Gabriel's Inferno

“I’m sorry I couldn’t take you to dinner this evening, but I would like to have dinner with you tomorrow night. Can we at least talk about it? [Pause…]

Call me, principessa . Please.”

Julia immediately saved his number on her phone, but entered his name as “Dante Alighieri.” When she called him back, she reached his voice mail.

“Hello, it’s me. Um, I’m sorry I didn’t get your message last night. I fel asleep. Of course it would be nice to see you, but I think dinner is too risky. I want to get to know you again, Gabriel, and I’m hoping we can find some safe way to do that. Sorry I missed your call. I’ll talk to you later.”

She spent most of Friday working on her thesis proposal. She kept her cell phone on, just in case. But Gabriel didn’t call her. She did, however, receive a call from Paul. Their conversation was cut short because he was interrupted in his study carrel by Professor Emerson. Since Emerson seemed in a much better mood, Paul had only a slight reticence in believing that he’d gone easy on Julia. And Julia did her best to eliminate that reticence.

Crisis averted.

After her very interesting meeting with Katherine, Julia came home and fed herself a modest meal of cream of tomato soup. After dinner, she showered and wrapped herself in a purple towel that barely covered her from breasts to bottom, wandering over to her closet to choose a pair of flannel pajamas to wear to bed. In view of the chill in the late October air and the proximity to Halloween, she decided that jack o’lantern pajamas were in order.

Tap, tap, tap.

Startled, Julia yelped. A muffled voice from outside her window started speaking rather loudly, and the tapping noise continued in earnest. She ran to the window, threw back the curtain, and looked down into the worried face of Gabriel.

“You scared the hell out of me!” she screeched, unlocking the ancient window and trying with one hand to pull it upward while anxiously clutching her towel with the other.

“You wouldn’t answer your phone. Or the doorbell. I thought something was wrong. I walked into the backyard and saw your lights were on.”

Gabriel noticed that she was struggling and slid his fingers underneath the window. “Let me do this.” With one movement, he lifted the window and proceeded to hand her a couple of paper bags.

“What’s this?”

“Dinner. Now stand back, it’s cold out here.” He placed his hands on the windowsill, trying to hoist himself up.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m crawling through your window. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“I could let you in the front door like a normal human being,” she protested, putting the paper bags on her card table.

Gabriel eyed her somewhat hungrily as he swung his legs through the window. “Not undressed like that you can’t.” He closed the window tightly, locked it, and pulled the curtain closed. “You should put some clothes on.”

Julia trembled as he reached out a finger to stroke the skin of her bare shoulder.

Smooth, soft, wet, and warm, he thought .

She wrapped the towel more tightly around herself as he averted his eyes. She was barely covered and damp from the shower, and the sight of the two together…he twitched. More than once.

“Please get dressed now, Julianne.” His voice was low and rough.

She reacted to what she thought was his embarrassment and immediately began backing up.

“I’ll change in the bathroom,” she mumbled, hurriedly searching for a yoga outfit and her old shearling slippers.

“Why don’t you have the heat on?” he called as she darted into the bathroom.

“It is on.”

“Hardly. It’s almost the same temperature in here as it is outside. And walking around in a towel will make you sick.”

Julia closed the door behind her, ending their conversation.

Gabriel adjusted himself and looked around for a thermostat, but of course, there wasn’t one. He was soon on his hands and knees wrestling with the aged radiator that was the only source of heat in the main room of the apartment. How can she live like this? It’s freezing in here.

When Julia exited the bathroom, she found Gabriel still in his dress coat, kneeling in front of her radiator as if it were an altar. She giggled.

“You’re on your knees more than the average professor.”

He shot her a look. “Very amusing, Julianne. This radiator is useless.

Do you have a space heater?”

“There’s an electric baseboard heater in the bathroom. But I don’t use it.”

He shook his head as he got to his feet and strode past her. He cranked up the heat and made sure to leave the bathroom door wide open.

“Just let me warm the apartment up a little. Your hair is wet, and you’re going to catch cold. I should make you some tea,” he offered, hanging his coat up on the back of her front door.

“I could do that,” she said softly.

“Allow me.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and picked up the electric kettle, filled it with water from the bathroom faucet, and got down on hands and knees to plug it in underneath the dresser.

Julia tried very hard not to stare at the way his black wool trousers clung to his really very fine derriere as he plugged in the kettle. To distract herself, she compared his current behavior with the way he had behaved during his last visit to her little hobbit hole. It was as if there were two Gabriels, and she was only now being visited by the nice one. This newer model is just as handsome but infinitely more attractive.

“Now,” he said, looking around. “I need to warm you up.”

Gabriel fixed his eyes on her and pulled her into a hug, rubbing his hands up and down her back. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you answer your phone?”

“I answer it. Just not while I’m asleep or in the shower.”

“I was worried. You didn’t answer last night, and you didn’t answer about an hour ago.”

“I was washing my hair.”

Gabriel buried his face against her neck, inhaling her scent. Vanilla.

“Julianne,” he began, bringing his left hand to touch her face.

She blinked rapidly. “Yes?”

He grew silent.

She looked at him in surprise. His eyes were dark, and he was staring at her intensely.

He leaned over and began feathering his lips up and down the left side of her neck, beginning just under her ear lobe and ending at her collarbone.

A flash of want flared in Julia’s stomach and lower down. His lips were barely floating over the surface of her skin and making every drop of blood in her body rush to that space. His touch had never felt so erotic, so affectionate.

Up and down and up and down, he worshipped the curve of her neck, now and then darting his tongue out to taste her skin. Now and then he withdrew his lips so that he could nuzzle her gently with his nose or his chin, the slightest hint of stubble subtly scratching across her flesh. He fluttered his mouth with soft kisses down to the hollow at the center of her throat and pressed his lips there firmly, beginning his sojourn up and down the right side of her neck.

Julia moaned and closed her eyes, sliding her arms up his back to trail her hands in his hair. Her fingertips moved without conscious thought, stroking the edge of his hairline just above his shirt collar.

“Mmmmmmm,” she breathed.

“Does this please you?” he whispered, continuing his gentle kissing.

She murmured her appreciation.