Tempted

by Jess Michaels

  That was something he was not proud of, especially since the revelation of that betrayal had nearly destroyed their burgeoning relationship.

  “You and I have not been alone since the night of your wedding celebration,” Gabriel said softly.

  Josie straightened up slightly and her chin lifted. “No, I suppose we have not.”

  “And because of that fact, I have not had a chance to apologize to you for what I…what I did. What I drove my brother to do.”

  Josie’s face softened. “Gabriel—”

  He lifted a hand. “Please let me say this, it is not easy for me to do so.” She broke off whatever she was going to say and nodded. He drew a deep breath. “I love Claire with all my heart and the idea that she is out there, suffering at the hands of that—” He cut himself off before he finished that thought. “It is incredibly painful to me. But I had no right to manipulate you or the relationship you were developing with my brother. I hurt you, Josie, and I am truly sorry for that.”

  Josie stared at him for a moment, then she reached out and touched his arm gently. “Gabriel, I love Claire as well. She is more my sister than any of my own are. Because of that, I understand your drive to find her, save her. While your methods and the methods of your brother were wrong, in the end they are why Evan and I fell in love. Why we married. So I can do nothing but forgive you.”

  Relief washed though Gabriel at her gentle words. He had never expected less from sweet Josie, but to hear them was to lift a burden from his shoulders.

  “I’ve told your brother all I know,” she continued. “And I know he has passed that information along to you. I hope we will find your sister soon. Or that she’ll return to us of her own accord.”

  Gabriel’s jaw tensed. “Yes. That is my greatest hope. My only hope.”

  He dipped his head as thoughts mobbed him. Unpleasant, battering thoughts of his sister and her desperate life.

  As if she sensed that, Josie changed the subject. “Juliet looks pretty tonight.”

  Gabriel didn’t even look at her, still dancing across the room, before he breathed, “Beautiful.”

  Josie’s eyes went wide and Gabriel tensed.

  “Gabriel,” his sister-in-law whispered. “You know, you could—”

  Gabriel cut her off with a shake of his head. “No. I have to put all my focus on Claire.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “I-I only meant that you could ask Juliet to dance. This song is ending and although she has been asked, she knows no one here but us. It might be nice for her to spend a moment with a friend.”

  “Oh.”

  Heat rushed to Gabriel’s cheeks. Once again, he had revealed too much and Josie was too observant not to notice. He turned away from her and searched across the room for Juliet. The music was just beginning to wane and Abernathy bowed to her before he took her hand and slipped it into the crook of his elbow to lead her away. She was smiling at her partner.

  Gabriel’s stomach turned.

  “She doesn’t look like she needs a friend,” he growled.

  Josie shook her head. “She’s spoken to me more than once about not feeling at home in Society. But if you will not, Evan or Edward or perhaps even Jude will.”

  Gabriel glared at her. “I never said I wouldn’t.”

  She arched a brow at his snapping reply and he muttered a farewell that she returned before he walked away toward Juliet. The swelling crowd made it difficult to reach her, and before he could do so another gentleman had approached her. They spoke briefly and then she was being swept back toward the dance floor once more.

  Gabriel stopped and stepped behind a pillar so that she could not see him but he had a good view of her. Once again, she was smiling, charming her dance partner with no hint of the discomfort Josie had claimed Juliet felt. She looked beautiful and happy and like a woman who would have her pick of men if she wanted it.

  He scowled as the gentleman leaned in to whisper something to her. His lips were close to her ear and she did not move away.

  Gabriel had never been good with emotion, but he easily recognized the one that burned through his body in that moment. He was jealous. Angrily, burningly, intensely jealous. Enough so that he had a brief fantasy of striding across the room, tearing Juliet from that man’s arms and perhaps even throwing a punch at him for good measure.

  He staggered under the weight of those feelings, ones he never allowed himself to indulge in. They were heady and heavy.

  “Damn it,” he grunted, and spun away from the image that inspired such ire. He didn’t want to feel this. He didn’t want to think it. He wasn’t the one to be swept away, his reason crushed by feeling. That wasn’t him, by God.

  And if he didn’t want that to become him, he realized he was going to have to escape this room right this moment. So without looking back he stalked away, through the terrace doors and out into the cold night air where he could be alone and think.

  But not about Juliet Gray. He couldn’t allow that.

  Chapter Five

  Juliet slipped through the terrace doors and out into the frigid mid-December night. It was cold, but she tightened her wrap around her shoulders and sucked in the air, letting it fill her lungs with stinging freshness.

  It had been a very long night already, with too much attention being showered down on her. She wasn’t used to it, and it had swiftly become overwhelming after the second then third and fourth man had asked her to dance. She couldn’t even remember all their names and titles; they were all so alike. Just a bunch of “my lords” competing to see who could spin her in a circle the fastest and best.

  She let out a heavy sigh and stared up into the cloudless, starry sky.

  “Wishing to marry one of those rich and titled men?”

  She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t have to turn to look at the person who has asked that pointed question in that angry tone. She knew that voice as well as she knew her own. It had haunted her long enough.

  Finally, she forced herself to look at him.

  “Good evening, Gabriel—er, my lord,” she said softly. “I didn’t know you were out here or—”

  She cut herself off and his already dark frown deepened further.

  “You would have made arrangements for your assignation to be held elsewhere?” he accused, his tone bitter.

  She folded her arms, his voice more chilling than the winter night. “For God’s sake, I am not meeting someone. I came outside to escape the ball for a moment. I only meant I wouldn’t have invaded your privacy.”

  “You have invaded everything else,” he muttered, though he clearly wasn’t trying to drop his voice so it wouldn’t be heard.

  She glared at him. “And just what does that remark mean?”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Earlier you told me that you didn’t think I was taking advantage of your mother,” Juliet breathed as she watched his every facial tic. “But perhaps that isn’t true. Are you saying I am invading by being here? That I don’t belong? That I am an interloper?”

  “No!” he responded.

  “Then what?” she demanded, tired of dancing around the strange nameless thing between them. Attraction or hatred or whatever it was today.

  “I don’t think you should be dancing so much,” he spat through obviously clenched teeth.

  She drew back, utterly confused by that statement. “Dancing?” she repeated. “Good Lord, is that how low you think I am? That I shouldn’t even be allowed to dance with those who stoop themselves to my level?”

  “No,” he growled, and turned away for a moment. His breath came short and his hands fisted against the frigid stone edge of the terrace.

  She was silent, waiting for him to explain. Wishing she wasn’t so attracted to him even as he chided her and made her feel so small.

  He faced her slowly. “I don’t want you to dance because it—it makes me…”

  He trailed off an
d she threw up her hands. “Angry? Disgusted? Horrified?”

  “Jealous,” he interrupted.

  All other words and accusations fell silent on her lips as Juliet stared at Gabriel. He looked at her, straight into her eyes, and there was no denying his meaning.

  “Oh,” she whispered, hardly able to formulate any words when she couldn’t breathe. “Wh-Why?”

  He arched a brow and stepped closer. His gaze was locked on hers and before he even answered, she saw the truth in his stare. A truth she had seen there before. Desire flickered in the dark brown depths. Desire for her.

  “Why do you think?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “But Gabriel, you kissed me at Evan and Josie’s wedding. You kissed me and then you pushed me away.”

  His lips pressed together into a thin line. “I was drunk that night.”

  She flinched. “So then you didn’t really want me? I don’t understand.”

  He reached out and suddenly touched her cheek with just the tips of his fingers. But he might as well have branded her, for his heat sank into her cold skin and turned her blood hot.

  “I’m not drunk now,” he whispered as he bent his head and claimed her lips.

  Gabriel had been trying to forget the kiss he’d shared with Juliet the night of his brother’s wedding. He’d dismissed his heated dreams of it as addled fantasies of an intoxicated mind. But now he had nothing to blame for the way he felt when he kissed her.

  And he felt…on fire.

  Her lips were soft beneath his and as he wrapped his arms around her, her body was warm despite the cold air. Her heat seeped into him, making them one in a way he never would have asked to experience. Her lips parted on a sigh and he drove his tongue into the space she offered, tasting her, teasing her.

  And in response, his body became a driving drum, beating out a throbbing rhythm of need that filled him from head to toe. He had never felt anything like it before. He wanted to devour her, claim her, own her, sink into her. He wanted that more than breath or life or food.

  That rush of emotion was so foreign to him that panic flooded him and with a gasp, he pulled away from her, releasing her as he staggered two steps back.

  “I’m sorry,” he stammered when he could find enough breath to talk.

  She was simply staring at him, her pupils dilated and her hands shaking ever so slightly. Still, she was remarkably calm when she said, “Don’t be. That was the highlight of my night.”

  Gabriel held back a curse as his eyes fluttered shut. Did she have any idea what a temptation she was? Could she possibly understand that he could lose everything if he gave in to what he wanted? Perhaps he had to explain it in some way.

  “I can’t.”

  Her mouth turned down, drawing his attention to the full lips he had just claimed. God, how he loved the feel of them against his own. They were drugging.

  “Why?” Juliet sighed. “Because it’s me? Because it’s you? Why?”

  He clenched his fists. “Because—because when I touch you nothing else matters. Nothing.” Her eyes grew wide at that admission, but he didn’t stop. “And right now other things have to matter. So I can’t want you.”

  She tilted her head and he felt her examining him. He wondered what she thought. Was she making deductions based on what she saw, the same way he did in so many cases, with so many people? If so, the thought made him uncomfortable. It felt too close.

  “You’re afraid,” she finally accused, and despite her perfectly even tone, the words echoed in the quiet air. They hit him like a slap.

  “No,” he denied.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Yes, you are.”

  “I’m no coward,” he snapped. Then he turned away and left her there on the terrace.

  But as he pushed inside and stalked out of the ballroom into the more private areas of his mother’s home, he knew what he’d said wasn’t true. There was something about Juliet Gray that made him incredibly uncomfortable.

  And he didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

  Juliet stepped back into the ballroom and was hit with the warm, humid air. She shrugged out of her wrap and handed it to a waiting servant before she staggered into the crowd. She already knew Gabriel wasn’t in the room. She hadn’t seen him, nor could she sense his confusing presence.

  People smiled at her, a few waved, but she ignored them as she walked toward the double doors leading away from the buzzing crowd. She had not quite made it there when she was suddenly flanked by Audrey and Josie.

  “There you are,” Audrey said with a smile as she linked arms with her. “Everyone has been asking about you. You are the belle of this ball, by far!”

  Josie smiled and Juliet assumed she was meant to do the same, but she couldn’t manage it. “I-I need a moment,” she gasped.

  Audrey and Josie exchanged a glance over her head and then they both supported her as they rushed her through the crowd and out of the ballroom into a small but blissfully empty parlor down the hall. As Josie closed the door, Audrey helped Juliet to a chair and then moved to pour her a drink from the sidebar.

  “Are you all right?” Josie asked, coming to sit beside her. “These balls can be terribly overwhelming, I know. So many people.”

  “It isn’t the people,” Juliet gasped as she took the offered drink and downed a swig of it.

  The liquor made a burning trail down her throat, but it didn’t make her forget Gabriel’s mouth coming toward hers, covering hers. It didn’t block out his intoxicating taste, the feel of his strong arms around her. God help her, she would have given him anything, everything in that moment.

  But he’d pulled away and now her head spun with his words about wanting her so much it blocked out everything else. How was that possible?

  “Did something happen on the terrace?” Josie pressed gently.

  Audrey sat across from them and began to frown. “My brother was out there with you, wasn’t he? Gabriel?”

  “Y-Yes,” Juliet admitted. “For a little while.”

  “He can be such a clod sometimes,” Audrey burst out with a shake of her head. “Did he say something foolish to you?”

  Josie’s gaze darted to meet Juliet’s and panic filled her. Josie knew a little about her attraction to Gabriel, but somehow she didn’t want Audrey to know. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her, but Audrey was a true Woodley. Gabriel was her brother. Juliet couldn’t take it if Audrey was disapproving…or worse, condescending about it.

  She shook her head ever so slightly in the hopes Josie wouldn’t say anything about what she knew, and sighed.

  “Your brother wasn’t cruel, I assure you.”

  Audrey drew back. “Well, of course he wouldn’t be. He’s just…he’s very good with figures and deductions and facts. But when it comes to emotion, he has never quite found his brilliance in that arena.”

  Juliet was silent at those words. The fact was, she’d never found Gabriel to be out of touch with his emotions. Quite the opposite. The man she knew could be driven in his search for Claire. He could be kind and gentle when it came to his mother. And he could be passionate. His hot and burning kiss had proven that not once but twice.

  And yet it wasn’t enough for him. He was so horrified by that desire that he ran from her over and over.

  She swallowed hard. “I want to go home,” she whispered.

  And oh, how true it was. She wanted to be back in Idleridge in her own small bed with the sound of the brook outside her window. She wanted to be back where she knew exactly where she stood. Where she was respected not for her gown but for her skills as a healer.

  She wanted to be away from the man who had been confusing her for so many months.

  “Oh, dearest Juliet,” Josie said, wrapping her arms around her. “I totally understand. I know how difficult it can be to come out in Society and not know anyone. To feel like you don’t belong.”

  Juliet leaned her head on her friend’s shou
lder and sighed. “I just don’t feel…right,” she admitted, though she meant more to do with Gabriel than either woman would ever know.

  Audrey shook her head. “Well, I promise we will all make sure you are perfectly happy and comfortable from now on. And if anyone troubles you, let me know. I will take care of it.”

  She made a rather mean face and Josie began to laugh. Juliet couldn’t help but join in, though she doubted Audrey would ever understand just who she needed protection from.

  Or perhaps she didn’t, considering that Gabriel couldn’t seem to stay in the same room with her for more than five minutes at a time.

  “Just what in the world is wrong with you?”

  Gabriel turned from the fire in the study of his mother’s home just in time to watch Audrey stalk into the room and slam the door behind her. Her dark eyes flashed with anger and she looked ready for a fight.

  One he had no interest in pursuing when his mind and body were so twisted up in knots.

  “Not now, Audrey, I have no time for your games.”

  “But plenty for your own,” his sister accused.

  He glared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I just saw Juliet. And she was very upset. She wants to go home, Gabriel. And I think it is all because of you. Because of what happened between you two on the terrace.”

  Gabriel’s lips parted, first in shock to hear that Juliet wished to leave London and secondly because he’d never thought she’d tell his sister, of all people, about their exchange outside.

  Juliet would have to be very hurt, indeed, to spill such a secret.

  “I know I shouldn’t have kissed her,” he murmured. Audrey stopped talking and stared at him mutely. “Not tonight and not the night of Evan’s wedding, either.”

  Audrey drew back. “What? You—you kissed her? Twice?”

  Gabriel swallowed as he searched his sister’s face more closely. Her shock was real. She truly hadn’t known what he’d done after all. But now she did.