Forbidden (The Gabriel Lennox Series Book 1) by M.L. Desir Page B

from the back of her throat, he felt the sharpness of his fangs sliding out of their sheaths.
    He slipped away from her.
    Her eyes snapped wide open and filled with disappointment. It couldn’t have been anything else.
    He felt the sensual spell he had touched her with break into pieces and dissolve in the span of a breath, after he pulled away.
    “What are you doing?” she asked, her breathing ragged.
    Gabriel’s heart beat faster, he had to take some time to catch his breath. Did her body ache to continue, to climax, to be alleviated? His teeth tingled; he swallowed hard, willing his fangs to retract.
    “I’m leaving, Madame.” He couldn’t risk remaining longer. It must seem to her that the intimate encounter hadn’t affected him in the least. If only she knew.
    She stood up and pulled her dress straight. “Why must you be this way?” Her whisper came out high and shrill. “No man has ever denied me.”
    They weren’t men, Gabriel thought. What kind of man seduces another man’s wife? “Perhaps,” he said, “I should apprise your husband of this matter.”
    The rosy color in Genevieve’s face drained immediately. “Please. You mustn’t. If he finds out, he will leave me. I’ll be destitute.” Breaking into tears, she covered her face. “I would be better off dead!”
    He stepped forward. To comfort her—to do something. But when he touched her, she screamed. “Don’t you dare touch me now!”
    He obeyed. “As long as you assure me that you won’t harm yourself.”
    She rewarded him with a cold stare through her tears. A bitter laugh ripped from her throat. “Go away with your threats.”
    Without saying another word, he shrugged and walked out of the room. As he walked down the hallway and outside into the garden, he heard the splintering of crystal breaking against a wall. He took a deep breath.
    In the Delechevalier’s garden, fountains and flowering shrubs created a beautiful and peaceful ambience. Fruit trees filled his eyes with brilliant color and his nostrils with the most deliciously sweet fragrances. Within three heartbeats, he felt calmer. What was it about gardens that soothed the mind, body, and spirit? The relationship between man and gardens still remained a mystery to him. One day, he would attempt to unlock those secrets by having a garden of his very own. It would have more fountains and statues than Michel’s, and he would share his time and the scenery with a virgin completely unlike Genevieve.
    He envisioned the ideal bride, the ideal companion—beautiful, pleasing in every way, so much a complement to him that she must’ve been fashioned out of his side, from one of his very ribs.
    Yes, “ bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, ” Adam’s words to his Eve. So strong were Gabriel’s desires for such a companion that once he had daydreamed that he could fantasize her into a flesh-and-blood reality until one day, she would finally appear to him.
    But Nathaniel had demanded that he not think of such things. Love, he had said, was the most dangerous emotion. And mortals always had a tendency to be seduced by what threatened their ephemeral existence.
    With some hesitation, he acknowledged that even he wasn’t immune to such tendencies.

CHAPTER 11
Share It With a Kiss
    DAYS PASSED, AND GABRIEL heard no word from Genevieve or Michel. He had meant to follow through with his threat to tell Michel about his wife’s transgression, but he wondered how he could approach Michel without feeling awkward. Impossible.
    So, he couldn’t help but feel glad that the opportunity hadn’t arisen.
    Of course, Nathaniel always had a way of ruining things. When Gabriel saw him standing in the doorway, he knew with certainty that Nathaniel had terrible news. He greeted him with a sour good evening and eyed a sheet of paper in his hand. It looked like a letter.
    “Genevieve is dead,” Nathaniel announced in a singsong voice.
    He blinked at the words. Had he heard correctly?