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“Because the furniture designers didn’t intend for us to sit on the back of the sofa?” he suggested.>“I don’t need to hear it,” I assured him. “Also, I’m pretty sure this is one of those stories that ends in ‘and then I ate him.’”
Gabriel shrugged but didn’t deny it. I laughed.
“You’re laughing. That’s always a good thing. Of course, you’re laughing at me, but I’m getting used to that,” he said.
I leaned my forehead against his. “You really need to.”
Gabriel pulled me onto his lap like a child woken by a nightmare. “Humans fear what they don’t understand. And I don’t believe that they will ever truly understand us. You will come across the stupid, the ignorant, the misinformed.”
“And I’m related to most of them,” I said, leaning my head against his shoulder.
“You will meet these people. And they will insult you. They may try to hurt you. You managed to escape the situation without lashing out or hurting anyone, despite your anger. You did escape without hurting anyone, right?”
“Yes,” I grumbled. “I may have made a rude gesture or two behind a closed door, though.”
“See? You left with your dignity intact, which is far better than I would have done at your age. I ’m proud of you. Try not to take the things humans do so personally, Jane. You have to take the good with the bad.”
“And enjoy snacking on the bad?”
“Sometimes, yes.” He chuckled, playing with the buttons of my sweater. “Can I offer you the use of my shower?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “That is the most abrupt pickup line I’ve ever heard.”
Gabriel’s lips twisted into a half -smile, half-grimace that somehow communicated that he wasn’t just being playful and bantery.
“The smoke smell is that bad?” I cried. “I was only there for a few hours!”
“It is pungent,” he admitted. “But my nose is much more sensitive than the average man’s. And to make up for this insult, I will take you upstairs and wash you from head to toe.”
“Will there be bubbles?” I asked.
“Bubbles can be arranged.” He nodded solemnly, parting the buttons to toy with the Chinese finger trap that was my front-enclosure bra.
Gabriel peeled away my sweater. I was enjoying the novelty of being both topless and outdoors when an expression of revulsion skittered across his features. I looked down, checking my torso for any sort of disfiguring scars or moles I may have missed in the last two decades. “What?”
“It’s actually worse now,” he said, his nose wrinkling.
I choked out a shocked laugh. “Nice!”
“I can work around it,” he promised quickly, realizing he’d hurt my feelings. “I don’t need to breathe.”
“Thank you for your commitment to the task at hand.”
Gabriel went back to work with a determined air, stroking my skin as he pressed kisses along my throat. I tipped my head back. My bones seemed to become liquid as he rubbed slow circles over my spine. I looked down and saw him hesitating as he pressed his lips to my skin, as if the contact would sting. He was forcing himself to continue his path from my throat to my collarbone.
“You really shouldn’t have to try this hard,” I told him, pushing his hair back from his face. “But it’s very sweet.”
“I’m sorry. It seems to have taken up residence in your pores,” Gabriel said kindly.
“This is not the night to do this. Stinky is definitely not the note I want to start out on, ” I said, sniffing my once-lucky-now-destined-for-burning sweater. “I’m going home and bathing in tomato juice. It worked when Fitz used a skunk as a chew toy last summer.”
“Stay a few moments,” he said, stroking my knees as I slipped the sweater back on. “I think I can tolerate your aromatic presence a while longer.”
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered. He kissed me softly, tracing the line of my mouth with his tongue before withdrawing and doing his best to hide his instinct to recoil.
“It was a valiant attempt,” I told him.
“It’s rather like licking an ashtray,” he said apologetically. “You don’t breathe. How did you get that much second-hand smoke in your mouth?”
