Robin Schone (9 page)

Gabriel’s lips burned in memory: six months earlier he had kissed Michael’s scarred cheek. Then he had

killed the first man.

How easy it would have been to pull the trigger and kill Michael. Six months earlier.

Tonight...

“How is Anne?” Gabriel asked abruptly.

The warmth that welled inside Michael’s eyes and the smile that lit his face almost brought Gabriel to his

knees.

For one heart-stopping second he did not recognize the man before him.

Gabriel had seen Michael half starved with hunger and fear. He had seen him half mad with pain and

grief.

He had never before seen Michael happy. But he did now.

Michael had found what Gabriel would never find: love. Acceptance.

Peace.

All with a woman who preferred violet eyes over gray. A dark-haired angel over a fair-haired one.

A man who valued life instead of a man who had taken life.

Instantly, the light illuminating Michael’s face dimmed, violet eyes once again coldly calculating. “Why

don’t you come visit us and find out for yourself, Gabriel?”

“Do you miss me,
mon frere?”
Gabriel mockingly riposted.

“Yes.”

For one unguarded second Michael dropped his mask. There was no deception in his eyes, no artifice in

his voice.

An invisible fist clenched inside Gabriel’s stomach.

Michael loved him, and Gabriel did not know why.

Michael had never condemned Gabriel for being a nameless bastard or for the choices he had made.

Gabriel wished he
had
belittled him, judged him.

Gabriel wished he could hate, and know that it was hatred he felt rather than fear in disguise.

He looked away from Michael’s violet eyes.

They had not changed in the twenty-seven years Gabriel had known him—they still openly hungered.

Victoria’s eyes were also hungry.

Guileless blue eyes that hungered for sex.

For love.

For acceptance.

The second man had sent Victoria to him
because
she hungered. As Michael hungered.

Because
she wanted. As Gabriel was incapable of wanting.

But
why?

“You taught me to read and write,” Gabriel said, wanting to understand the second man’s motives.

Wanting to understand Michael’s motives. “Why?”

“You taught me to steal; I thought it a fair exchange.” Sharpness spiked Michael’s voice. “Who’s the

second man, Gabriel?”

Gabriel unflinchingly met Michael’s gaze.

“You know who he is,” he replied imperturbably.

It had been Michael who had found Gabriel chained in an attic like a dog, lying in his own filth, praying

for death.

But Michael had not let him die.

Gabriel wished he had.

“You told me he was the second man who raped you,” Michael said.

Two men had raped Gabriel; he had killed one, the second man still lived.

Gabriel did not look away from the suspicion that glimmered inside Michael’s gaze. “I said there was a

second man,” he agreed evenly.

“Yet prior to six months ago you never mentioned that there was a second man.”

“I did not realize you were interested in details. Forgive me,
mon vieux,”
Gabriel said silkily, purposefully

goading Michael. “I thought your interests lay elsewhere.”

In women instead of men, he implied.

Michael did not rise to the bait.

“What I thought, Gabriel, was that you were the one person in my life whom my past did not destroy.”

Black lashes veiled Michael’s eyes; he sat the earthenware pot of chocolate down on the silver tray.

Pain sliced through Gabriel.

It was inevitable that Michael eventually put together the pieces.

And Gabriel wished he could spare him that, too.

The soft click of glass impacting metal sounded over the drumming of his heart.

Slowly Michael raised his eyelashes, violet pinning silver. “But I was wrong, was I not,
mon frere?

“None of us escape the past, Michael,” Gabriel said truthfully.

And waited. Knowing that there was nothing he could do to stop the coming sequence of events.

Michael soundlessly slid off the desk, violet eyes intent, the scar edging his cheek white with tension.

He took one step forward ...

“Why did the woman auction off her body inside your house, Gabriel?”

Two steps. . .

“Why does anyone sell their body, Michael?” Gabriel asked ironically.

His heartbeat accelerated.

He wondered how far Michael would push Gabriel in his quest for the truth. He wondered how far the

second man would push him in this game of death.

He wondered what he would do if Victoria tried to seduce him.

Three steps . . .

“You never before allowed auctions,
mon ami,”
Michael challenged.

Four steps .. .

“Tonight is the grand reopening of my house,” Gabriel returned calmly. Choosing the truth and the lies

with equal care. “I thought it appropriate.”

Five steps .. .

Michael raised an ironical brow. “And did you think it appropriate for the proprietor to outbid his patrons,

Gabriel?”

Six steps. . .

“Perhaps I got lonely, Michael,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I wanted a woman of my own.”

Gabriel did not know if he lied or not.

Seven steps . . .

“And the second man, did he also get lonely?” Michael caustically rejoined, violet eyes implacable in his

quest for the truth. “Is that why he bid twice on your woman?”

Your woman
rebounded off the white enameled ceiling.

Black, masculine hair turned into dark feminine hair. Victoria’s voice rang inside his ears:
I
am afraid of

being touched by a man .. . I am afraid that I will lik e being touched by a man . .. I am afraid that I

am a whore in fact as well as in deed.

Instantly, Victoria’s dark hair turned into Michael’s black hair, a woman’s nakedness into a scarred

angel’s determination.

Gabriel felt the heat of Michael’s body,
too close.
He forced himself not to back away from his

approach. Just as he had forced himself not to bolt earlier when Victoria had approached him one step at a

time, pelvis jutting, hips swaying, breasts bouncing.

She had almost touched him. And for one heart-stopping moment he had almost let her.

Victoria had not known the consequences of touching him; Gabriel did.

Michael did.

“Perhaps,” Gabriel said easily, every muscle inside his body throbbing with awareness.

If Michael did not stop ...

Eight steps ...

Gabriel stiffened, left palm molding the hilt of the knife, right middle finger curving to cradle a trigger.

Michael halted. Chocolate-scented breath caressed Gabriel’s cheek.

Two angels stood eye to eye, one dark-haired, one fair-haired. One trained to please women, the other

trained to please men.

“Why didn’t you kill him, Gabriel?” Silver eyes reflected inside violet, violet inside silver, two men

trapped in a past neither had chosen. “I know he was here. You were prepared to shoot the woman; why

not the second man?”

So Michael had seen the blue-plated pistol.

Did he know how close he had come to death?

Did he know how close he
now
was to death?

“Did
you
see him, Michael?” Gabriel returned evenly.

“No, I didn’t see him, but you were standing over us, Gabriel. It would have been impossible for you
not

to
have seen him.”

Gabriel concentrated on the moist scent of chocolate instead of the violet eyes that sucked at his soul

and his fingers that independently tightened to protect himself. “Perhaps I do not see as clearly as I would

like to believe I do.”

Another truth. Gabriel had not planned on an accomplice who entered his house on the pretext of

auctioning off her body.

He had not planned on finding a woman who would not judge him.

To mak e up for everything he endured.

“Is the woman alive?” Michael asked, eyes sharp.

“When I left her a few minutes ago, yes,” Gabriel said.

But for how long?

“Is she a whore?”

Gabriel fought down a spurt of anger. “No.”

Victoria was not a whore. Whores did not offer everything, their life, their pain, their pleasure.

“Is she a virgin?”

“Yes.” The scent of chocolate coated Gabriel’s tongue. “She’s a virgin.”

“And how would you know that, Gabriel?” whipped the air between them. “Did you touch her?”

Pain . ..

Gabriel did not want to feel pain.

I
don’t
want
to want. . .

“You know I didn’t, Michael,” Gabriel said deliberately, calmly, every sense attuned to the woman in the

adjoining room and the man who confronted him. “You know exactly how long it’s been since I’ve touched

anyone.”

Any moment now Victoria would open the door ...

Would she, too, prefer violet eyes over gray? he wondered remotely.

The jealousy the thought engendered took him by surprise.

The second man had sent her to Gabriel, not Michael. He didn’t want her to choose a dark-haired angel

over him.

Gabriel wanted what Michael had, a woman who would accept his past and the needs of a male whore.

A muscle ticked inside his jaw, heat building, pressure growing.

If Michael did not step back . . .

Michael did not step back.

“She knows that you were sold for two thousand, six hundred and sixty-four francs,” he persisted.

The equivalent to one hundred and five English pounds.

“She knows,” Gabriel agreed, muscles coiling tighter. Preparing to act or to react.

To kill or to run.

But there was nowhere to run.

“The second man sent her to you.”

Gabriel did not deny the obvious. “Yes.”

“Why does he want to kill you, Gabriel?” Michael asked provocatively.

Gabriel knew what Michael was doing: he had used the same pattern on Victoria. Aggression.

Seduction.

He held perfectly still, breathing the scent of Michael’s breath, caged by the heat of Michael’s body.

Trapped by the truth.

“He wants to kill me,” Gabriel said coolly, “because he knows that if he doesn’t, I will kill him.”

The truth but not the whole truth.

“Did the woman touch you, Gabriel?”

Gabriel stiffened, knowing where Michael’s questioning was headed, unable to stop it. “No.”

“Six months ago you touched me.”

Shared memories flickered between them.

Scarred flesh. Cool lips.

Crimson blood.

“What would you do, Gabriel, if
I
touched
you?”
Michael asked softly.

Shatter.

Gabriel would shatter if Michael touched him.

And one of them would die.

Perhaps both of them would die.

Michael had not killed; that did not mean he was not capable of doing so.

“Don’t play this game,
mon frere,”
Gabriel said tightly.

“But it is a game,
mon ami,”
Michael said caressingly. “You have searched for the second man for

almost fifteen years. And in all that time you have not been able to
find him. Why would he hunt you down

now in fear of his life?”

“Perhaps he is tired of running.”

As Gabriel was tired of running.

Time physically ticked away—inside his cheek, inside his hands. Counting down the seconds until the

woman barged through the door and chose a dark-haired angel over a fair-haired one.

Until Michael touched Gabriel.

Until Gabriel killed Michael.

And he shattered.

“I don’t think so,” Michael said gently.

“What don’t you think, Michael?” Gabriel asked, suffocating on the scent of chocolate.

“I don’t think he’s tired of running.” The violet eyes were too knowledgeable. “I don’t think he’s ever

run from you, Gabriel.”

“Then tell me why you think he came tonight,” Gabriel murmured enticingly, playing the game.

It had always been a game: the first man, the second man.

“My uncle destroyed everyone I cared about,” Michael said softly, violet eyes intent.

Everyone but Anne.

Another woman.

Another pawn.

“I killed your uncle, Michael.”

The first man.

And Gabriel would do it again.

Brief anger flared inside the violet eyes: Michael still had not forgiven Gabriel for killing his uncle so that

he would not be tainted with murder. He quickly recovered. “You said my uncle knew the name of the

second man who raped you.”

“Your uncle knew many things,” Gabriel evaded.

“My uncle knew his name, Gabriel,” Michael said deliberately, violet gaze inexorable, “because he hired

the two men who raped you.”

Gabriel fought the never-ending memories of pain that turned into pleasure and pleasure that destroyed

the very will to survive.

Michael could
not
know the truth.

“How do you know that, Michael?”

“I know that, Gabriel, because you have hated me ever since you were raped.”

Michael’s chocolate-scented breath snagged inside Gabriel’s throat.

“Restitution,” Michael whispered, an echo of Gabriel’s voice six months earlier.

For what?
Michael had asked.

Pleasure. Pain.

“You wanted to kill me when you held the gun to my temple.” Michael’s violet eyes were devoid of both

pleasure and pain. “You want to kill me now. But not because of the women who chose me over you.”