” he said rawly. “I took your hymen with my fingers. Now take me ...”

“You’re larger than your fingers ...”

But smaller than his hand . ..

Gabriel circled her oris, lightly, beguilingly.
Her choice...

Victoria’s muscles unclenched.

A fist...

It felt like a fist prodded her, impossibly large ... and then it was impossibly lodged inside her.

He circled her oris, light, hard, slow, sure ... Pain.
Pleasure...

Victoria’s body opened, impossibly, for more. More pain. More pleasure . . .

The pain stilled; the pleasure did not.

A heartbeat throbbed inside her.

Harsh breath filled the room. “Come for me, Victoria, and I’ll give you another inch.”

The fist lodged inside her portal remained steadfast; the finger circling her did not. It slipped down . ..

tested the tightness of the thin ring of flesh circling him, glided back up, slippery wet. . . circling round, and

round, and round, lacking depth; she needed him deeper...

Victoria cried out. And convulsed. “God!”

The large fist-shaped crown that stretched her beyond bearing sank inside . .. two inches deep.

“What did you see?” he grated.

Light. Darkness.

Silver. Gray.

“Light. . .”

Circling. Circling.

“Gabriel...”

Victoria’s body yawned independently. Jagged sensation ripped through her.

He sank inside her another inch .. . three inches deep.

Victoria panted for air.

One inch per ... Six more to go ...

“What did you see, Victoria?”

She throbbed. He throbbed.

The bedcovers clenched inside her fists throbbed.

“What did you see, Victoria?” he repeated tensely.

“Light,” she said stubbornly. There was no darkness in pleasure ...
No sin in loving
... “Oh, God”—the

sound ripped out of — “Gabriel... I can’t... Gabriel...”

“What, Victoria?” Sweat dripped like tears down Gabriel’s face. “What can’t you do?”

Or not do ...

He wanted her to stop him.

Victoria did not stop him.

“I need . . .” she gasped, the light of pending circling before her eyes, his finger circling her

oris.

“What do you need?” Gabriel crooned. Holding himself back from the pleasure.

Anger tore through Victoria.

He must feel it. How could he not feel her flesh caressing him, milking him?

Gulping him?

“I need to have another .”

Gabriel gave her another . And then he gave her another inch.

She couldn’t breathe past the fist that lodged inside her .

“What do you see, Victoria?”

“Light.”

Another . Another inch.

Five inches...

“What do you see?” he repeated. Wanting her to see the darkness that he saw.

“Light,” she gasped. Silver strands of hair haloed his head. “I see light.”

Victoria could no longer differentiate between pain and pleasure. She pushed up for another ,

another inch of Gabriel.

Six inches .. . seven inches . . . eight inches. . . .

“What do you see, Victoria?” Agony laced Gabriel’s voice.

His white linen shirt clung to his chest. The sweat-soaked linen revealed his every inhalation, his every

exhalation. His breath timed to the pulse that drummed inside her and against her oris.

Victoria with difficulty focused on him and not the fading that fluttered into the need for another.

There was no room inside her body for breath, thought.

The fist inside her plugged her every sense.

Gabriel’s body. Gabriel’s need.

She would die if he did not stop; she would die if he did.

An angel’s pleasure ...

Gabriel’s circling finger would not give Victoria respite.

What did she see .. . ?

“I see you, Gabriel,” Victoria gasped. “When I come, I see you.”

Pain.

The pain on his glistening face sealed the air inside her lungs. The impact of his body knocked it out.

Gabriel slammed into her, against her, flesh, hair, wool trousers, past, present. At the same time another

slammed through her body.

A voice cried out. Victoria did not know who it belonged to, her or Gabriel. His heartbeat was hers, her

flesh was his, the that ripped through them was theirs.

Victoria knew that Gabriel had felt her pleasure. She knew it because he left her. Body. Soul.

Her fists clenched in the mangled covers.

She had not touched his body, but she had touched an angel.

Victoria did not know if Gabriel would forgive her.

She squeezed her eyelids shut and stared at darkness, listening to the soft click of his boots, crossing the

bedroom floor, entering the bathroom...

Her body counted the passing minutes. She felt hollow inside, as if he had created a tunnel inside her.

The faint sound of plumbing vibrated in the air: Gabriel had flushed the toilet. A soft click penetrated the

stillness, a door opening.

She could feel his stare; it was as palpable as the throb deep inside her womb.

“Mary Thornton cooperated,” he said flatly. Tension throbbed inside his voice. “The man who wrote the

letters is Mitchell Delaney.”

She would not cry.

The darkness behind her eyelids writhed. “I do not know a Mitchell Delaney.”

“He knows you, mademoiselle.”

“My name is Victoria,” Victoria said. And she enjoyed the way Gabriel said it, the “V” a soft caress.

Yes, the man who wrote the letters knew that she wore silk drawers instead of wool. He knew that

women had the same ual needs as did men.

He did not know the woman who was Victoria Childers. But Gabriel knew her.

He had touched the very heart of her soul.

Gabriel turned around and walked away.

Chapter
17

Gabriel walked the streets, turning, twisting, slipping through an alley, waiting on the other side, breath

misting the yellow fog, heartbeat measuring the silence, silver sword raised in welcome.

No one followed him.

He wished someone had.

Gabriel wanted to kill.

Gabriel wanted to escape the scent and the feel of Victoria.

Gabriel wanted to deny the pleasure she had given him.

I see you, Gabriel. When I come, I see you.

For a second—with the head of his pulsing against the mouth of her womb—he had almost

believed that he had a soul.

Forcibly, Gabriel concentrated on the night.

No one had followed him to the Thornton town house, either by day or by night. Yet someone had

watched Madame René enter his house.

Someone had intercepted the boxes of clothing she had sent to Victoria.

A dull clip-clop interrupted Gabriel’s thoughts, the hooves of a solitary horse. Heartbeat accelerating, he

eased back inside the mouth of the alley.

Approaching light materialized into carriage lamps. A hansom cab rattled by.

The driver could be headed to the stables. Or the driver could be following Gabriel.

It disappeared into the fog.

Gabriel maneuvered three more streets. Several more hansom cabs meandered through the early

morning fog. He hailed the third one by stepping out in front of the passing horse and grabbing the leather

halter.

The horse shied; the cabbie cursed.

“Git yer ‘ands off me ‘orse, ye—”

“I will give you two gold sovereigns if you take me up,” Gabriel said softly.

The average cab fare was sixpence per mile; a sovereign was equivalent to two hundred and forty

pence. Gabriel did not have to clearly see the cabbie’s face in order to see the calculation in his eyes: he

would have to travel eighty miles to earn two sovereigns.