Gabriel David's White Horse (4 page)

She padded toward the bathroom.

“Where are you going?”

God, that commanding voice would be the death of her. “To the bathroom so that I can…” She turned to find him naked and leaning against her headboard. His long legs stretched the full length of her bed and crossed at the ankle. He didn’t even try to hide his hard-on. It was too much to look at and not be affected, and she audibly whimpered from need.

“Will you change here?”

Oh, God. What had she done? Looking at his naked form on her bed she swallowed hard. “I’d be more comfortable changing in the bathroom.” She didn’t wait for confirmation from him. She raced to the bathroom and closed the door, hanging the gown on a hook. Sagging against the door she thought of her daughter. This was the kind of behavior Cara referred to as self-destructive. The kind of behavior she had promised to avoid. But she wanted him like no man she’d ever wanted before. She was like a toddler in the toy isle with a death grip on the latest Fisher Price.

Belle pushed against the door with her upper back. “Ugh!” She cupped her hands over her face. What was she doing? She’d just stood up to Victor and now here she was right back in an unhealthy situation. But Gabriel had a different feel than Victor. Where Victor was appreciative of her physically and sexually, Gabriel was so intense his sizzling eyes left ash in their wake. When he looked at her it was as if he was studying for an exam and he wanted to make sure he’d covered all the material. Instead of using sarcasm and humor, Gabe just spoke the honest truth. She’d never met a man like him.

But most importantly, with Gabe she could imagine a future—maybe not a forever, but the immediate future nonetheless. With Victor, there was nothing beyond the climaxes they shared.

She removed her black silk robe. Tugging at the lace negligée, she stretched it over her hips and pulled it off over her head. Naked, she stood and looked at herself in the mirror.

At thirty-eight her body was a little softer—her stomach fuller, her boobs lower, but she had a nice face, and most of the club patrons thought her much younger than her actual age. As Victor would tell her, ‘the years have been kind to you, Belle.’

Suddenly she was five years old and her father had all of his hangered shirts held tight in his hands, his knuckles tight and white around their hooks. Her mother cried from her corner of the couch. Belle sat on the edge on her side with her back stiff and her young eyes wide. “Daddy?”

“Belle, you’ll have to take care of your mother.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to be gone for a while.” He walked out, but walked back in a few moments later. His hands were emptied of the shirts. She followed him to the bedroom where he gathered the pants that went with those shirts.

“How long will you be gone?”

He gathered two pairs of shoes. “I don’t know.”

“But I don’t want you to leave,” Belle cried.

He set the items in his arms on the bed and sat, pulling her onto his lap. “Belle, I need you to act like a big girl. You’re five and that’s very grown up. Sometimes men and women have problems that prevent them from staying together. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” His index finger tapped her nose. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

She nodded. “Can I go with you?”

“No, you’ve got to stay here with your mother.”

“But she’s sad and I don’t like to be with her when she’s sad.”

“That’s exactly why she needs you. It’s your job to make her happy again.”

Staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Belle sighed at the memories. History had repeated itself with Cara. She’d been five when Will had left. Neither Will nor her father ever returned. She’d spent many minutes, hours, and days of her life pondering why they’d left her never to return. Was she such a horrible daughter and girlfriend? She’d been told by countless people that it wasn’t her…it was the selfish bastard of a father, a boyfriend. She didn’t really believe that. If she’d been a better daughter, a better girlfriend, a better woman would they not still be around?

She shook her head and then applied lip gloss to her lips. Right now there was a god of a man naked in her bed who wanted her. She’d take it—reckless, destructive behavior aside.

Gabe watched as Mirabelle padded into the bedroom in the flowing, white gown she’d worn that day, but something wasn’t right. She stood at the end of the bed, modeling the dress.

“Well?”

Naked and leaning against the headboard with his feet crossed at the ankles, Gabe took in the sight of her in the white gown. He’d been waiting ten years for this and was frustrated because it was all wrong. “It’s not the same.”

She frowned and lifted the skirt in her fingers. “Well this is the dress.” Her voice was soft and hinted at hurt.

“Yes it is, and you’re gorgeous, but it is a different look from the look ten years ago.”

“Well, I’m heavier now so—”

“You need to be drenched.”

“Drenched?”

He stood and walked toward her. Gabe grasped her hands in his. “Please, may we get into the shower?” Her eyes flashed wide and then narrowed.

“Mirabelle, if you’re uncomfortable I’ll put my clothes back on. We can take it slow. I’ll do anything, but please talk to me. If there is something wrong, tell me.”

Her eyes blinked at him as she thought through what he’d just said. “I’m not uncomfortable. For some reason I feel extremely comfortable around you. I’m just a little apprehensive about myself…my body is ten years older. I’m not sure what you’ll see is going to be exactly the way you remembered.”

She laughed nervously. He still held her hands and used the opportunity to rub reassuring circles into her palms with his thumbs. “With age comes beauty. It’s marked in the way you carry yourself a bit more assuredly, the way you hold your head a little higher. It’s in the way you know what you want and are not afraid to express your sexuality. Fine lines around the eyes”—his thumb brushed the edge of her eye—“give dimension and depth to the character. They tell our story. Some people have deep set lines they’ve earned from hard struggles and long hours of manual work. Some have wisps of lines that are barely detectable.” He touched the pad of his thumb to her other eye. “You enjoy life, but you’ve also known much heartache.”

She stood before him, her mouth slightly open, barely breathing. He could hear her heart banging against her chest in the otherwise quiet room. “Mirabelle?” She didn’t register his calling out of her name. His hands cupped her cheeks, “Mirabelle?”

She blinked rapidly, and then whispered, “You don’t miss anything. What’s it like to find beauty in everything?”

He smiled. “Believe it or not it can be exhausting.”

She turned and pulled him behind her toward the bathroom. It was small but he had an inherent need to remain close to her so he didn’t mind. She leaned in and turned on the water. “Get in with me.” She stepped in, never letting go of his hand and he climbed in right behind her.

She was under the showerhead and he watched the water cascade down her head to her neck and shoulders, and finally down the dress, saturating it. He stood as far back as he could before his back met the wall. Something still wasn’t right. A look at her chest confirmed his summary and he reached for the faucet and turned the handle all the way to cold.

“BLEEEEEEE!” She squealed.

“Sorry, but it’s in the name of art that we suffer.”

“Art shmart! It’s freezing.” She turned to grasp the faucet but he stopped her.

“Please, turn around.” She complied and turned to face him. “That’s it. You’re perfect.” He stared at the vision before him. She’d walked straight out of his dreams and into his cold, dark life. He closed his eyes and his head placed him so quickly in the meadow that he became dizzy at the adjustment. When he opened them Mirabelle stood watching the horse, just a few paces from him. He watched her contentment and awe as she watched the wild beast run across the landscape. The clouds rolled in and the wind picked up, blowing her hair in waves just as the horse moved. The colors in the shot were white, sage green, gray, blonde, and honey from the color of her skin. There were other colors he’d have to capture—the red of her lips, the rose of her breasts, the ice blue of her eyes, the deep gold of her hair when it was wet. She shivered just as she had that day and her tits poked through the gauzy film of material that hid nothing from his prying eyes.

His chest heaved with the excess of it all. He’d need to capture so much to get his idea from his head to the canvas. Panic started to set in, but she squeezed his hands in hers. “Gabriel, I’m here.”

She was there. “I’ll need you to promise to be there for a while.”

“I told you…I have no immediate plans.”

His hands went into her wet hair and he lowered his lips to hers. Reaching behind her, she turned off the water. Still shivering she wrapped her arms around him just as she had that day. Gabe drank the water from her lips. The drink left an earthy metallic taste on his tongue and was exactly as he’d remembered it.

“I’m so cold,” she whispered.

His hands rubbed her arms from shoulder to wrist trying to warm her. His tongue lapped up the drops of water along her jaw, and then followed the stream down her neck. His hands found her thighs and rubbed vigorously to bring blood to their surface. His dominant hand slipped beneath her long skirt, fighting the material until he found her bare skin. Skimming up and down her thigh had her hips rolling. Slipping between her legs had her gasping in need. His fingers parted her and then entered her warm center. With his thumb he gently massaged the knot of muscle coiled and begging for release.

She fit into his arms like a key into a lock. Every adjustment he made put her more in the moment until he had her on the brink of climax. Her eyes were no longer like ice, but a deep ocean blue. Her lips large and swollen from their kiss were darker as well. He didn’t know how he’d quite capture their color but he’d mix until his dying day in an attempt to capture their brilliance.

“Belle, let go.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t want to.” She closed her eyes tight and ceased moving.

“Why not?”

““I don’t want to need you,” she cried.

“I’ll be here when you do.” He worked her harder until she could no longer withhold what her body desired. Her sex clamped down hard on the finger he held inside of her and she cried with her climax as her fingers sunk into his wrists. There was something so complex about her in that moment that he almost wanted to capture her like this
more
than he wanted to finish the white horse.

When she opened her eyes her gaze connected with his fleetingly. She gently opened the curtain and stepped out. He watched her every move. Mesmerized. She removed the saturated dress and tossed it in the sink. She bent to retrieve towels from the cabinet and her full ass had him in even more pain. He’d been hard since he’d sat on her couch.

She folded a towel around herself and then passed one to him. He unfolded it and rubbed it through his hair. As he dried his legs he paused and looked up to find her staring and enjoying the view as indicated by the grin on her face. Either that, or she was making fun of his current state of need.

She returned her attention to the dress, wringing it in the sink. “Where do you paint?”

“I’ve been using my brother’s pool house as a studio. The lighting is good and”—he was about to say that he enjoyed being near his brothers. He’d never consciously had that thought before. “And all of my supplies are there.”

He thought she looked so young considering she had a daughter in her twenties. Maybe she was well preserved, as they say. He realized he was staring at her when she moved aside and hung her head. He moved to walk past, but the color in her cheeks beckoned to him and his index finger lifted her chin. “Mirabelle, you’re beautiful.” He kissed her nose.

Gabe was thirty-three and knew Mirabelle had to be well into her thirties to account for her daughter, but to look at her high blush and youthful face it seemed unlikely she was a day over thirty. “This is highly irregular and I realize rude for a man to ask, but I’m overly curious…how old are you?”

She smiled shyly and there was that blush across her cheeks. “I just turned thirty-eight.”

He leaned in and gently placed a kiss on her suckable lips. When he released her, her head dipped. They both stood in towels with wet hair and high color; his from a cock as stiff as a wet towel left out over night in a freeze; Mirabelle’s from her recent climax.

Was she not going to take care of him then?

He caressed her arm, “I still want you?”

She looked up at him with widened eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” She bolted from the bathroom so fast it was as if she’d stood on thumbtacks.

Cautiously he rounded the doorway to her room. He stood for a moment and took in the scene. She didn’t seem to be in her bedroom. He walked to the chair where he’d neatly folded his clothes. The floor creaked somewhere behind him and he turned to find her exiting a closet wearing a simple yellow knit dress. He sighed and dropped his towel to dress. Feminine throat clearing had his ears on high alert—nothing good ever came out of a woman’s mouth after she completed a series of well-timed throat clears.

“Gabriel, I will sit for you so that you can complete your project, but I can’t sleep with you. I want to, but I just can’t.” He fastened his jeans and then turned toward her. Her convictions were so heavy and deep that they could have been scrawled across her face in black ink. The wrinkle on her forehead and the sting in her eyes screamed
I’m conflicted!

He cupped her cheek. “It’s okay, Mirabelle.”

“It’s not okay that I led you on. I
do
want to be with you in that way, but recently I made a promise to myself and to my daughter that I wouldn’t be so self-destructive. Thank goodness I made that pact because if I hadn’t we’d both be on our backs”—she glanced at the bed—“recovering from a hard bout of sex.”

He glanced at the bed, “Yes, thank goodness you made that promise.”

He frowned and she giggled.